A recent poll of likely voters suggests that the electorate has a pretty low opinion of the Congressional leadership:
| Favorable | Unfavorable | |
| John Boehner | 36% | 44% |
| Mitch McConnell | 33% | 40% |
| Nancy Pelosi | 29% | 63% |
| Harry Reid | 23% | 57% |
I’m surprised the favorables are that high.
Between a quarter and a third of the population actually likes these guys? Wow. Americans are so nice, basically. Or possibly they have no idea who any of these people are and just gave them the benefit of the doubt when the pollster asked. Yeah, that’s probably it.
Looks like the favorable number roughly correspond with partisan affiliation.
That was my reaction, too. I thought the favorables were remarkably high.
Nah. Between 20-30% of voters are Republicans and 30-40% are Democrats, the rest independents. Pelosi and Reid don’t even score favorable ratings among all Democrats.
Somewhere, Will Rogers and Mark Twain are smiling
Dave,
I will got look for the numbers later, but I’m talking about the partisan base for each party even though I wrote partisan affiliation! 😉
Andy, might have been using conservative versus liberal i.d. Gallup has that at 40% conservative and 21% liberal.
Of course, I can’t find the research I remember seeing from about a year on the numbers and composition of the base of each party. Oh well.
I am surprised also.
Query- I dont think I hear as many attacks aimed at Boehner and McConnell as there were at Pelosi and Reid. Observational bias?
Steve
I notice that the relationships btw/ House R and Senate R is similar to the relationship btw/ House D and Senate D. That is, the House leadership is perceived more partisanly, with both higher favorabilities (probably from the base) and higher unfavorabilities (probably from everybody else).
My own subjective evaluation from most negative to […er…] least negative:
Most negative: Pelosi, the most partisan of the four and whose primary skill set appears to be succesful infighting within her own party. She should have been dumped in the electoral route.
McConnel: A natural whip, too partisan for the top position. Good at tactics, not strategy.
Reid: I think he’s got better political instincts than most in finding the left-of-center middle, and is less partisan than the first two, but I suspect he was selected to be leader entirely because he would be a weak leader. Seems ineffectual.
Boehner: I find him similar to Reid in probably having a decent instinct fror the right-of-center middle, but hamstrung by division in his ranks that he doesn’t appear capable of overcoming. I rate him higher than Reid because Reid has been there long enough to show all he’s got.
andy, I’m sympathetic, I think google is becoming so helpful with my searches that it’s increasingly directing me to the blogs I frequent, not the data I used to find easier from non-blog sources. Worse still, it sometimes directs me to my own unsubtantiated claims in comment threads, so maybe I’m just continuing an error or false memory.
Tie in: Its about losing the wisdom of crowds.
PD- That is odd. I cant make that happen when I want it to happen, like when I forget where I read something but I am pretty sure it was one of a few sources.
Steve
Doug has the best comment —> “Somewhere, Will Rogers and Mark Twain are smiling.”
Pelosi, IMO, is the worst of the worst. But, IMO, none of the above mentioned congressional leaders are anything to write home about. Inept and too partisan………
I might need to run cleaner on my ‘puter more often. But I’ve increasingly found that a general search on google will turn up at least one OTB link in the top ten even though the word relationship is week. Google thinks it knows me, but it doesn’t know what I’m looking for.
“Pelosi, IMO, is the worst of the worst”.
I find little reason to think this true.
“Boehner: I find him similar to Reid in probably having a decent instinct fror the right-of-center middle, but hamstrung by division in his ranks that he doesn’t appear capable of overcoming.”
Being eaten alive from the rear, you mean.
If Rogers and Twain are smiling, Mencken must be convulsed with laughter. I can just imagine his take on the Rebooblican Party, all swathed up in Jesus and vaginaphobia. Mitt at Liberty remined me of this scene in Help :
“Pelosi, IMO, is the worst of the worstâ€.
I find little reason to think this true.
Two items: First, she actually laughed at the idea that the Constitution places any restrictions on Congress. Second, “We have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”
Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by “worst of the worst.” I don’t think anyone can deny that Rep. Pelosi is an effective legislator given that she managed to get the health care bill, as bad as it is, passed. I don’t care for her politics, but she has my respect on that score.
Personally, I would point to Maxine Waters and probably Michelle Bachmann as two of the worst. There was also Alan Grayson who, thankfully, didn’t get reelected. I’m sure there are others but this isn’t a topic I follow all that closely.
Andy,
My comment about Pelosi was based on the grouping that was posted. Yes, Maxine Waters and Alan Grayson are shades of terrible, as well. As for Michelle Bachmann, what I dislike about her is her shrillness.
There was also Alan Grayson who, thankfully, didn’t get reelected.
Grayson is running again, Andy.
“Personally, I would point to Maxine Waters and probably Michelle Bachmann as two of the worst.”
On my blog we had lobbied for the reinstitution of the claymation series, Celebrity Death Match. We all agreed this combo should be our first event.
Steve