POLITICO -- Recent polls showing extreme dissatisfaction with Washington and the direction the country is headed are akin to telling a drowning man he’s not a very good swimmer. He’s well aware of the fact; but while the lifeguard (in this case, elected officials) is too busy flirting and showing off to do his job, the sharks are circling, and it looks like the only way to be saved is learn how to swim fast, because no one else is coming to the rescue. Americans’ discontent with their political leaders is nothing new, of course, but the extent of unhappiness across the board among Democrats, Republicans and Independents is plumbing new depths, as reflected in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll and a Pew Research survey. More than 60 percent of those questioned believe the country is on the wrong track. About the same number think every member of Congress should be replaced — including their own representatives. Most Americans seem to subscribe to Shakespeare’s “plague on both your houses” sentiment, as the poll revealed no preference for either party controlling Congress. Only 12 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing – about the same number as approve of Washington political pundits. (Americans have a higher opinion of colonoscopies, root canals, and used car salesmen than they do Congress, although they hold lobbyists, telemarketers, and the Kardashians in lower esteem.) And the mainstream political parties are taking a hit, too. Forty-six percent of voters now identify themselves as independents according to Pew – that’s as many as Democrats and Republicans combined and the highest percentage ever. “Those are staggering numbers,” Olympia Snowe, who resigned from the Senate last year, citing Congress’s increasing inability to actually do anything, said in an interview. “If that isn’t attention-getting, what is?” “We should be individually and collectively embarrassed by the low esteem in which we are held, but I don’t think embarrassment even occurs to many of them,” Snowe said of her former colleagues. “They just can’t get their act together on any major question.” Polarization and dysfunction have come to define government. Just look at the depiction of Washington in movies and television, with self-serving and corrupt politicians featured in series like “Scandal” and “House of Cards.” Martin Sheen’s idealistic portrayal of President Josiah Bartlet in “The West Wing,” which aired on television from 1999-2006, would be considered a parody today. But what are Americans really willing to do about the situation, and does the public deserve a share of the blame for the state of our dysfunctional politics? “We citizens have a responsibility for a lot of the partisan gridlock, because we don’t vote in primaries,” former Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell told me. Voter turnout in primary elections is much lower than in general elections. Since it is typically party loyalists and activists on the left and right who show up to vote in primaries, centrist candidates who help to forge compromise are disappearing from Congress. Rendell, who considers himself a centrist Democrat, cited former Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware and retired Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, who were defeated in GOP Senate primaries in 2010 and 2012, as examples of the public’s penchant for punishing figures who work across the aisle. Rendell puts it bluntly: “The voters bear some of the responsibility. They need to turn out. Don’t just complain about Washington: Get off your duff and do something.” Robert Ehrlich, a Republican former member of Congress and governor of Maryland from 2003-2007, said that the growth of gerrymandered districts – a trend accelerated by the redistricting process that followed the 2010 census — are a big part of the problem. “The seats are safe. Congress can have a single digit approval rating and it doesn’t matter. The center is non-existent.” Read more: politico/story/2013/08/hate-congress-blame-yourself-95118.html#ixzz2aprMthYw
Posted on: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 17:54:04 +0000
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