The Bloom Is Off The GOP 2010 Election Rose

The Republican Party was riding high after the 2010 mid-term elections. They had come back from a crushing defeat in 2008 and actually taken over control of the House of Representatives with a significant majority. The 2010 results had many Republicans believing they were back on the path to once again becoming the majority party in this country. They were wrong.

The truth is that the 2010 election was the population showing their displeasure with the relative inaction of the Democrats in fixing the economy and encouraging job creation the two things that remain the biggest issues concerning voters. But the Republican leadership misread this. They thought they had been given a mandate to return to their disastrous "trickle-down" economic policy and anti-government fiscal policy -- and they did that with a vengeance.

After the 2010 election, the public had some hope that the Republicans were truly repentant of their mistakes during the Bush years, and would work with Democrats to find a solution to the country's faltering economy -- and their favorability numbers showed that. In December 2010, before the new Congress was sworn in, this is how the public viewed the two parties (according to the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll):

REPUBLICAN PARTY
Favorable...............38%
Neutral...............23%
Unfavorable...............37%
Rating...............+1

DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Favorable...............37%
Neutral...............20%
Unfavorable...............41%
Rating...............-4

The Republicans were actually viewed a little more positively than the Democrats (with the Democrats having a higher unfavorable rating). But then the new Congress started and the Republicans revealed they had no real interest in job creation or fixing the economy (except for the richest Americans). They took their illusion of a mandate to heart and began to demand programs be slashed or eliminated (even programs popular with most Americans like Medicare, Social Security, the EPA, Education Department, Unemployment Insurance, WIC, etc.). They coupled this with a demand for huge new tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

While the Republicans thought their posturing about cutting the deficit and giving tax cuts would help them politically, it has actually had the opposite effect. The people seem to realize that the tax cuts are only for the rich while the budget cuts are only meant to affect ordinary Americans. The unfairness has not gone unnoticed.

Now the NBC News/ Wall Street Journal Poll has done a new survey (of 1,000 adults between June 9th and June 13th). This newest poll shows the public is now moving away from the Republicans and toward the Democrats once again. Here are the results:

REPUBLICAN PARTY
Favorable...............30%
Neutral...............24%
Unfavorable...............44%
Rating...............-14

DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Favorable...............38%
Neutral...............21%
Unfavorable...............39%
Rating...............-1

While the Democrats have shown some positive movement (moving from a -4 rating to a -1 rating), it is the Republicans who have shown the most movement, and it is not goos. They have moved from a +1 rating to a -14 rating in favorability (15 points). While voters may still not be impressed by the timidity they see in the Democrats, they are horrified by the meanness and unfairness of the Republicans (and are abandoning them in large numbers).

Of course, the Republicans are not paying any attention at all to the negative feelings they are creating among the voting public. If anything, they are just doubling down on those policies, as though they were on a religious mission to destroy democracy and install a new corporate dictatorship (it's called a plutocracy).

And all of the Republican presidential candidates seem to be infected with the same disease. They may have to embrace these mean policies to appeal to their teabagger base, but it is affecting their own favorability numbers with the general public. This same poll shows the public views the president much more favorably than any of the Republican hopefuls. Here are the numbers:

PRESIDENT OBAMA
Favorable...............49%
Unfavorable...............37%
Rating...............+12

MITT ROMNEY
Favorable...............27%
Unfavorable...............26%
Rating...............+1

TIM PAWLENTY
Favorable...............14%
Unfavorable...............15%
Rating...............-1

JON HUNTSMAN
Favorable...............7%
Unfavorable...............9%
Rating...............-2

RICK PERRY
Favorable...............12%
Unfavorable...............15%
Rating...............-3

SARAH PALIN
Favorable...............24%
Unfavorable...............54%
Rating...............-30

NEWT GINGRICH
Favorable...............16%
Unfavorable...............48%
Rating...............-32