Voters Angry At Washington Politicians

If the new survey from the respected Pew Research Center shows anything, it's that American voters are disgusted with their Washington politicians -- of both parties. The Democrats are viewed as being weak and ineffectual (even by a majority of their own party), and the Republicans are seen to be putting their own right-wing ideology above doing what's needed to fix the economy and create jobs -- and voters don't particularly like either one. When asked how they feel about the federal government about 60% used the word "frustrated" and another 26% said they were "angry". Only 11% said they were "content".

It seems like the public debacle over raising the debt ceiling was the last straw for voters, and it has even affected the president's popularity. Back in February of this year the president had an approval rating of 49% and disapproval of 42%, according to Pew. That has now flip-flopped. In August the president's approval rating has fallen to 43%, while 49% of those polled say they disapprove of his job performance.

Those are some pretty disappointing numbers for the president, but not hopeless. When the voters were asked whether Obama should be re-elected, 43% said yes and 40% said a Republican should be elected. That's an 8 point drop from May, when the president held an 11 point advantage.

It is clear from those numbers that the president needs to re-energize his base and get them all to the polls or he could be in for a tough time on election day. And that may be tougher than he and his aides think. Last Fall about 50% of Democrats said their party was doing a poor or only fair job of standing up for the party's traditional values -- and that resulted in an electoral disaster, because too many Democrats either stayed at home or failed to pursue an aggressive GOTV effort.

After the latest "compromise" on the debt ceiling this has gotten worse. Now 61% of Democrats believe their politicians are doing a poor or only fair job. Whether he wants to admit it or not, the president has some serious fence-mending to do within his own party. He simply cannot afford to have a repeat of 2010, and that's exactly what an un-energized base would give him.

But while the president's numbers look weak, the approval numbers for Congress are downright pitiful. Only 25% of voters think Congress is doing a good job, and 70% don't approve of the job they are doing. And the voters don't think much of either party's leaders in Congress. Voters only had a 29% approval of Democratic leaders before the last election. That approval still stands at 29%. Democratic congressional leaders have been unable to improve their standing with voters.

But while the Democrats have shown no improvement, the bottom has fallen out for Republican congressional leaders. They had an approval of nearly 40% before the last election. But after watching their performance for the last few months only 22% of voters now think Republican congressional leaders are doing a good job. That's a precipitous drop in popularity.

And voter disapproval has not just dropped for those in Washington. Approval ratings have also dropped for both general parties. Here are the figures for both parties:

DEMOCRATS
February favorable..........47%
February unfavorable..........46% (+1)
August favorable..........43%
August unfavorable..........50% (-7)

REPUBLICANS
February favorable..........43%
February unfavorable...........48% (-5)
August favorable..........34%
August unfavorable..........59% (-25)

It's pretty obvious that the Republicans are in the process of destroying their brand. In the past few months they have rebranded themselves as the party of the rich and the party that doesn't care about ordinary Americans -- the party that wants to give tax breaks to the rich, while destroying Medicare, Social Security, the EPA, Education, and most social programs.

And this rebranding extends to the presidential nominees. While 49% of Republicans say they have an excellent or good presidential field of candidates, only 26% of the general public feels that way. And while 44% of Republicans feel their candidates are only fair or poor, a whopping 64% of the general public feels that way. Most voters are not impressed with the possible Republican candidates, and these candidates generate high negative feelings among most voters.

Here are the percentages of voters who say there is NO CHANCE they would vote for:
Mitt Romney...............42%
Rick Perry...............47%
Herman Cain...............53%
Ron Paul...............53%
Michele Bachmann...............56%
Rick Santorum...............59%
Jon Huntsman...............59%
Newt Gingrich...............66%
Sarah Palin...............67%

This tells me that if the president can mend fences within his own party and re-energize his base, to get them to work hard for the party's GOTV and get to the polls, he will win. If he doesn't, he stands a good chance of losing (because the GOP teabagger base is energized and will show up in 2012). Can (or will) the president do it? Only the next few months will tell. Right now it could go either way.