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Obama's Approval Rating Gap
Tweet Share on Facebook June 1, 2010 Comment (17)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The latest Gallup poll finds that President Barack Obama remains more popular than his policies. A survey of 1,049 adults 18 years of age and older living in the United States found 54 percent view him favorably while 43 percent see Obama in a negative light. His favorability numbers, which relate to the man, not the job, have consistently been five to seven points higher in the Gallup survey than his job approval numbers, which measure what people think of the job he is doing as president.
What does that all mean?
Well, for starters, it means that the American people are naturally predisposed to like this president no matter what he says or what he does. In fact, with the possible exception of Nixon in 1968 and 1972, every presidential election since the end of World War II has been won by the candidate whom the voters sensed would be better company over a cold, frosty pint.
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Why Americans Should Love the Government They Hate
Tweet Share on Facebook June 1, 2010 Comment (20)By Matthew Dallek, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Federal government employees have endured harsh attacks from across the political spectrum in recent months. But the federal employees I know--lawyers, policymakers, and congressional staffers--are serious, dedicated and hard-working people who log much more than the 40 hours a week they're expected to work. And while it's true that they tend to receive good salaries and benefits, most of them could be earning a substantially larger salary if they decided to find work in the private sector.
I asked Julie Anderson, my colleague at the Bipartisan Policy Center, for her thoughts about why federal employees have received such a bad reputation as incompetent bureaucrats. Anderson has worked in all three branches of government. She is now a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center leading a project looking at ways to strengthen American democracy, and her government positions include jobs she held at the Environmental Protection Agency and as a special assistant for legislative affairs in the Clinton White House.
She describes a core contradiction within America’s political culture. Americans dislike the federal government on a macro level, and Washington has become a potent catch-all symbol of whatever happens to the country that isn't positive. Yet, Anderson astutely points out that most Americans don't want to abolish the government services on which they rely. Few Americans are clamoring for an end to Medicare and Social Security, for instance. Police, firefighters, and public libraries and public transportation provide crucial government-run services to families in communities nationwide.
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Gulf Oil Spill Could Make Republicans the Party of New Energy
Tweet Share on Facebook June 1, 2010 Comment (19)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Tom Brokaw made a prediction this morning that there’s a whole new generation of Americans for whom the gulf oil leak will become a defining moment in their political lives. (I’ve got a clip of him on MSNBC this morning below.) He’s got a point: More so than the Exxon Valdez or Hurricane Katrina did, this disaster has the potential to change the way of life for many young people, and move them toward alternative energy sources. That generation is already very environmentally aware, and there are more coming right behind them--in fact, the most militant recyclers I know are in kindergarten right now.
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The Stupidest Tea Party Idea: Repeal the 17th Amendment
Tweet Share on Facebook June 1, 2010 Comment (26)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Of all the goofy ideas from those lovable, wacky Tea Partyers, the suggestion that we repeal the 17th amendment, and take the direct election of U.S. senators away from the people, is the stupidest.
Having spent much of the last five years immersed in the newspapers, speeches and history of the Populist and Progressive Eras, I can tell you why Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and millions of Americans took the election of the Senate from the state legislatures, and gave it to the people: The legislatures were corrupt!
