Nation Wants GOP Congress to Balance Obama
A new national Wenzel Strategies telephone survey shows that almost two out of every three adults believe the country would be better off if a Republican-led Congress were elected in November to counter the agenda of the Obama administration.
The survey, which included 1,211 adults nationwide, shows there is widespread discontent with the direction in which Obama and the Democratic Congress of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid has taken the country.
What is remarkable about the survey is that, even among Democrats – who you would think would be ecstatic about the past 20 months – 31% said they would prefer a Republican-led Congress to add balance to the national government.
Republicans, of course, are off the charts in favor of this idea – 96% agree with it – while 59% of independent voters also agree.
Overall, 62% said they believe a GOP-led Congress would be better for the nation.
What this tells us is that the damage has been done in advance of the November election, in that people have looked at the accomplishments of Washington and they have passed judgement. The result is, the Democrats are going to lose big – very likely enough seats in the House to lose control – and there is nothing that can be done about this.
My polling in congressional districts across the country has shown some startlingly bad news for Democrats, even in districts where they start with a dramatic voter registration advantage. Even in Nancy Pelosi’s own district, which is as safe a district as there is in the nation, she has lost 20 points when compared to her re-election numbers in 2008. She still is not in danger of losing her seat, but upwards of 50 of her Democratic colleagues could.
Even if Democrats come back to Washington in another emergency session to reverse their votes and make permanent the Bush-era tax cuts, it would not be enough to save them.
My polling shows that the level of intensity is so lopsided in favor of Republican candidates this year that it is almost impossible to imagine a situation where the Democrats can recover. It doesn’t help that the vast majority of economic indicators show things are headed south, not north, and no matter how you spin it, people understand things are not getting better economically. This amounts to a perfect storm brewing that promises to wipe out dozens of Democratic careers from Capitol Hill.
America: Off on the Wrong Track
AUGUST 7, 2010 – For a President who came into office with such great apparent promise for national unity and progress, that Barack Obama now appears hopelessly mired in a divisive and downward political spiral is particularly surprising to the casual political observer.
Few might have known at the time, but now we all know that Obama has approached his entire political career with a Chicago-style take-no-prisoners technique that hardly respects voters and never respects opponents. It is a style that can work in a local or even statewide political atmosphere, where not that many people pay attention to day-to-day machinations. But a President cannot escape such scrutiny. In fact, every aspect of the political operations behind how a White House administration operates is magnified, sometimes beyond its importance.
And it is clear now that, 19 months into his term of office, most Americans do not like what they are seeing, as just 29% say they think things in general here in the U.S. are headed in the right direction. This may well stem from actions the administration is taking in direct contravention to what voters have ordained – directly or indirectly – in elections across the country.
We recently witnessed the filing – and first round victory – of a federal lawsuit against an Arizona law governing illegal immigration. This frustrated a majority of Americans nationwide – 63% in the latest Wenzel Strategies poll said they supported the Arizona law, while just 26% said they favored the federal lawsuit against it. This is far from over, but drew a visceral negative response nationwide because going easy on illegal immigrants violates a core sense of fair play and the rule of law we all understand. The vast majority of Americans clearly believes that no one should profit from breaking the law – any law. It also insulted many who think the Obama administration is intent on imposing a national government agenda on the country at the price of squelching the rights of states to act in the best interests of their citizens.
The second recent development that is sure to reach full flame is not directly attributable to the Obama administration, but carries the same offensive odor because it features a federal entity overturning the will of a majority of voters in a state matter. I write, of course, of the gay federal judge who ruled California’s ban on gay marriages to be unconstitutional. More than 7 million California voters cast ballots in favor of this measure, and this issue is sure to be appealed.
Perhaps the most disappointing factor in both the Arizona immigration case and the California case is that these matters will ultimately be decided now in the federal courts – which has a knack for ignoring the will of the American people with the end result that the issues will prove divisive for decades to come with no resolution, ala Roe v. Wade.
Citizens still do have a place to voice their displeasure for all of these matters – as well as for the still-stumbling national economy – and there is every indication they will do so on November 2 in Congressional elections across the country.
Two Dubious Mileposts
July 24, 2010 -The Obama administration passed two mileposts in the latest Wenzel Strategies polling that show it is speeding down the highway – but in the wrong direction.
The latest nationwide telephone survey shows that fewer thatn 40% of Americans now give Obama a postive job approval rating. Just 39% said they think President Obama is doing a good or excellent job. Meanwhile, 58% said they think he is doing either only a fair job, or a poor job.
While 23% said they think he is doing an “excellent” job, 45% said he is doing a “poor” job, (“excellent” and “poor” are the two most extreme choices available to respondents and measure the most intensity among respondents to the poll), giving Obama a Minus 22% index number, one of the worst of his presidency.
And, 19 months into his presidency, the survey shows that even a significant percentage of Democrats are growing skeptical of the president’s performance – just 80% of Democrats give Obama a positive job approval rating, and fewer than 50% of Democrats give him an “excellent” mark for his leadership. This should be alarming news for the White House, because those respondents who are giving the President only “good” marks for his work may soon slip to “only fair,” moving them from the positive to the negative column.
Why should this concern Obama? Because, while he has already shown a penchant for ruling against the will of the American people (pushing health care reform through Congress though a wide majority of Americans opposed it), Congress will eventually stop listening to him if his poll numbers get too low. There is plenty of evidence right now in the polls that Congressional Dems should have stopped listening to Obama a long time ago – as American voter backlash is about to give control of Congress back to the Republicans.
The second milepost is the percentage of Americans who said they think the country is headed in the wrong direction. For the first time in the Obama administration, fewer than 30% (29%) said they think things are on the right track in America.
There are a lot of reasons for this – the continuing economic trouble chief among them. But then add to that the lingering anger over health care, the long-distance frustration over Obama’s inability to deal effectively with the oil spill in the gulf, even at some points blocking the efforts of locals to counter the effects of the spill. I think you also need to add in the frustration that the federal government under Obama seems driven to stick its nose into many areas of American life where it does not belong – including the Arizona state law that deals with illegal immigratioin. People appear to have the sense that America is not working, and they are blaming Washington.
Some bright news in the latest Wenzel Strategies poll – Congress maintains a job approval rating of 17%. Yes, that is bright news – only because it did not slip even further. Another poll out this week had their approval all the way down to 11%.
A day may come again when Americans look to Congress and the White House and have positive thoughts, but that day appears not to be coming anytime soon.
It is Time to Repeal the 17th Amendment
As the federal government now seeks to overturn a state law in Arizona regarding illegal immigration, it is now time to seriously consider repeal of the 17th Amendment, which changed the way U.S. Senators are elected.
The amendment removed the right of state legislatures to select their two Senate representatives in Washington, and made their selection the result of a direct election by all voters statewide.
This sounds practical on its surface because it gives voice to “The People,” and takes it away from elected officials. But modern political realities have really undermined that direct vote and, in the process, have harmed the power that states have in the nation’s capitol. Now that senators have to chase big campaign contributions wherever they can, a significant amount of their contributions are coming from special interests, not from constituents back home. They take all manner of out-of-state money as needed and as directed by leaders of their respective political parties. This makes them unresponsive to the desires and needs of their own states.
My polling, and the polling, and the polling of many other companies, has shown that the job approval of Congress is abysmal – well below 20% favorable. This can be directly attributable, I believe, to the failure of Congress to stand up against radical proposals promoted by Congressional leaders and by the Obama administration.
The result has been an incredible increase in the burden that U.S. senators are willing to dump on their own state’s leadership back home at the statehouse because the senators are no longer accountable to state leaders and no longer care what they think. This has dramatically undermined the 10th Amendment (leaving to states all other tasks not enumerated in the Constitution).
There is no doubt that, for instance, the federal Medicaid program, would look far different today had states had a strong voice in the U.S. Senate, because that single program is killing state budgets across the nation. If senators were accountable to their own state legislatures, that program would be fixed.
National health care is another example. It never would have passed the Senate had those senators been more worried about what their legislatures wanted than with what U.S. Senate leaders wanted. A vote against the interests of their own state would have resulted in the recall of many senators.
Now, this week, we have yet another rreminder that the feds are out of control in trying to single out one state for punishment – Arizona – regarding a failed national policy on immigration. Really, it is a failure to simply secure the border. How many senators would be voicing opposition to the Justice Department’s action had they known that their own state legislatures were watching over them? The answer is - quite a few.
It is time to amend the Constitution to repeal the 17th Amendment so that states have a fair and powerful seat at the table in Washington. This is the only way that is going to happen.
Americans Want Obama to Release Personal Records
New Wenzel Strategies polling shows a majority of Americans want President Obama to release all of his personal travel, educational, and – yes – birth records to settle once and for all the question about his childhood.
In the latest WorldNetDaily.com/Wenzel Strategies poll, 55% said they believe Obama should release all records relating to his birth, schooling, and international travel (passport) records so that the country can deal with the information directly. Either the documents will prove once and for all that he is a natural born citizen and that he is fully qualified to be President, or they will prove he is not.
Either way, a majority want to see all the records. Another 17% said they think Obama should release at least some of those records, while 28% said they don’t think Obama should release any records.
Also in the same survey, Americans said they do not believe Obama has lived up to his campaign promise to conduct the “most transparent administration in history.”
Just 35% said they believe he has lived up to this pledge, while 56% said he has not. The balance of respondents were unsure.
Even among Democrats, one in three said he has failed in meeting that pledge.
At a time when Obama’s job approval rating is in the low 40s, and national discontent over what Washington is doing – or not doing – to improve the economy and life in general in the United States, this polling data should be a wake-up call. But there have been many such calls to Washington in the course of the last 16 months, and no one has answered.
