I was horrified recently to see this poll tracker on TPM.
In a rational world, the populace would be horrified that Congress would even consider not raising the debt ceiling — never mind playing chicken with it as the Republicans did. In such a world, Democrats could run against Republicans on these grounds;. Apparently, we do not live in such a world.
This puts us in a situation achingly similar to the 2010 Special Election. The Affordable Care Act should have been popular. It should have been possible to run on it and win. But it wasn’t and the Democratic Party did little to make it popular. The Coakley campaign ran as if it were popular. Not a winning strategy it turns out.
I don’t understand how Democrats can possibly keep the Senate and White House if the stimulus and the Affordable Care Act remain unpopular and if the recent debt ceiling debacle becomes nothing more than a “both sides were intransigent” story.
Is Obama’s political apparatus insane?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/debt-deal-polls_n_916084.html?icid=main%7Chp-desktop%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C220775
I love that 77% of those polled said they thought that Congress was behaving like spoiled children and 60% favored increased taxation of the truly wealthy.
I would attribute this once again to the GOP being better at messaging. Not to mention that their message seems straightforward and common sensical. Most people would nod in agreement, I suspect, when someone says that a debt of $14T shouldn’t be allowed to go higher.
If the poll question should be “Should be eliminate social security and require all adult children to house and support their parents, or require them to pay all costs of their parent’s support” the answer might be different, you think?
Who would win this poll
Q: How should we cut the debt?
Answer (R): “Cut spending”
Answer (D): “Raise taxes”
Answer (nobody): “Get people back to work so they’re paying more taxes”.
= have economic fairy appear, wave wand, make everything PERFECT!
= we don’t care what happens to everybody else, as long as we get ours
that even you know what you’re saying.
…prioritized in reverse order that they are listed in your poll.
that banks and the Chinese government would be the only ones hurt by a U.S. default. Something that seemed to be panicking the unhelpful “liberal elites” associated with the Obama administration, stodgy old rich businessmen, and hot-shot stockbrokers alike couldn’t possibly be all bad. Such people, in their ignorance, might not have understood that the banks would be the first ones paid, while soldiers and retirees would be the ones left waiting for their government checks.
But probably most of them have just drunk the tea-party kool-aid, and “debts” and “deficits” have just replaced Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein as boogymen of the day.
Anyway, the debt ceiling got raised. So does that mean we won?
…you would see that your final question has provoked quite a bit of debate!:)
means to not lift the debt ceiling. They don’t understand what default means. More importantly, they don’t understand what the cuts in spending will mean to their lives. There will be very clear effects.
The Globe, for example, projected $400 million less for Massachusetts next year. $800 million after that. $1.2 billion in two years. We’ve already cut the fat and reached the muscle, these will put us into the bone.
Christopher blames the Democrats’ poor messaging, which is a slight overstatement, because for the most part, there was NO messaging. For example, what did Harry Reid say? I don’t even know what his plan was. How about Boehner or He Who Must Not Be Criticized?
The only message was that for which the groundwork was laid: we need to cut the deficit. That’s a familiar concept that’s been alive and well and part of common political discourse at least since Reagan.
With the chaos and attendant nausea in the debt ceiling fiasco, there wasn’t mcuh messaging that could be done. As polls have show, the result was that Americans hated everyone in the federal government and wanted it over. That’s about all people could make of the political equivalent of white noise.
Situations like this show why it’s important to lay the groundwork for messaging. Unfortunately, the groundwork leading up to the the crisis telling the nation that “families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same” was counterproductive. This false equivalency miseducates the populace and makes difficult the effective messaging of the truth.