There’s a widespread belief among congressional Republicans that their caucus’ legal and ethical scandals are of limited significance to voters. When they hold town hall forums, few ask about corruption, leading many to assume that this is a “inside the beltway” uproar that is yet to strike a chord with “real people.”<\/p>\n
If the GOP is counting on this to be true, they may want to consider<\/a> a Plan B.<\/p>\n Indictments, investigations and a congressman’s guilty plea for taking millions in bribes have left most Americans convinced that political corruption is a deeply rooted problem, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll. […]<\/p>\n Sixty-five percent of respondents disapproved of lawmakers’ work in Washington and only 31 percent approved, the worst numbers since AP-Ipsos began asking the question in January.<\/p>\n Several of those interviewed said corruption was endemic to a political system awash in colossal amounts of lobbying money and beset by an insatiable demand for campaign cash.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In all, 88% of Americans, according to this poll, said misconduct among politicians is a “serious problem.” The AP also reported that poll respondents “had no trouble reciting the names associated with offenses and inquiries,” in particular Tom DeLay. And though the margin is by no means large, Dems were considered more ethical than Republicans, 36% to 33%.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, congressional Dems have a clear, specific policy agenda<\/a> that would fundamentally change how Congress operates and would give the Hill “a good scrubbing<\/a>.” If voters are as concerned about corruption as they appear to be, it’s an agenda that might find a receptive audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s a widespread belief among congressional Republicans that their caucus’ legal and ethical scandals are of limited significance to voters. When they hold town hall forums, few ask about corruption, leading many to assume that this is a “inside the beltway” uproar that is yet to strike a chord with “real people.” If the GOP […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}