{"id":6488,"date":"2006-01-31T11:09:06","date_gmt":"2006-01-31T16:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6488"},"modified":"2006-01-31T11:09:06","modified_gmt":"2006-01-31T16:09:06","slug":"gridlock-no-longer-a-dirty-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/gridlock-no-longer-a-dirty-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Gridlock no longer a dirty word"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest NBC\/WSJ poll has plenty of the usual bad news<\/a> for the GOP — Bush’s approval is at 39%, Republicans are seen as more corrupt than Dems, a clear majority are concerned that warrantless searches could be misused and could violate a person’s privacy, Americans prefer a Dem-run Congress 47% to 38% — but there’s one question that NBC\/WSJ always includes in its national poll that never gets enough attention. (It’s from the subscription-only internals<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Which of the following roles would you like to see the Democrats in Congress play?<\/p>\n

A) Work in a bipartisan way with Republicans to help pass President Bush’s legislative priorities so that we do not have gridlock, OR B) Provide a balance to make sure that President Bush and the Republicans do not go too far in pushing their agenda.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No one likes “partisan gridlock,” right? The conventional wisdom tells us that voters long for politicians who can work cooperatively. Republicans throw the “obstructionist” label around frequently, which makes Dems worry about public perceptions.<\/p>\n

And yet, the results from this question weren’t even close — 58% want Dems to make sure the GOP doesn’t go too far, while 34% want Dems to work in a bi-partisan way to avoid gridlock. The results are nearly identical to an NBC\/WSJ poll done this time last year.<\/p>\n

It’s numbers like these that Dems should keep in mind the next time Senate Republicans start whining about how desperate the American people are to see bipartisan cooperation. By a wide margin, people are far more worried about the GOP going too far. Voters want a real opposition party that will stand as a barrier against Republican excess.<\/p>\n

“Obstructionism” isn’t much of an insult if it has majority support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest NBC\/WSJ poll has plenty of the usual bad news for the GOP — Bush’s approval is at 39%, Republicans are seen as more corrupt than Dems, a clear majority are concerned that warrantless searches could be misused and could violate a person’s privacy, Americans prefer a Dem-run Congress 47% to 38% — but […]<\/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-6488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488","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=6488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}