Can a Big Change In Congress Be on the Horizon?

For a long time, and in a number of posts, I have noted that Americans are quite funny about their views of Congress and their personal Representative. Usually, most people dislike Congress as a collection of individuals and as a unit. They don't dislike the idea of Congress, only those people who hold office. At the same time, though most Americans "love" their own Representative. The result is that Congress has dismal (14%) approval ratings, but pollsters rarely ask people about the opinion of their personal Represenative. Given that most incumbents are re-elected when running, it is not unreasonable to assume that at the very least, most Americans don't hold a negative opinion of their Representative. But in the latest Battleground 2008 poll published by George Washington Univeristy, there is an indication that Americans may be getting dissatisfied enough to see some real personnel changes in Congress in 2008. The Washington Times' Elizabeth Miller writes:

Cynicism about American politics has risen sharply in recent months, according to a new poll that finds growing numbers of voters feel the country is heading in the wrong direction and that fewer think politicians can fix the problems.

More than two-thirds of likely voters (71 percent) say their member of Congress puts party politics ahead of them, according to the latest George Washington University Battleground 2008 Poll released yesterday.

Of course, the question that generated this finding probably did not ask what people's opinion of their representative was, but this ressult is the closest I have seen to asking just that question.

Polling on individual Senators or Represenatives is difficult in a national poll, but clearly there is an undercurrent of distruct that is beginning to permeate the electorate. Of course, translating that distrust into support for challenger candidates is a far more difficult task. While challengers have always had a tough road to hoe when running against incumbents, right now incumbents have a major obstacle before them, how to make sure their individual constituency doesn't lump them in with the whole of Congress.

"Cynicism may be the hot new political trend the politicians are going to have to fight against," said Brian Nienaber, vice president of the Tarrance Group, a Republican research team. "People hold such a cynical view of how things are run in Washington that they're going to have to try doubly hard."

While a healthy cynicism about government is probably healthy for our nation, I think that size of the cynical viewpoint is something to behold and for Congress to be wary of.

In the end, Congress has enough time to bail themselves out, but if the Do-Nothing Democrats continue on their path, self-destruction would seem to be the order of the day. Republicans, on the other hand, need to start presenting themselves as having learned their lesson and heard the message from 2006. But the pace of change in Washington is not likely to engender any sort of faith among voters. Promises by both parties have been routinely ignored once the election results are tabulated and I think that most of America not only remembers this, but is prepared to punish Representatives for it.

America's love/hate relationship with their Representative/Congress has diverged to far to be maintained. When over two thirds of Americans think that Congress is too partisan--somthing has to give--either partisanship or membership.