‘Political street-fighting’

Last week, President Obama angrily alleged that Republicans (though some of that bloc were conservative Democrats) were holding up confirmations on a bundle of his nominees to various posts, so he threated to make recess appointments if necessary.

Within about a day he got his way and backed off, satisfied with the power of the threat.

Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surprisingly stripped the jobs bill after making the political calculation that this is an election year, and voter sentiment has suddenly gained weight.

So…..this came as absolutely unsurprising.

“Extremely high anti-incumbent feelings toward Congress are shaping potentially brutal midterm elections that typically see losses for the party that controls the White House, a poll found. Those anti-incumbent feelings match the high levels of 2006 and 1994 – both years when control of Congress changed hands.

“A Pew Research Center poll of registered voters released Friday found just fewer than half of voters would like to see their current member of Congress win another term and a fifth of voters said they would consider their vote as one against President Barack Obama.”

The particular shift in voter sentiment here is that usually, polls find voters saying ‘I’m happy with my guy, but throw the other bums out.’ Now people are saying ‘Enough. Throw all the bums out.’

Things have not changed in Washington, and though ‘you can fool some of the people all of the time’……those who run things in government are fooling fewer of the people all the time.