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This is but one poll, to be sure. But most of the other polls I've seen this week back up the data presented here. Americans are turned off by Republican extremism, and open to Democrats' willingness to compromise. They are disgusted with the way the lawmakers in Washington are operating, and they may just take out this anger next year at the polls.
In the past few weeks, one rising star has appeared in the Republican firmament (or two, depending on how you count them), and more than a few have begun fading -- perhaps permanently -- from center stage. But the field itself is not yet set (in terms of who is actually running and who will sit this one out), as the Republican Party continues to search for the perfect candidate to defeat President Obama. In fact, two of our four frontrunners this time around have not even announced their candidacy yet -- showing how volatile the entire race still remains.
Are we seeing the new model of Barack Obama's presidency? Is this (in the parlance of Silicon Valley) "Obama 2.0"?
Today, I'd like to excerpt some of those articles, as "footnotes" to yesterday's column. While copyright laws prevent me from just pasting whole articles in here, I am allowed fair usage excerpts, which is what you'll find below. The promise of the internet was supposed to be easy access to this sort of thing, but in recent years many media sites have locked off their archives behind paywalls, making it impossible to freely access this historical material.
I've always been astounded at the near-complete lack of historical memory regularly exhibited by both Washington politicians and the "journalists" who purport to cover them. Nothing I've seen in the past few weeks has caused me to change this opinion, either, as the fight over raising the federal debt ceiling has played itself out.
I should begin by saying that if you have no idea what I'm talking about at all, you are in good company. Most Americans don't even know there's a light bulb debate happening right now in Congress. If you live in California, however, you likely have already realized what is going on: standard light bulbs are being effectively banned.
The silly season has come early to Washington, it seems. The root cause is a simple fact of American politics these days -- sometimes, there just can't be transparency. That's a fairly provocative statement, so allow me to explain my reasoning in detail. Then, later on (in the talking points section of our program), we'll get into the option of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and how Obama should be using it right about now. But for now, it's time for a sober assessment of where Washington currently stands.
Since the year is now exactly half over, I took the opportunity yesterday to tally up how much vacation time Congress has taken this year, so far. The answer is pretty shocking -- the House has taken 46 out of a possible 125 non-holiday weekdays off, and the Senate (not to be outdone) has gone on vacation for 49 days out of those 125. To put this another way, out of 26 weeks Congress could have worked, the House took over nine weeks off on vacation, and the Senate took almost ten weeks to play rather than work. Something for everyone to ponder as we all enjoy our measly three-day vacation this weekend!
President Obama, in his press conference yesterday, took Congress to task over the fact that it doesn't work. In fact, he did so in both senses of the phrase "doesn't work." Obama lit into Congress for not doing much in the best of times, and also pointed out the glaring fact that Congress sure does take a lot of vacation time, don't they?
California has just concluded its first test of a radical concept: if legislators can't manage to do one of the most basic tasks they are hired to do in a timely manner, then cut their pay. No on-time budget? No paycheck. Period. And while there's not enough data to draw any hard-and-fast conclusions, the idea seemed to work exactly as it was designed: this time around, the politicians were very personally motivated to do their job.