According to a new CNN poll, 86% of American’s think government is “broken”, but of those, 81% think it can be fixed. A similar poll by CBS finds 70% dissatisfied. Most interesting (at least to me) is the CBS finding that ”
81 percent of Americans believe members of Congress don’t deserve re-election.”

Although the poll did not seek to determine the causes of these sentiments (though the CBS poll did show that less than 15% of Americans thought congress works “for the people”), I suspect well-publicized partisanship and obvious lack of cooperation is a significant contributor.

The two parties are, it seems, more interested in ensuring they keep the loyalty of their respective bases, than they are in swaying independents. To that end, they are becoming less likely to compromise, less likely to sway from impractical ideology, and less likely to cooperate with moderates in their own party, much less in the other party.

In difficult times, when American’s security is threatened (most often this comes in the form of lack of financial security), they expect government to help fix things. Right now, it seems Americans think government is getting in the way of fixes due to obvious intransigent internecine imbroglios.

Once again, I predict that if these poll numbers don’t change, and more to the point, if congress’ behavior doesn’t change, incumbents will see a thorough drubbing this November, as well far-left and far-right ideological candidates – which candidates I suspect the parties are most likely to field as part of their circling of the wagons.

Right now political cognoscenti should be sending wagons out to scatter among the people, gain their confidence, and provide visible help – instead they’re huddling in fear and paralysis.

The ballot box will tell.

The next two years will see the Federal government locked in a logjam of procedure and ideology as significant initiatives get hung up on the ego of President Bush. For all his politically expedient talk of brotherly love and non-partisan progress subsequent to the recent congressional Democratic switch, the man in the Oval Office remains a calamitous ego-maniac with a voluminous track-record of stubborn, ill-informed, ill-conceived and ill-executed policies – regardless of any political platitudes he might occasionally mumble to try and placate (or anesthetize) those with a more rational or practical world-view.

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