One of the most interesting things about the latest Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll is that Nancy Pelosi’s net favorability rating continues to rise. Despite being the target of right wing rage and held up as the poster girl for profligate spending, subject to Twitter attacks by GOP members of Congress and targeted by human bile machine Ann Coulter, her popularity hasn’t been affected at all. Quite the opposite.
In fact, despite everything that the teabaggers have throw at them, Democrats in Congress had a whopping 13 point rise in their favorability ratings this week and moved into positive territory (their favorables are now higher than their unfavorables, 46/45). Only two possibilities that I can see. Either nobody is listening to the GOP tantrum throwers, or they have become negative validator — i.e., they are so discredited that their disapproval now moves the needle in a positive direction.
Wingnut radio was shrieking when they thought the Democrats would strike at their power and reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I guess the good news for them is it’s not going to happen.
The bad news: nobody thought it was worth the effort.
32 Comments
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About The Seminal
Advanced search
i have an alternative hypothesis: people are scared about their economic future and just like after 911 are rallying around their leaders in a time of crisis.
this is an hypothesis i wish i could test, because if even a little bit true it means that
1) approval will increase with increasing threat
2) approval will plummet if they are perceived to be failing to meet the challenge
I’ll agree with Selise cause on the other side of the aisle Nancy and Harry have been getting nailed by well me for one.
Barring positive action from Nancy and Harry I’m assuming the voters perceptions have changed.
Best line I’ve heard in days, P.J. O’Rourke last night on Maher’s show: Republicans are in shambles….
Sounds on target to me.
Related: Am I crazy, or are the pugs moreso?!
IMO It seems insane for them to risk total abject embarrassment and worse by twittering like middle school dorks, thinking their little display of bad-manners nyah nyah -ism will bring them fame and glory.
The “playful” pugs apparently have yet to realize how dangerous it is to write silly nonsense in a hurry, only to have it instantly saved and displayed for all to see and snicker in derision or, worse, become even angrier than they already are at failed governance. DUMB DUMB DUMBER!
Speaker Pelosi won’t send them to the Principal’s office for their silly pranks. But the voters will. Giggling and twittering while the country drowns in debt is not likely to amuse people who are suffering and hoping for sanity, sobriety, and genuine leadership from D.C.
Thanks Jane. That graph is tantalizing.
How low can they go? Boehner’s scraping bottom there, pretty much. heh.
Mebbe I’ll send him a box of tissues.
Nah. He can use his sleeve. He’s been so classy so far, it’d be a shame to ruin the natural order of the universe by tinkering. heh
Thanks Jane. digg is open
But, but, but…
Liberalism is a mental illness!
I thought everyone by definition is a “human bile machine”? Bilious or splenetic are the words you want.
The strangest thing about the republicans is…is that they keep trying the same schtick. Only louder and deeper. But at least they’re trying it with the hip-hop angle. Best luck, buds.
You be da man, Loo Hoo!
Boehner is their problem. They put up a guy who matches the oak paneling in the background and looks like he’d MUCH rather be playing golf than dealing with this crap. He talks as if it’s 1983: taxcuts, big gubmit, taxnspend libruls.
No one with half a brain is listening to what he’s putting down.
I predict a Cantor Coup by August.
Did you see what Peggy Noonan wrote about Obama the other day? It’s like we’ve entered a parallel universe.
For the time being the public is responding positively to the notion that someone… ANYONE in Washington is trying to help. Republicans have lined up in opposition to the proposed help without offering any credible alternative. Sooner or later the pendulum will begin to swing the other way but we might as well enjoy it while we can.
If Obama passes this budget I’m putting a portrait of him on my wall. And a Victrola under it.
Boner looks like he stepped out of a timewarp from Batista Cuba circa 1950-something.
The Gingrich student – that will be good for a lafathon
Another possible factor – some authoritarian followers out there have finally recognized who is in charge.
Their need to conform has outstripped their aggressive defense of the old order. (see Obama speech and response)
the wingnuts are edging closer to irrelevancy each and every day !
yay loohoo, lvu2peeses
but NO LUCK and they are NOT budz.
just sayin./././././.
It is Thersday upstairs at the Mothership!
BREAKING: CPAC Convention-Goers Smear Selves with Excrement, Garbage, Congratulate Selves on Smelling Like Roses
the lack of any possible alternatives to Obama and the Democratic agenda are what’s killing the repukes.
being a bunch of whining three year olds ain’t helping their cause either
Boner just needs one Blue Pill to regain his magic …
Earlier this week NPR had a thing on “How Conservatives are responding to Obama” and I thought, ‘who cares?” My wife saw the same Npr thing and said the same thing.
If they have nothing constructive to say or add to the movement to right this country, WHO CARES WHAT THEY THINK??!! Why are we so concerned about them and every crazy thing Rush The Limberger has to say??
Repugs shrieking to Dems:
I don’t care.
I must confess that I’m still skeptical about the instincts of the electorate. Hence, I urge continuing vigilance. The wingnuts must not be allowed to get away with any of their idiocies, no matter how seemingly irrelevant. I won’t feel comfortable until Limbag’s contract is not renewed, and barring unforeseen circumstances, that won’t happen until 2016. I quote redundantly:
“…Now Limbaugh has extended his contract through 2016 — $38 million per year with a “nine-figure signing bonus.” The total package is valued at “north of $400 million.”…”
Somebody’s listening to his shit, or “Clear Channel” and “Premier Radio” wouldn’t be signing him up for that kind of money. Similarly, O’Reilly was just reupped at Faux for four years at $10+ Large for each year.
Like I said, zero tolerance for these assholes. Wingnuttiness must be met swiftly and without mercy.
I knew the end was near for the repuglitards
I knew it would be ugly
I didn’t know it would be so funny
it’s like a hybrid of wile e coyote and the three stooges
Interesting that Jane H. called the repubs “teabaggers” (”despite everything that the teabaggers have throw at them”). There is a usage of this that fits the headline for this article. Check the definitions here and see if you can find it:
http://www.urbandictionary.com…..=teabagger
Did Jane know?
oldswede
Being somewhat scrolling impaired, I meant the headline to Thers article, not Jane’s.
oldswede
Sunny, I think you are substantially right regarding the authoritarian impulse getting in line behind Obama. I believe that authoritarian subservience comes into play for every administration. I think it kept GWB’s numbers up considerably higher, for considerably longer, than one can otherwise explain. Now, it’s working to our advantage, at least for inter-election polling purposes.
The vagueries of the proper interpretation of the authoritarians’ stance is analogous to another similarly useful factoid: about 10% of Americans are full-blown alcoholics, and another 5% similarly addicted to other drugs. These people are part of every general populace survey, and, I think, help explain why even an idiot like GWB kept his approval numbers close to 40% long after everyone agreed he had lied about Iraq.
The essence of this post is, since one can always subtract the authoritarians and the addicts from any presidential job approval rating, the conservatives were always much weaker than Bush’s numbers looked, and, while Obama’s numbers will similarly benefit, his numbers are currently much above the vulnerability suggested by subtracting the nutcases from the general picture, so his 63% is way, way stronger than GWB’s 40-ish numbers ever were, or even his high thirty’s, which, again, included the nutcases who shift to wherever the societal power center seems to be.
CNN – Rush was slated to talk for 20 minutes, He talked for an hour and a half….. Apparently Obama telling the Regurgitards “we won” was not “bipartisan”. Oh? I guess telling them we didn’t win, they really did would be “bipartisan”?
I remember Boxer having to slap down Inhofe during Al Gore’s presentation to her committee; shaking the gavel at him and saying “elections have consequences, Mr. Inhofe; you are no longer the chair of this committee.
And this “Robin Hood” shit while nobody mentions the reverse has been going on for 30 years. The media is still in the hands of the right wing.
It’ll take some time after 30 years of this crapola.
The saddest thing is even I listened to them. Not that I wanted to hear their message but to know how bad it can get. The country has listened to them and many still do as it is a free country. We may not be able to shut them up but the media air time they get free is also a sin. On the stimulus there were a hundred to one of these nuts telling the people how bad it is. Nobody likes spending money or going in debt so their message got to people who should have rejected it. The worst thing we can all do is pay any attention to them.