Talk Elections

It's only April 2011, but still it's encouraging:

Poll: ‘Fickle Independents’ down on GOP (http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2011/04/12/fickle-independents-down-on-gop-poll/)

They helped Republicans gain more than 60 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives last year, but “fickle independents” are turning against the GOP in a big way, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_US_0412513.pdf).

In the poll, 46 percent of those surveyed said that if there were an election for Congress today they would vote Democratic, compared to only 41 percent who would vote Republican.

The poll asked:  “Do you think the Republicans are doing a better job than the Democrats did while in charge of the House of Representatives, a worse job, or is it about the same?”

Thirty-six percent said Republicans are doing better, but 43 percent answered that the GOP is doing a worse job than the Democrats.  Eleven percent answered “about the same.”

“The key to this strong movement back toward the Democrats right now is the same as the key to the strong movement away from the Democrats last year — fickle independents quickly growing unhappy with the party in power,” wrote Tom Jensen of the polling firm.

“Exit polls showed Independents supporting the GOP by a 19-point margin last year at 56-37.  Now only 30 percent of those voters think that the Republican-controlled House is moving things in the right direction, compared to 44 percent who think things were better with the Democrats.”

Independents are morons. How they manage to get out of bed, put their clothes on and feed themselves in the morning, I can't even imagine.

it's a registered voters poll

Clearly the trend is wrong.  Clearly Michele Bachmann will be crowned Queen of Sheba and Republicans will have super majorities cuz they represent the real 'murica and they gonna cut gramma off the dole and make her WORK!

[/hack]

My only response - "you brought it on yourselves f***wits"

     I suspect that lots of these people will be unhappy with whichever party is in power. Part of it is people being fundamentally unpleaseable, but a big part of it is also that both parties are utterly worthless.

As PiT said, both parties suck horribly and I'll add that the people that vote for them are morons.  This isn't shocking at all.

Where's the photo of Nancy Pelosi saying, "Miss me yet?" lol

But yeah I agree with the comment sentiment: You break it, you buy it. Or however it goes. Or maybe it's, You made your bed now you have to LIE in it. hahaha.

Yawn. The reality is that Americans are very worried, and wonder if there are any antidotes realistically available that are worth much. The pre-existing bag of tricks just isn't working. What will work? We live in interesting times. The ultimate antidote of course is courage, and we await someone out there on the public square, to suffuse us a lot more of that, because right now we are running close to empty in that department.

The obvious solution is more tax cuts for you and dismantling of the social safety net for middleclass/poor... erm.. I mean.. lazy people. ;)

We need to extinguish that word from our lexicon, it does not mean what most people think it does.

Since it's a poll about 2012, that's hardly unreasonable

Wasn't the Democratic party more popular than he Republican party on election day? The problem is that being the slightly less sucky party isn't exactly the best way to get people to vote for you. 

Indeed.  Given that about 2/3 of the public will vote for one party's candidates over the others no matter how badly the candidate equivocates or makes wrong decisions, it is encouraging that there's a fickle unaffiliated group that's willing to experiment, especially when the government is so ineffective and corrupt.  And just as that same group has suffered "buyers remorse" with their election of Barrack Obama, they are now regretting their votes for new house members.  These unattached voters are perhaps our best resource for preventing entrenched, long-term, one-party rule such as existed in Egypt and Mexico until recently. 

An even better resource would be the existence of multiple competitive parties, but that isn't likely to occur spontaneously given our current framework, so let's hope that this unaffiliated group continues to be the thorn in the paws of the two beastly parties.