Yes, Democrats Do Control Congress Now
It has come to my attention that not everyone knows what parties are in charge of the Federal Government:
The current makeup of the Congress as of this day Friday, October 31, 2008:
Congress (Approval rating 12%)
The current makeup of the Congress as of this day Friday, October 31, 2008:
Congress (Approval rating 12%)
House of Representatives:
Controlled by Democrats -Nancy Pelosi (D, San Francisco) is speaker of the House
Democrats : 233
Republicans: 202
Senate:
Controlled by Democrats –Harry Reid (D, Nevada) is Majority Leader
Democrats : 49
Independents: 2 (they caucus with the Democrats)
Republicans: 49
President:
George Bush (R, Texas) Approval rating 22%
Conclusion
Democrats have been in charge of the Congress during this financial crisis. Congress has the lowest approval rating in history. Voting for Republican leadership would be true change.
Posted by Metroman Bort @ 10/31/2008 11:17:00 AM
9 Comments:
This is always a croc and such an easy hit.
First of all, Democrats may "control" congress but the republicans have enough power to block anything they see fit either through a filibuster or a Presidential veto. So this entire argument is patently false.
Secondly, and this may be a larger point, the congressional approval rating is complete bunk and always has been. It merely creates a large scary object for people to get angry at.
I don't care if it is Democrats or Republicans, the only true way to determine a real congressional approval record is to poll the constituencies of each individual congress-person. Everyone loves their own congressman, but hates the other guys. Well, the other guys isn't there to represent you so your opinion of him or her is completely irrelevant.
By the way, if you did what I described above the number you come up with is 53% with the average Democrat enjoying a margin of 10 points over the average Republican.
These types of arguments is what creates term limits and yet we already have term limits... they're called elections. Here is an interesting factoid that proves my point: The very same election that ushered in term limits in California, every single incumbent won.
Jim did you see the story where they found that NBC, MSNBC, CNN and CBS aired stories 2-1 in favor of Obama and 2-1 against McCain. On the other hand Fox News was 50/50 positive/negative for Obama - McCain.
Yes, but when McCain is running an erratic campaign with no real direction what do you expect?
McCain's campaign has been all over the map. It has been attack, stunt, withdraw the attack for months now. (McCain told Larry King that he didn't believe Obama was a Socialist after the campaign has been pushing that story for two weeks.
McCain has been attacking Obama and rehashing lies after they have been proven false, Joe the Plumber (the latest stunt) even got called out on Fox news. Even Niel Cavuto had to rip into McCain's campaign as being false and without any rudder. But you know those folks a Fox are int he tank for Obama.
Affecting the economy is not something governments do overnight, or in a year. It's like turning around a battleship. The things that affect a national economy for better or for worse happened many years ago.
It was only in 2006 that the Democrats controlled the House. Lieberman, one of those independents who you say caucuses with the Democrats is a McCain supporter and reportedly McCain's real first choice as running mate. And Republicans have controlled the White House most of time during the last 10 years or so.
But most importantly, it is clear that the voters and the "experts" all agree that the lion's share of the blame belongs with George (The Buck Stops Here) Bush, a Republican.
Look at his popularity ratings and the fact that no Republican, including McCain, wants to be seen with him or his endorsement. It's like he's a domestic terrorist or something.
While conventional wisdom is that no Republican could win in this environment, none of the pre-convention polling data supports that conclusion. True, generic Democrats were beating generic Republicans by a large margin, but when the names were attached (Barack Obama and John McCain) the polls tightened to within a few points. The proof of this is the numerous almost countless stories during the summer asking why Obama’s lead wasn’t greater. The media then answered their own question and blamed it on “white blue-collar working class” voters convincing themselves Obama couldn’t “close the deal” Unfortunately for John McCain, it appears he believed them even though there wasn’t much evidence to support the claims that whites weren’t going to vote for a black candidate.
I've always found this interesting. Democrats have had near complete control of California's Assembly. Democrat Speaker's of the Assembly since 1971 included Bob Moretti, Leo T. McCarthy, Willie Brown, Cruz M. Bustamante, Antonio Villaraigosa, Robert M. Hertzberg, Herb J. Wesson, Jr., Fabian Núñez, and now Karen Bass. There was only a brief period (about 18 months) were Republican were the majority.
On the Senate side it has been the same thing. Since 1971 we've had with James Mills, David Roberti, Bill Lockyer, John Burton, Don Perata, and now Darrly Steinberg as President pro tempore. All Democrats.
Since 1971 each California Superintendent of schools were Democrats and they include Wilson Riles, Bill Honig, Delaine Eastin and today Jack O'Connell.
Given that, Democrats have owned the state’s education mantle since 1971. They owned the Assembly, they owned the Senate, they owned the Department of Education.
Democrats by and large have declared themselves the education party. They have driven California’s curriculum, controlled the money, changed how schools are budgeted, campaigned for bonds, staffed the education departments from the State superintendent of schools all the way down to local school boards and accepted millions in campaign donations from teacher unions.
Legislative control by Democrats in California have led to a crippled education system failing millions of students like this:
See graph
Why do we keep believing that they will improve our schools when it's absolutely clear that they have been responsible for running it into the ground where it is today?
And Jim, what would you do that is any different from your long string of predecessors dating back to 1971?
Can anyone explain to me why the stock market has gone up while Democratic presidents were in office, and gone down under Republicans?
Bad luck?
Thank you Jim. Now I don't have to say what you did. I can simply agree. And I do 100%!
SMS
Actually, I agree with westchesterparents.org.
For quite a few years, I corresponded with an Assemblymember who served while our 11% mayor was Speaker of the Assembly. He had quite a few interesting things to say about Mayor Eleven Percent and his fellow Democrats - such as the story that they were living in a parallel universe, but not in this one.
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