… We’ve finally found an issue on which almost all Americans, right and left, agree: We hate having a federal government that creates problems instead of solving them. And the shutdown, the Obamacare rollout and the phone-tapping scandal are all government-created problems. …
While Republicans get most of the blame for the government shutdown, voters tend to blame the president — any president — when the economy is bad. In addition, voters generally believe it’s the president’s job to make the federal government run well, and with the healthcare rollout and the NSA issues following so closely on the heels of the shutdown, the government isn’t exactly humming. “When the system isn’t working, no one comes out well,” noted veteran pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. CONT.
Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times