This year, no one in Washington is doing a good job. That’s according to favorability polls, which in the last few months have steadily churned out record low after record low of the American public’s confidence in its leaders. …
If trends hold, Washington is set to close out the year with some of the lowest approval ratings in polling history. The driving force behind the dismal numbers of 2013, says Carroll Doherty, associate director at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, is likely a political “perfect storm.”
“You have a dismal economy, you have partisan gridlock, and you have a president whose signature initiative is now getting a pretty problematic rollout,” Doherty says. People shouldn’t underestimate the effect of congressional gridlock on American perception of the government, he adds. “The public looks at this and just kind of collectively throws up their hands.” CONT.
Marina Koren, National Journal