The noise you hear is the grinding of Democratic teeth over the botched launch and arguably deeper design problems of the Affordable Care Act. Democratic pols had been gleefully anticipating the negative impact the Republican Party would incur as a result of the recent government shutdown debacle. … Now Democrats […] Read more »
How much are we willing to pay for the pursuit of happiness?
Never mind the conventional speculation about whether the resolution of some political standoff in Washington favors Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, “entitlement” fans or skeptics. The more fundamental question, says Benjamin Radcliff, is this: Does it make people happier or not? Radcliff is a political scientist at Notre Dame […] Read more »
A plague on both your parties
… 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 […] Read more »
NBC/WSJ poll: Obama approval sinks to new low
President Barack Obama’s approval rating has declined to an all-time low as public frustration with Washington and pessimism about the nation’s direction continue to grow, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. … And for the first time in the survey, even Obama’s personal ratings are upside-down, with […] Read more »
Behind Roar of Politics, Whispers of Race Persist
… Whites tend to hold negative views of Obamacare, while blacks tend to like it. Specifically, 55 percent of whites, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found this year, consider Mr. Obama’s health care law a bad idea, while 59 percent of blacks call it a good idea. On immigration, […] Read more »
If the shutdown didn’t hurt Republicans now, what about the 2014 midterms?
There has been a lot of talk about the possible electoral consequences of the government shutdown. And while the 2014 midterm elections are still a year away, we have two elections in 2013 that can serve as test cases of sorts. In both the New Jersey special Senate and Virginia […] Read more »