Posted on 09/05/2009 1:51:49 PM PDT by Still Thinking
Forty-two percent (42%) of American voters believe that a group of individuals randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the politicians currently in Congress, says the latest Rasmussen Reports survey. This number has changed by nine percent (9%) from last fall, when thirty-three percent (33%) believed the same thing.
The same number, forty-two percent (42%) disagree with that point of view, and sixteen percent (16%) are undecided.
Not surprisingly, the difference of opinions is consistent with party affiliation. Republicans would favor random individuals from the phone book over the Democrat controlled Congress by two to one, and Democrats believe the exact opposite by the same margin. source
But it still might not be time for Republicans to start basking in their new found popularity. In another poll, Rasmussen found that a whopping seventy- four percent (74%) of Republican voters believe their reps in Congress have not properly represented them in the past few years, and are all together out of touch with a main stream Republican.
Fifty-five percent (55%) believe that an average Republican Congressman is more liberal than the average Republican civilian. Only seventeen percent (17%) believe that Republican Congressmen are more conservative than Republican voters- somebody please tell Colin Powell. Twenty-four percent (24%) say Congressional Republicans and GOP voters are about the same in their views.
Eighty-four percent (84%) of GOP electorate want their reps to stand up for conservative values rather than try to find compromise with Barack Obama. Fourteen percent (14%) would like to see the opposite.
"Those in President Obama’s party overwhelmingly want the GOP to work more closely with the President. And they have a wildly different perception of the relationship between Republicans members of Congress and GOP voters. While Republicans and unaffiliated voters tend to see Republicans in Congress as more liberal than Republican voters, a plurality of Democrats (35%) hold the opposite view and believe the average Republican in Congress is more conservative than GOP voters. Nearly as many Democrats (33%) say that ideologically, Republicans voters and their Representatives share common ground. Just 18% of Democrats believe than the GOP representatives in Congress are more liberal than GOP voters.
"Overall, among all voters, 51% believe it is more important for the Republican Party to stand for what it believes in than for the GOP to work with President Obama. Forty-two percent (42%) disagree.
"In late April, voters were basically tied on this question.
"Just 24% of all voters nationwide think Democrats should pass a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress. Fifty-eight percent (58%) say Democrats should change the bill to win support from "a reasonable number of Republicans."
"Thirty-seven percent (37%) of all voters say the average Republican member of Congress is more liberal than the average GOP voter. Twenty-six percent (26%) believe the average GOP congressman is more conservative, and 28% say the two are about the same.
"Sixty-seven percent (67%) of all voters believe Washington politics is likely to become more partisan over the coming year. Fifty-one percent (51%) believe that Obama is governing as a partisan Democrat.
It’s not just Congress that needs to go. We need to get rid of the staffs.
The real power is often found behind the throne.
I know, you are right, but I think it is because some of this stuff sounds so far fetched, they need to open their eyes and realize we are being invaded by radicals. They need to realize that the dem party is being totally controlled by the most extreme radical liberals we have ever seen and that this is not about health care but about RADICALLY changing America as we know it.
Hmmm... didn’t America replace the President with someone random out of the phonebook?
How’s that working out?
OMG..this is hilarious.
Yeah, but there’s a good sized “bread and circuses” demographic among the public too. Even if their views are wrong, maybe the arrogance level would at least be lower and they’d think they were supposed to vote the way their constituents told them to.
Maybe that TV commercial where “loggers, etc” ran the country is on to something.
Couldn’t be any worse.
Well not the phone book from Hudson County, New Jersey... they’d have to conduct the Congressional sessions in Spanish.
I would support using the phone book from Wasilla, Alaska, though.
it was William Buckley who said, “I would rather be ruled by the first 100 names in the NY phone book..than...”
Forget the phone book, you could put together a better Congress with random fish from the ocean.
Ah, I see. So the problem is that we’ve been using Rats when we should have been using fish?
Maybe they should take the time to actually learn about whom they are voting for. Ignorant voters electing people they know nothing about have almost killed this country as it is.
Oh, yeah, and Rino’s. So out with the Rats and Rino’s and in with the fish.
Of course the voters don’t believe their own congressmen should be voted out.
Among all voters, 2% would like to be a fire truck. In April, the figure was 3%.
. . . it was William Buckley who said, “I would rather be ruled by the first 100 names in the NY phone book..than...”
What he said, in fact, was, "I am obliged to confess that I would rather be governed by the first five hundred names in the Boston telephone book than by the first five hundred professors of Harvard University."
Considering some of the views and a lot of the ignorance that most of the first five hundred names in the Boston or just about any other telephone book would prove to have of the Constitution, I think today swapping the 635 members of the U.S. Congress for 635 names chosen at random out of the telephone book would be nothing better than swapping one method of execution for another. The death of the proverbial thousand cuts would remain the same. Except, perhaps, that the mob rulers chosen at random out of the phone book would need a few thousand fewer pages to write the execution orders.
Should include every person in the Federal beauracracy. It is riddled with liberals (at best) or Marxists (at worst).
Forget the phone book, you could put together a better Congress with random fish from the ocean.Wouldn't that merely make literal what we know about the fish rotting from the head down? ;)
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