Connecting the Dots

Hearing the bickering between Democrats and Republicans in Washington is a normal occurrence. Most of the time each side takes advantage of some current negative event to make a political point. But when the current negative event had its birth during the Republicans watch, whatever spin comes from the Republicans now reeks of arrogance.

In most cases events that capture the nations attention are short lived. Something always seems to come along and bump it off the top. But the present recession is on American’s minds nearly 24-7, and they have had plenty of time to do their own analysis and become expert on the topic. So when some Republican tries to put political spin on what the now expert American public knows, the reaction can be from an eye roll to absolute anger.

In general the bad decisions that lead up to the economic crisis were from Republicans, or at least that is the very general perception. Many of them came during the George Bush presidency so at least there is a psychological Republican link. So even if some Democrats were involved, it still psychologically becomes the Republican’s fault.

So now President Obama has dug deep into the nations coffers and signed into law a stimulus package that will take about 18 month to completely execute. So when a Republican tries to suggest it is not working long before the 18 months has rolled around and suggest their plan is better, that connection again is made the this problem is the Republicans fault and it simply comes across as misleading for political gain. That single thought is very likely to linger until election day unless the Democrats mess up big time.

Politicians are now dealing with a well informed and very opinionated public. They have already made up their mind if their elected government official is on their last term or not. This recession is not going to leave peoples minds for many more years. The scores of unemployed and homeless will be scarred for many years to come. The last elections in November 2008 were well before Americans realized how bad this was going to be. If they had today’s knowledge on election day, there would be many more Democrats voted into office, of that there is little doubt.

However Americans still give congress very low marks and frequently the thoughts of giving them all the boot and starting with a fresh lot is a common thought. If this thinking continues, Americans may see the emergence of a third party that would rival the Democrats and Republicans. That reset congress political marketing tool does have its appeal to many Americans.

This is a unique situation for American politicians in that the public is well informed, and trying to pull the wool over their eyes has serious negative political repercussions. This is true for both Democrats and Republicans. Americans out of work have plenty of free time to do research on what got them into this situation, and as next elections draw near, the low number of undecided voters will likely be the barometer of a pending political hurricane that will blow away many multi term congressional incumbents.