Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
You hear a lot from Republicans crowing about President Obama's approval ratings dropping, and those of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid being very low. But the truth is that the public's perceptions of both parties has crashed over the last few months. Here's the yearlong trend from the Daily Kos polls:
And while the Democrats in Congress have serious unfavorable ratings, the Republicans are in even worse shape:
The net unfavorables for Democrats in Congress is now at -11. The Republicans are at -57.
And the same is true of the Congressional leadership. Pelosi and Reid are in bad shape -- quite justifiably -- but Boehner and McConnell are still far behind:
And interestingly, in all three cases the Democrats have begun to trend up and the Republicans are trending down. This won't change much for next year, of course. The GOP will pick up seats in both houses of Congress.
Politics
Comments
Choosing DailyKos as a source of information about party favorability seems rather dubious. Gallup doesn't do a weekly poll that matches this one, but these results don't jive with what DailyKos came up with very well.
Posted by: JasonTD | November 7, 2009 10:30 AM
What happenned mid-August? Republican approvals made a surge on all three graphs at the same time Democratic approvals dropped.
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | November 7, 2009 10:31 AM
JasonTD probably has a point regarding the specifics, but the thesis and trend are almost certainly real (both parties in decline in public opinion), and it's very good news.
It's taken more than 200 years for the people to realize that George Washington was correct -- political parties were (and still are) dangerous.
Posted by: Jim Babka | November 7, 2009 10:42 AM
August was when the crazy really started to be brought during all those health care town halls.
Posted by: bob | November 7, 2009 10:45 AM
Ah, Democracy!
You know, if we only had a theocratic cult of personality, our leaders would always be popular.
Posted by: rob | November 7, 2009 10:50 AM
You may want to edit how the images show up. In Firefox, everything from mid-September on is hidden by the right column.
Posted by: MRW | November 7, 2009 11:36 AM
Good catch MRW. I was just about to say I didn't think Ed had enough evidence on that graph to say "in all three cases the Democrats have begun to trend up and the Republicans are trending down." Then I read your post, noted I was using Firefox and very quickly said "view image." Makes much more sense now.
Anyway, at the risk of schadenfreude, this also makes me happy; I certainly don't hate either party, but my recently found political misery, it loves company!
Posted by: KKairos | November 7, 2009 12:29 PM
To their credit, Research 2000 does the polling for them and has a good reputation as far as I know.
Posted by: FishyFred | November 7, 2009 12:33 PM
I hate to argue with George Washington and Jim Babka, but there are no examples I can think of of a democracy, or any human society larger than a single person, that lacks parties. A completely non-partisan legislature would be paralyzed in the face of any but the most trivial issues.
If all candidates were non-partisan, how would voters really choose, since most people are not political junkies? Yes, you could read their positions on various issues, but often situations change between the campaign and when they are called on to vote.
I think of parties like brands. I could buy a car without a nameplate, based on a test drive and a look under the hood, but how can I honestly assess its long-run reliability. Having Ford or Honda on the rear is useful information in making my choice, simce I can then compare the car to its peers.
Posted by: JusticeLeague | November 7, 2009 1:36 PM
I hate to argue with George Washington and Jim Babka
Personally I have no problem arguing with both because history shatters their position with simple evidence.
A couple of examples of non-party or weak party democracies ... Weimar 1920-1933, Italy from 1945 to 1990.
In the latter, they suffered through 90 governments in 45 years, none lasting more than 7 years. In the former, they ended up with Hitler. They weren't able to accomplish much of anything, deal with problems, implement long term solutions, establish any sort of continuity. They failed miserably.
Now, if your goal is for government to fail miserably, then yes, by all means, get rid of parties. If, on the other hand, you actually want to address issues, solve social problems, establish a sound economy and foreign policy, then a strong party system (personally I would prefer a multi-party version) is necessary, so you're better off fixing what we have than lamenting that we have it.
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Also, while Daily Kos is a left leaning site, as has been pointed out, they get their data from Research 2000 which has solid methodology and procedures. There is room to debate and discuss their interpretation, but the actual data is hard to refute with solid methodology.
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 7, 2009 2:14 PM
dogmeat- I think you know that I really don't hate arguing with either George Washington or Jim Bubka.
The problem in Italy was not, I think, lack of parties or weak parties, so much as too many parties, leading to cobbled-together coalition governments, susceptible to falling every time a few members chose to bring them down. Israel has often suffered from a similar problem. There seems to be a happy median for the number of parties. 2 may well be too few, while 8 or 9 os too many. 3 or 4 seems to be optimal.
The US today suffers not from the presence of parties, but from the fact that there is too little discipline within the parties (at least in the Dems). The purpose of electing a government is to have them govern; i.e., implement the platform they were elected on. Then the electorate gets to judge and either re-elect them or hand the ball to someone else. The voters elected Democrats to pass health care reform. The spectacle of party leaders having to beg and cajole their own members is appalling. Those who can't support the fundamental items in the party platform were guilty of false advertising when they ran under that party label.
Posted by: JusticeLeague | November 7, 2009 2:37 PM
To JusticeLeague's point - the best alternative I've encountered is where liberal democracies are served by a number of parties rather than a few. A buddy of mine from the Netherland's always brags that they have about 12 parties with eight enjoying some formal representational power. According to him, the net effect is the craziness we see out of some our parties is filtered out prior to policy passage as these parties caucus around issues rather than a party who funds their primary campaigns.
I'd like to see at least the following here:
Greens (progressive, socialist-leaning, leftist, great guys like Rep. Weiner and possibly Russ Feingold but also the wingnuts on the left)
Democrats (the current mainstream Democrats like Chuck Schumer)
Plutocrats (Rockefeller Republicans - secular, socially liberally, pro-defense and economic growth)
Social Conservatives (the wingnuts on the right)
Libertarians - Even if they weren't able to resist their own set of wingnuts (e.g., gold standard) - they could serve as the conscience and benchmark for the country to gauge both the Left's and the Right's policy proposals. I think all policies should be gauged against the Libertarian's best principals and I would hope win the day only if the net benefit overcomes their abstract values regarding individual liberty (while I think they often go too far, I think this party continues to serve as an excellent test to insure we don't expand gov't beyond necessity).
I could see the Greens, Plutocrats, and Libertarians caucusing around many social issues to defend our rights. I could also see the Greens, Dems, and Libertarians on economic issues checking the power of Plutocrats leveraging the insanity of the social conservatives serving as their voter sheep in a way that kept them focused on economic growth rather than defense of select business interests.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 7, 2009 2:42 PM
Michael Heath- Rockefeller Republicans? That would be convenient; they could hold their national convention at the 3rd booth on the left in Joe's Diner....
Posted by: JusticeLeague | November 7, 2009 3:43 PM
Political parties were created to win elections, not to be the expressions of ideology that they have become and which they do so badly. And how can it be any different? The entire idea of right versus left or conservtive versus liberal as somehow representing the range of possible perspective is lame. It confuses the shadow of reality for the actual landscape it's pretending to represent.
At one time, not too long ago really, there was a diverse range of perspectives the two parties. What happened? Who knows, but we can see that the main sources and mediators of our perspectives on public affairs does land-office business selling tickets to the event and greater the sense of conflict the higher their ad revenues, so why spend any time examining the complexities and alternatives? Besides most of the audience would find it boring.
Posted by: doug l | November 7, 2009 3:49 PM
Posted by: James Hanley | November 7, 2009 4:31 PM
Political science is just cruel. I get a little sad every time I think of all those politicians trapped between the glass and that little plastic square under the microscope. They just want to swim around eating other politicians, man, not do so while getting stared at by some nerd in a labcoat!
Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 7, 2009 5:41 PM
Justiceleague,
That's actually my point. I would argue that they had so many small parties because their parties were so weak and unable to establish more sweeping agendas that could bring together larger bodies of voters. The same thing happened in Germany in the 20s, weak parties split up into numerous factions that then each became tiny, ineffective, minor parties.
In general, large, more diverse parties force political systems into more moderate positions. I don't think our system is the optimal system, with just the two, as evidenced by the current meltdown of the GOP and failure of any legitimate debate outside of the Democrats who, currently, represent reasonable politics (which, when you think about it, is pretty fucked up). Similar approaches developed in the countries with parliamentary systems and 4-8 significant, cohesive parties. They establish coalitions that tend towards the middle and then fluctuate back and forth between liberal and conservative policies as the electorate reins them back in from becoming too polarized in either direction.
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 7, 2009 6:36 PM
Italy between 1945 and 1990? You are kidding right? Ever heard of the party Christian Democracy. True, they never ruled alone, but they dominated coalition governments for 50 years, until their nefarious connections with several unsavory groups (including the Sicilian Mafia) were uncovered.
If you want to see a "democracy without parties" in action try England to the 1740's, of course in those days the peasants were expected to vote for their landlords and 'rotten boroughs' abounded. Is that the kind of democracy you had in mind? - DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | November 7, 2009 10:21 PM
I'm confused, above the graph it says "ratings from 1/8 to 10/29". Where are the last five points? The graph stops at 9/17. Nr. 6 mentions this also, and I'm not using Firefox.
Posted by: nacky | November 9, 2009 12:01 PM