From Alex Pascover…
I'm sure I'm about the hundredth person to email you about this, but I wanted to comment on your post regarding the presidential vs. congressional disapproval numbers. First, I'm not sure it's correct that as many people disapprove of Congress as Bush (as opposed to people who simply do not approve), but maybe it's so. Regardless, the disapproval of Congress is bifurcated — there are those who disapprove of Congress from the right; there are many more of us who disapprove of Congress from the left because they haven't acted decisively enough to end the war or implement the (progressive) domestic policy proposals that swept them into office. (Of course, this is overwhelmingly laid at the feet of Senate Republicans who have filibustered literally every single piece of domestic legislation this year, but poor press coverage of what's happening in Congress means that this is not widely understood.) That's not the case with the president — most everybody hates him for about the same reasons.
Moreover, disapproval of the president means something much more significant than disapproval of Congress simply because he's a single person. You can disapprove of Congress as a whole still liking your representatives — indeed, that's the case for most people. And it's why most members get re-elected. (Unlike you, I don't think this is a bad thing, although it will be better a year from now when the Democrats' margin in the Senate and a friendly president will make the GOP intransigence unsustainable.) But that doesn't make sense with the president, where the man and the institution are the same guy. For this reason, the measurement scales are way off — Bush's unpopularty numbers are historic. Congressional unpopularity — even if the numbers are the same — is just high; it's nothing like a record. And that's because these institutional reasons put a lot of downward pressure on Congressional approval numbers and a lot of upward pressure on the president's in any situation. It's astounding that Bush is so unpopular that he's managed to overcome the significant positive bias in these kinds of polls for a president.
Obviously, these numbers would make more of a difference if Bush were running again, but as you said, McCain is basically running for the a third Bush term (except, mind-bogglingly, with even an less consistent policy agenda), so it still has some predictive value.
Yeah…I think McCain's current popularity is because people keep hearing the word "maverick" and not realizing that his most recent pledges are essentially to do everything Bush has done wrong except to do more of it. There's also a great personal affection for McCain. He's charming at times and funny and a genuine American hero, even if he can't currently bring himself to actually vote against the torturing of others. I expect the nation's view of him to change before November, especially if he keeps having these "senior moments" that are causing even some who like him to wonder if he's up to the job. The way it seems to be going is that on odd-numbered days, he says something painfully honest and damning to his own stated platform and then on even-numbered days, he goes out and "clarifies" that he meant something else.
But you're right. People on the right don't like Congress because it's controlled by Democrats and it keeps refusing to do what Bush wants. People on the left don't like it because it isn't actively undoing much of what Bush has done. Folks in the middle look at all that gridlocking and political tap-dancing and just moan at what an inefficient body we have there. I think the knee-jerk tendency to return all those people to office is a bad thing but you're right. We hate Congress as a whole and often love our own reps. I'm very happy with my Congressguy, Henry Waxman; not so thrilled with either of California's senators.
I am not, by the way, in favor of term limits for any office. I think that if we want to elect the same person over and over until they drop, we should be able to do it. I just think we shouldn't do it as often as we do already.