Resurgent Republic

Compared to 2006 and 2008, there is greater parity today in how voters perceive the two major political parties, largely due to concern over a weakened economy, anemic job creation, health care reform and record government spending and debt.  In fact most polls give Republicans a slight advantage in the generic congressional ballot, and Independents prefer the Republican candidate 43 to 37 percent according to Gallup.

(Editors note: This is cross posted at The Weekly Standard).

Pew Research released a new analysis today showing increasing concern among Americans about the federal budget deficit in the past six months. Those citing red ink as the “most important problem” reached the highest level in twenty years and nearly doubled, (from 6% in August of 2009 to 11% in January of 2010) since last summer.

In a recent Weekly Standard column, Resurgent Republic Advisory Board Member Gary Andres discusses four reasons why Democrats believe they are right to move forward with a partisan health care bill, which sheds light on why many Democrats are convinced “the only thing worse than passing health care reform is doing nothing at all.”

One year ago this week, the White House held its first public meeting on health care. Since that time, public disapproval of Democrat health care proposals has steadily increased as Independents joined Republicans in opposition.  Believing it is untenable to start over, the Democratic leadership has become wedded to the unpopular legislation, even if that means passing the final bill via reconciliation.

Ed Goeas of the Tarrance Group (and Resurgent Republic Advisory Board member) notes that dogged pursuit by the White House and Democrats in Congress to pass their version of health care reform has had a "reverse effect among seniors" and has alienated this cohort "due to their concern of rising costs and cuts to Medicare/Medicaid." The political shift among seniors should be troubling for the majority since this group "[is] a much larger share of the electorate in midterms elections."  Read the full memo.