Reversing The Slide

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, looking at filibuster stats from McClatchy Newspapers showing conservatives taking obstruction to new heights, writes:

...the number of filibusters has been relatively steady since 1986 — until this year, when Republicans found themselves in the minority for the first time in a decade and decided to throw an unprecedented temper tantrum about it. If they keep things going at their current pace, they'll have conducted 153 filibusters by the end of 2008, compared to the previous record of 58.

Drum notes their motivation:

...a desperate desire to kill popular legislation quietly (the press doesn't spend much time reporting on routine filibusters) rather than force President Bush to kill popular legislation in full public view (the press does report on presidential vetoes).

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, trying to take advantage of the media’s passivity, is actively trying to avoid responsibility for blocking popular legislation.

On CNN Sunday, he shamelessly attacked the Senate leadership: “the American people are looking at this Congress and saying, where's the legislation? What are you going to do to make America better?”

He never mentioned he has led every filibuster preventing bills from heading to the president’s desk.

But such blame-shifting may be getting harder.

Last week marked the first time this year when legislation wasn't killed quietly, after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid forced conservatives to filibuster Iraq legislation all night long.

Did that make a difference in public perception? Perhaps.

A new ABC/Washington Post poll, conducted last week during and after the filibuster, asked the public their opinion of Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

Approval of congressional Democrats went up 2 points to 46%, reversing a 10-point slide between April and June. Meanwhile, approval of congressional Republicans dropped 2 points to 34%.

That 2-point movement is within the poll’s margin of error, so we should be restrained in our analysis. At the same time, after six months of quiet conservative obstruction dragging down Democratic approval, no one would expect a major poll shift after a one-day event.

Yet just as the one day of fresh pressure moved one senator to end her obstruction, it also appears to have reversed the slide in public approval.

Standing up to the obstructionists, instead of futilely trying to accommodate them, is beginning to yield results -- both inside the Senate and out among the public. And of course, the better it plays with the public, the more senators won’t want to obstruct the public will.

But it’s just a beginning. For more results, we’ll need more pressure.

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