from a recent Q-pac poll:

Although only 37 percent rate the President's efforts to reduce the budget deficit as excellent or good, 71 percent saying reducing unemployment is more important. And voters favor 72 - 22 percent Obama's $100 billion dollar package of tax cuts for small business and government spending to increase employment.

Voters believe 59 - 33 percent that spending to create jobs reduces deficits because job holders pay taxes, rather than increasing deficits through waste.

The Dems are losing Independents because they look like the incompetent fools the public voted out just four years ago.  Part of the reason (i think) that they look like incompetent fools is that they can't get people - people like Evan Bayh - on board with a coherent agenda.  And so it ends up looking more and more like insider trading and very little regard for what people believe is necessary.

The public is willing to be patient with deficits as long as they think a grownup will come along and make the hard decisions when they have to.  But watching Congress today does not inspire one to believe any hard decisions will be made - or acted upon - ever.

And part of the reason no hard decisions will be made is that the DLC-inspired (never mind the Republican) ethic of Washington today is business first, business last, and business often.

Poll link: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1423

But I thought this would be good to include as well:

When senator-elect Brown goes to Washington, do you think he should mainly work with the Democrats to try to get some Republican ideas into legislation or should mainly work to stop the Democratic agenda?
82% Work with Democrats, 11% Stop Democratic agenda
On health care: 70% Work with Democrats, 28% Stop changes

Link: http://www.pollster.com/blogs/ma_sen_election_post_12021.php

I haven't seen or heard anyone refer to this poll since it was taken.  Probably doesn't fit the narrative well enough.

Lori, you are dead on. Voters are very unhappy with congress and their bahvior in general. They see the healthcare debacle as another sign that Washington is both deaf and corrupt. With voters so unhappy, its incumbents in general in trouble, it stands to reason that this November could be a complete disaster for the Democratic party....Instead of focusing on the economy and jobs, the President and congress pissed away a year on healtchare. They could have passed a small healthcare bill that woudl have at least helped those without care, instead they shot for the moon and crashed.

Anyone who thinks that Americans are upset and deeply concerned about government spending are horribly misinformed.

It is perception. Voters would respect strong leadership. The Democratic Party was seen as continuing the Bush bailouts and other kind of crap that has NOTHING to do with liberal ideas. The Demcratic Party was seen as indecisive on the healthcare bill and who caused it - the White house and the conservative senators. Did Feingold get the special attention Ben Nelson and Lieberman did while modifying the healthcare bill?

What lost MA was the base was not energized and did not bother supporting a weak campaign in enough numbers. The independents usually go to someone with strong direction or the perception of it. Coakley did not show that. The party did not sohw that. So the other side was mobilized and showed up.

By the way, Scott Brown supported stuff at the state level that he claimed he was against at the national level. How do you explain that as the election was lost based on policy?

Who among the liberals adovcated two wrongs? Liberals have had ideas to reduce the deficit, but went unheeded. How is the new budget kowtowing to liberal spending as claimed by Lori?

The only thing I disagree with liberals is they have a tendency to advocate higher taxes more than fighting their battles hard enough to repriortize government spending. We do not need higher taxes. What we need is balanced spending and more audits of the spending and punishment of fraud in government.

Not spending on inner cities is continuining to wreak bad business for us in the long term. Each time, we raise a generation of latch key kids with no programs to keep them occcupied, that is a wasted generation that causes us problems with crime , drug addiction, and other societal problems that cost the country money and prestige. Spending on social causes is good business for the country.  BUt you have to fully commit to them to make those social programs work. Halfway committment is just a waste of money.

Pssst, facts don't matter... Spain, one of the more fiscally responsible countiries (solid surpluses until 2008, first reaction to crises was a large tax-cut) is in toruble. France - which ran large budget defecits (not as large as the US, but hey) during the 2000s and has cut no taxes in response to the crises is doing well (better than the US).

Krugman has the facts up - Psian and Greece's problems are casued by it's lack of monetary policy, which favors Germany/France over their smaller economies.

Spain's Socialist government now faces nearly 20% unemployment, mainly because they tried to spend their way out of a recession. Their costly "job creation" measures, which left them with a deficit in 2009 equal to 11.4% of GDP (that's substantially over the eurozone limit of 3%.) only made the recession worse. They also learned the hard way that green job initiatives sound great, but there's only one problem: they don't create jobs.

Any of this stuff---massive "stimulus" measures, rising unemployment, promises of green jobs---sound familiar?

Your response to the current wave of overspending (e.g, an $800 billion sedative program) seems to be, "hey, Bush did it too!" So, are we going to double-down on stupid? Wouldn't it be better to do things differently than Bush, given the mess he created?

Unfunded liabilities for Medicare are now estimated by its Board of Trustees at $38 trillion. When the government created Medicare in 1966, the projection was for inflation-adjusted annual costs to rise to $12 billion by 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $107 billion, and we all know what's happened since then. So much for government estimates on health care.....but what the hell? Let's layer in one more entitlement program with nationalized health care; it's only money.

Entitlement reform would be a good place to start; anything else is just kicking the can down the road to the next generation. Evan Bayh was derided whenever he raised the topic; it's no wonder he's decided to move on. Good for him; I hope he does become a lobbyist and that he makes a ton of money.

I'm intrigued, but I'd have to think about that some more.  The Deficit commission got 40 Dem and 13 Rep votes (it needed 60, of course).  It would've gotten 60 if the seven Republicans who cosponsored the legislation had voted for it instead of against it.  I guess the big question is how this went down.  Was Reid counting on having seven more Republican votes?  Did Reid know it was going to fail and didn't whip the seven extra votes anyhow?  I wonder. 

The degree to which Dorgan and Bayh are shooting their own party in the foot, it only makes sense if they are mad at Reid for allowing it to fail.  This suggests Reid knew ahead of time that it was dead and failed to whip the extra votes.  Still, it seems odd to blame the Dems for getting 40 votes on this when seven Republican cosponsors backed down.  Dunno.

We're not discussing his re-election prospects but rather the notion that Jerome suggested that Biden might not be the VP nominee on the ticket in 2012 and that Bayh might then get that nod. And I countered that I would think that having an Obama-Bayh ticket wouldn't be well-received among progressives. My sense is that such a ticket would keep a large percentage of progressives at home in 2012.

Cory Booker seems really impressive and not just from an oratorical POV. But I do not know if Obama's disappointing tenure so far will make your typical white voter wary of another smooth talking charismatic african american leader on the same ticket. Unless they see Booker actually governs. Any NJ residents care to shed some light on Booker and if he is for real?

I think the younger progressive Democratic Party leaders need to step up too instead of just accepting their fate. They should find a way to sell the progressive message using the cost benefit analysis of programs they espouse and stop saying we must be ready for more taxes. I like the idea of the war tax. If people are going to blindly support a war, then let's fund the war through a separate tax and see if people really support the war.