Posted on 06/04/2008 6:41:12 PM PDT by Red Steel
As Election 2008 draws ever closer, it is hard to overstate the disconnect between the American people and their government.
Just 17% of voters say that the federal government represents the will of the American people. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 68% disagree and 15% are not sure (see video). These views are consistent across partisan and demographic lines. Men, women, young, old, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, all offer a bleak assessment of what is supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters say that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interest. Just 15% disagree with that assessment.
Only 51% believe that elections in the United States are fair to voters. Thirty percent (30%) disagree. Perhaps reflecting the end of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, women are less likely than men to see elections as fair.
Over the past decade, the number of people who see elections as fair has remained quite constant. One consistent theme over the past decade is that supporters of victorious candidates are more likely to see the election process as fair. When Democrats controlled the White House in the 1990s, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to see elections as fair. For the past seven plus years, with a Republican in the White House, Republicans are more likely to see elections as fair.
This survey data reflects a very high degree of discontent, but it is not a new phenomenon and it is not a fleeting moment of unhappiness among voters. These attitudes have remained consistent for more than a decade. The results tend to highlight a stark contrast between the way that Americans view their government and the way they view the nation. While 67% of Americans believe the federal government is a self-serving special interest group, 64% believe that American society is generally fair and decent. The survey also found that 76% of voters are confident their votes will be properly counted and that the appropriate candidate will be declared the winner.
See survey questions and toplines. Crosstabs available for Premium Members only.
This survey of 1,200 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports May 31-June 1, 2008. The margin of sampling error for each survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
That number sounds high.
Unfortunately far to many of the balance of that number think Obama is the solution to the change that they hope will represent them when the change they hope for comes.
That's because many of the folks in the Federal Government would rather represent their own self-interests first.
While that is not the case with all reps, it certainly is the case for many of them!
No way! Really?
Cincinnatus, where are you?
Wonder what John McCain (of McCain/Feingold fame) thinks about these percentages, since his crowning achievement is to shut 'the people' out from participating in the political process as it pertains to 'issues' which are important to us.
Special Interest Group indeed ... the political class has made themselves just that with McCain/Feingold.
They probably work there...
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters say that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interest. Just 15% disagree with that assessment.
Now THIS poll gives me hope.
Most Americans YEARN to throw these yokels OUT on their keesters and to have these theives STOP robbing us blind....
But yearning and doing are, as we can see, two different things....
May we add to the discontent leaders who can bring this country back from the brink of insanity fueled destruction...MOST of this country understands where the problem is -...it’s the government, stupid!
OK - lets take a head count - who agrees.
Governemnt is the problem. It should never “represent” the will of the people; it should obey the will of the people.
Hear, hear!
If Obama is elected he is the fuse which will set this bomb off. His incomptence will be so legendary it will start a revolution.
Lets face it.
The dems hate the dem congress for not ending the war, and they hate the president for starting it. The republicans hate the dem congress for a variety of reasons, and they are also generally unhappy with bush for multiple reasons.
Throw in high gasoline prices with the never ending stream of bad news from the media 24/7, and all of this amounts to that poll result in a nutshell.
So no one can agree on anything?
Maybe THAT’S why things are as they are.
Sounds about right, the crooks buying the politicians are about the only ones feeling represented.
I do not doubt it....not only incompetence but treachery....
Yet, the American people keep electing those who would steal from their pocketbooks and make living in America an increasingly difficult proposition. And, we are now only one general election from electing an utterly terrible person as president while the only viable choice is a lukewarm sometime-Democrat-wannabe.
No, America deserves everything it has got and everything it will get. There just isn’t enough discerning power in the brain cells of your average sheep being led to the slaughter to stem the tide.
Working for the government was once known as “Public Service” and those people were there to serve the various needs of the people - servants of the people..
Today the roles are reversed.
It is a socialist autocracy that regulates every aspect of your life, except for monopolies and the lending industry
right , left , the only difference anymore is the sales pitch, one sells defense, the other sells entitlements
The yearning is there...the leadership is not. It will come, but I tire of waiting! It certainly isn't on the immediate horizon.
The federal government, in all branches, is guilty of major disdain for and violations of the U. S. Constitution. Few have done more to pervert the relationship of the people to the federal government than did F.D. Roosevelt, who undertook on a massive and all pervading basis to subdivide the citizenry into as many “victim” groups as possible, each of which could be portrayed as suffering some want or lack as a group, while for every such want or lack there could be devised a tax-funded federal benefit, grant or program, thereby making total trash of the principle of subsidiarity and training the citizenry to look to the federal government, rather than to their own persons and their individual abilities and resources, or to local and state agencies, as the proper sources of relief and welfare.
Agreed.
Who were the 17%? Government employees? LOL.
I won’t disagree with that. FDR figured out real fast how to raise money with this subdivision strategy.
Wrong.
Ours is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
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