It's not just Democrats and liberals: Independents and moderates also want Congress
to pass the damn bill already (John Summers II/Reuters)
Greg Sargent:
Despite the ubiquitous claims that Obama’s new populism is only about juicing the base, today’s poll shows strong support for Obama on jobs among moderates and independents, according to data provided by the Post polling team.
* A majority of moderates (53-27) and a plurality of independents (44-31) trust Obama more on jobs.
* A majority of moderates (52-34) and a plurality of independents (47-38) support Obama’s jobs plan.
* A majority of moderates (61-35) and of independents (52-44) say the jobs plan would improve the unemployment picture.
Post polling guru Peyton Craighill has the partisan breakdown in handy chart form and adds more analysis that you should check out. He points out that the movement among independents is what has firmed up the turnaround for Obama on the jobs issue. If this doesn’t put an end to the ridiculous meme that Obama’s new populism is only about playing to Dems, then nothing will.
Despite these numbers, congressional Republicans are doing their best to stonewall President Obama's jobs bill. Eric Cantor is refusing to even bring it up for a vote, and Mitch McConnell thought it would be cute to demand an up-or-down vote on the jobs plan as part of the Chinese currency manipulation bill.
Cantor and McConnell want to embarrass Democrats by portraying them as divided on the jobs bill, but the vast majority of congressional Democrats support the jobs bill. It's true they are not perfectly united—Harry Reid said as much today. But even if a few Democrats make the political mistake of withholding their support for the jobs bill, that doesn't mean Cantor and McConnell are right when they try to blame Democrats for its defeat.
Think, for a moment, about the absurdity of the Cantor-McConnell position. You've got a jobs bill that was proposed by a Democratic president, has the support of the vast majority of the Democratic caucus, and is opposed by every single Republican in Congress—yet they want people to believe that Democrats are responsible for blocking it?
Nobody is going to buy that argument, nor should they. It's true that there are a handful of wavering Democrats who should take a look at these polls and get on the right side of the issue, but the big problem here is the Republican Party. If just one in four Republicans in Congress had the political courage to break with their party, we could finally get something done. But as long as they sit on their hands and refuse to pass a jobs bill, we're all going to be paying the price.