Does Corruption Matter? Taking a look at the numbers

For those who've ever wondered just how much corruption it takes for Americans' to start paying attention and start demanding change, 2006 may be the year of the answer.
Already in the first week of the new year, the biggest federal investigation of bribery and corruption in U.S. history has begun to bear fruit--the rotten kind that makes you sick, or at least it should. And the potential fallout for the GOP in congress already has Democrats fundraisers pounding the phones and jamming the wires with press releases. But a look at the available polling numbers suggests Democrats shouldn't assume they've got it made just yet.
The most recent job approval ratings for U.S. Congress, in polling conducted for ABC News and the Washington Post, from the 15th through the 18th of last month (pre-Abromoff) found that 43% of adults nationwide approve of the job Congress is doing, 53% disapprove and 4% are unsure--a modest improvement over the 5 year low of 37% approval that the ABC News / WashPost poll had Congress had stuck at since late spring.
But asked in that same poll if they "approved or disapproved of the way your own representative to the U.S. House of Representatives in Congress is handling his or her job," 65% of respondents said they approved of the job being done by their representative, up 5% from November ! ? (pollingreport.com).
The picture doesn't any any clearer looking at the results of a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll taken during the same period, Dec 16-18th of 2005, that focused more specifically on the issue of corruption.


So what does this suggest ? Americans generally believe that there's only a marginal difference in character of the Republican and Democrats ? Maybe. But this doesn't mean that corruption is not an important issue.

Nor does it mean that voters don't think Republicans can solve the problem, at least prior to the Abramoff indictment. Consider the following questions asked Greenberg Quinlan Rosner's poll for NPR of Likely Voters:


43% of respondents believe George W. Bush would do a better job improving ethics in D.C. ! Wow. Well, considering that 83% of New Mexican Republicans approved of the job George W. in the latest SurveyUSA poll, maybe this shouldn't be such a surprise.
However, all these numbers will undoubtedly change when the next round of polling is released. The question is whether voters views on the nature of the problem will have changed, and where they place the blame.

In his summary of the polling results, Stan Greenberg writes:

Not yet factored into the change equation is the issue of corruption. The indictments and
investigations, stretching from both houses of Congress to the White House, from Washington to California, have hardly penetrated the public consciousness. For now, voters in the NPR survey see this as a problem of both parties, business as usual in Washington. When asked which party is more responsible for the corruption in Washington, 65 percent of voters say both parties are equally responsible. Democrats have only a 7-point advantage on “improving ethics in Washington, D.C.,” with 15 percent saying neither party. At the moment, presentation of information and Republican arguments that this is a bi-partisan / few-bad-apples problem does not push voters away from their current interpretation.

This should be an important warning flag to Democrats running for office around the country. For sure, people think there is a special-interest mess in Washington, which increases the mood for change as the indictments and trials begin to play out in larger numbers. But Democrats will not get heard unless they are reformers – differentiated from the special-interest cesspool in Washington and prepared to advocate real change.

The caution about both parties on ethics does not greatly change the structure supporting a change vote in 2006. Voters are looking for ways to vote for change and that desire will continue to shape our politics in 2006.

How this plays out in New Mexico is what's most intriguing. As our Attorney General ramps up her campaign to unseat Heather Wilson, the news of corruption at the national level amongst Republicans continues to be mirrored here in the state by stories involving Democrats. So while Democrats thinking nationally may believe Heather to be more vulnerable then ever, which may be true, at the end of the day it's all relative to her Democratic opponents involvement in local cases of corruption--or, as may be the case, lack of involvement in their prosecution.

Comments

[Avelino]

I also think it's a matter of what the Democrats do with the corruption discussion in the first place. Will they take a hard line, and hang those Democrats accused of wrongdoing out to dry? Or will they slink to the shadows and let the public forget about the scandals?