John Podhoretz draws a distinction, in his New York Post column, between those who get their information from the awkwardly-named “Mainstream Media” (I prefer traditional media) and those who follow (or follow, in addition to newspaper and television) political blogs and Web sites, and hypothesizes that the latter are getting a much different election picture than the former. Those on “Blog Time,” Podhoretz argues, are more attuned to subtle or even significant shifts of voter zeitgeist: Rep. Harold Ford had a bad week; Republicans have put the worst of the ongoing Foley mess behind them; this district’s latest poll looks good for the incumbent, and so on so forth. Those on “Mainstream Media Time,” by contrast, are getting fed a steady diet of one way stories suggesting that Republicans are in trouble, according to Podhoretz.

For what it’s worth, my impression of the tenor of stories in papers and television versus what blogs are saying squares pretty well with Podhoretz, but I think the difference is better explained by the audience each is trying to reach–people who follow politics more closely will be far more interested in the ups and downs week-to-week than people who (apologies for putting it this way) have better things to do with their time. So while I might suddenly find it fascinating that new polls show challenger Eric Dickerson has pulled ahead of Rep. Julia Carson (and further, that that poll may well be inaccurate due to limitations in polling techniques for House races), I wouldn’t expect, say, someone who’s not obsessed with politics or who doesn’t live in Indiana’s seventh district to find this all that fascinating.

One thing I’d fault traditional media for is the extent to which, once again, its coverage is poll driven rather than substantive, and it seems like a lot of the blogs are following suit. Polls are interesting as far as they go, but the only poll that matters, of course, is the one on election day; to win that one, the campaigns and parties are raising and spending obscene amounts of campaign cash. I’m far more interested in who’s giving that money than anything in the latest poll results.

I’m also getting more and more interested in how campaigns are spending that money (and what they’re spending it on). Is there a channel of communication we’re missing, a microtargeting effort that lets a campaign (or rather, its volunteers) speak directly to voters, making pre-determined pitches on the basis of voter preferences to get people to the polls on Nov. 7? To me, that’s a much more interesting question than whether people who closely follow political blogs are much more up to speed on nuances in political races than those who don’t.

0 Comments

CNN reports this morning a new poll which shows the depths to which people have come to think that Congress is corrupt.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Half of all Americans believe most members of Congress are corrupt — a figure that has risen 12 points since the start of the year — and more than a third think their own representative is crooked, according to a new poll released Thursday by CNN. According to the poll, a majority disapproves of how both parties are handling their jobs in Congress. Just 42 percent approve of how the Democrats are doing in Congress, while 54 percent disapprove. The GOP fares even worse — only 36 percent approve of their performance in Congress, while 61 percent disapprove. Pollsters from Opinion Research Corp. interviewed 1,012 Americans from Friday through Sunday. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. In January, 22 percent of those polled said they believed their own member of Congress was corrupt, a number that has jumped to 36 percent since then.

It’s hard to imagine Congress sinking any lower in the court of public opinion. Surely it’s time for some folks up on the Hill to be thinking about what can be done early in the next Congress to begin to regain trust in the institution. Could transparency breed more trust? We think so.

Here are 5 simple ideas that would go a long way:

Current reporting requirements for Members of Congress should be updated and expanded. Members are now required to disclose campaign receipts and expenditures, personal financial holdings, trips, gifts and travel. These reports should be improved in several respects. All reports should be required to be filed electronically. They all should be filed monthly, in a uniform electronic format, and made available online in searchable format within 24 hours of their filing. 

Expansion of reporting requirements that would enhance the openness of Congressional activity would include the online posting of the official lawmakers’ and senior staff daily schedules, including all appointments with lobbyists and fundraisers. (See the work of our Punch Clock campaign.)

Current reporting requirements for lobbyists should be updated and expanded. Lobbyists are now required to disclose report minimal information about their fees and contact with lawmakers. These disclosures should also be amended so that lobbyists file monthly reports, in a uniform electronic format, and make those reports available online in searchable format within 24 hours of their filing.

There should be greater transparency of legislative activity. When Members of Congress take legislative action - introducing a bill, offering an amendment or earmark, inserting a statement into a Committee Report or the Congressional Record or similar action - the lawmaker should be required to disclose their role in that action and the direct beneficiary if there is one. Such information should be disclosed online in a timely fashion. All legislation should be posted online for a minimum of 72 hours before voting can take place.

There should be greater transparency for correspondence with regulatory agencies. Consistent with the principles reflected in the Freedom of Information Act, correspondence and memoranda of communications between a Member or staff of a Member, and an Executive Branch agency or regulatory agency, excepting communications concerning the eligibility of an individual constituent of the communicating Member for a personal benefit authorized by an existing federal statute or regulation, should become part of a public record, accessible and maintained online, in searchable text format.

Congress Should Establish an Independent Office of Public Integrity to Insure Compliance with Disclosure and Related Ethics Rules. Given the degree of non-compliance with existing disclosure requirements, Congress must provide for the effective independent monitoring and enforcement of all these reporting, disclosure and other related ethics rules.

 
There is no question that timely online access to information about the Congress and its members will enable citizens and the press to better understand the activities of their lawmakers and the institution, to monitor the interplay between lawmakers and lobbyists, and enable Congress to better police itself. The time has never been more ripe to make it happen.

0 Comments

We are so pleased with the results and process of our first online polling that we are now thinking about our next steps. We’d love to dig a little deeper and ask a series of questions about specific ways to make members of Congress and their business more transparent.

We might ask some of the questions that we asked in our launch poll, like requiring disclosure of all money raised for a campaign by registered lobbyists (this idea has been picked up by Public Campaign Action Fund and Common Cause in their  recentlly launched national pledge campaign), requiring specific disclosure of earmarks, or requiring lawmakers to file reports on legislation they have introduced that would benefit a campaign contributor.

But before we make any decisions, we’d like some ideas from the online community who posted our most recent poll. Tell us what you think about how Congress canbe more open about their business –  our business. We’ll work your ideas into the next series of questions we ask.

We see this polling effort as an ongoing effort and we need your ideas to make it work.

0 Comments

It’s Friday. There’s plenty of news in the air, but most of it on subjects – like the disintegrating Middle East – that don’t relate directly to money and politics. So it’s time for some end-of-the-week miscellany. Let’s start with polls.

Beware early polls – especially generic ones. The AP has a story today on an Associated Press-Ipsos Poll that shows that “Americans by an almost 3-to-1 margin hold the GOP-controlled Congress in low regard and profess a desire to see Democrats wrest control after a dozen years of Republican rule.”

What the story doesn’t say is that Americans generally hold Congress in low regard no matter which party is leading it. That three-to-one margin really means that only about one person in three thinks Congress is doing a good job. That is not remotely the same as saying there’s a grass-roots revolt in the air and the voters will throw the bums out in November, which the story implies. It may happen, but personally I’m betting against it.

I’ve got nothing against polls – they can be immensely valuable, especially when the same questions are asked over time, like approval ratings for the President. But I have a healthy skepticism for how they’re spun, especially generic polls like this one that don’t mention candidate names. Sure Americans mistrust Congress. They almost always have, and I can confidently predict that this trend will not disappear any time soon.

But generic unhappiness does not translate into dramatic power shifts – at least in mid-term elections. Even in 1994, when the Republicans stormed into power on Capitol Hill, the reelection rate for incumbent House members was 90%. It rose to 94% in 1996, 96% in 2002, and peaked at 98% in 1998, 2000 and 2004.

How do incumbents keep getting reelected so reliably when the public is so steamed at Congress as a whole? There are lots of reasons, with safe districts and a towering advantage in campaign funds leading the list.

Next time you read a poll that suggests that congressional heads will roll on election day like they did in the French Revolution – today is Bastille Day, after all – keep this little factoid in mind: In every election since 1988 (when I first started tracking it), more than half the congressional districts in the country featured “races” with incumbents outspending their challengers by a margin of 10-to-one or more. In short, the challengers weren’t simply outspent, they were all but invisible.

That’s why there’s so little turnover in Congress, no matter what the national mood as measured in opinion polls.

And now for something completely different. If you’ve been following the Internet Neutrality bill – or if you haven’t – you owe it to yourself to check out the explanation by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) of how the Internet works. Or rather, check out the Internet’s reaction to Senator Stevens, via the “DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix” on YouTube. Makes you wish more Senate debates were available in formats other than C-SPAN and the Congressional Record…

0 Comments