Lawyers, stockbrokers, and journalists, take heart. You're not the lowest creatures on Earth, according to a poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports Sept. 17-18.
That label is now worn by members of Congress, and it's something where people of all political stripes actually seem to agree: 86 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of independents have an unfavorable opinion of members of Congress. And maybe the most sobering kick in the pants is that 56 percent of Democrats - who control both the House and Senate - say they don't like the people they find there.
Seventy-two percent of the respondents to the Rasmussen survey said they had an unfavorable opinion of members of Congress, and slightly more than half of that group said their opinion was "very unfavorable."
The cranky disposition of the electorate dovetails with a Rasmussen poll taken at the end of the August that found 42 percent thought they could assemble a better Congress by picking names randomly from the phone book. Another 42 percent disagreed.
Professions held in highest regard were small business owners, favored by 93 percent of the respondents to the poll, and people who start their own business, favored by 92 percent. After that are members of the clergy (70 percent), bankers (48 percent), journalists (43 percent), lawyers (42 percent), stockbrokers and financial analysts (41 percent), CEO's (27 percent), and members of Congress (25 percent).
The latest survey is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Comments
Congress has low approval ratings in good times.
In these times, when we are suffering painful stagflation, Congress is held accountable and their poll ratings suffer.
It is time to devise better questions, the global, do you approve of Congress, has lost its descriptive power.
Posted by: Robert Chapman
| September 22, 2009 6:31 PM
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