Given how the lame duck session started, with a devastating defeat at the midterms and Republicans united in opposition to any action without a deal on extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, it’s somewhat surprising that President Obama is getting high marks from the public for how his legislative agenda has gone over the past month:
President Barack Obama is getting good marks for his role in Congress’ lame duck session.
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday, 56 percent of Americans said they support how Obama has handled the lame duck session that’s expected to end this week. Forty-one percent said they disapprove.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle didn’t do as well. Republicans have a 42 percent approval rating for their work during the lame duck, while 44 percent approved of the work by Democrats.
Partly, this is a reflection of the old saying that nothing succeeds like success, and that pretty much everything that has passed this session — the tax cut extension, DADT repeal, and, later today, the START Treaty — has done so with widespread bipartisan public support. Also, despite Republican resistance at the start we’ve seen more bipartisanship over the past five weeks than at any other time during the 111th Congress. Perhaps the folks in Washington should take note of those facts in planning for the future. Of course, they won’t.
