Rasmussen has an interesting poll that caught my eye last week regarding the free market economy. Please consider 75% Say Free Markets Better Than Government Management of Economy, Political Class Disagrees.



A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure. These figures have changed little since December.



Polling released earlier this week showed that Americans overwhelmingly believe that more competition and less regulation is better for the economy than more regulation and less competition.



Not surprisingly, America’s Political Class is far less enamored with the virtues of a free market. In fact, Political Class voters narrowly prefer a government managed economy over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin. However, among Mainstream voters, 90% prefer the free market.



Outside of the Political Class, free markets are preferred across all demographic and partisan lines. This gap may be one reason that 68% of voters believe the Political Class doesn’t care what most Americans think. Fifty-nine percent (59%) are embarrassed by the behavior of the Political Class.

Throw the Bums Out - But Not My Bum

Everywhere you turn, anti-incumbent sentiment is on the rise.



You can see it in opinion polls, where six in 10 Americans, the highest ever, say most members of Congress don’t deserve to be re-elected, according to a June 11-13 Gallup survey.



You can see it in primary ballots, where long-serving lawmakers are being booted in favor of Tea Party candidates and other outsiders.



And you can see it at town meetings, at social gatherings and on talk radio, where ordinary Americans are eager to voice their discontent with the culture in Washington.



In fact, the only place you probably won’t see it is at the bi-annual congressional elections. Incumbency, it turns out, is the best credential for winning an election.



In the House of Representatives, the incumbency rate has averaged 93.3 percent since 1964, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan independent research group tracking money in politics. It dipped below 90 percent only five times in the last 23 elections. The low was 85 percent in 1970.



Devil I Know



Even revolutions don’t produce a dramatic shake-up in the composition of the House of Representatives. The Reagan Revolution of 1980 returned 91 percent of House incumbents to their seats. The Republican Revolution of 1994 saw the GOP pick up 54 seats and take control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. Even then 90 percent of House incumbents were re-elected.



What happens to all that angst when Americans walk into the voting booth on alternate Novembers and pull the lever for 16- term Congressman Peter Porkbarrel instead of Ida Unknown? In some cases, people never make it to the polls. Voter turnout in the U.S. since 1960 has averaged 55 percent at presidential elections and 40 percent in off-year elections, well below the 75 percent to 80 percent typical of most democracies.



Those who make it to their polling place often have limited options. Many incumbents run unopposed. And if there is somebody challenging the incumbent, “that somebody is invisible, lacks credentials and isn’t an appealing alternative,” says Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the Rothenberg Political Report. “It’s not really a choice.”



In an April Gallup poll, 28 percent of registered voters, the lowest on record, said members of Congress deserved to be re-elected. Forty-nine percent said their own member was worthy. (Translation: Throw the bums out, but spare my bum, at least until he brings home the funds for that civic center.)



Campaign Contribution Bribes

fund raising

Dumb and Dumber Choices

Gerrymandering

Will It Be Different This Time?