Representative Failure: Pelosi and Reid: The Gop's Best Hope for 2010 (Ideas) (On Low Approval Ratings for the U.S. Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, And on Its Implications for the 2010 Elections‪)‬

IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT that John McCain had won the presidency. Once the chills pass and the surf-music sounds of "Bomb, bomb Iran" fade, think about what this outcome would have required of the electorate. An unpopular incumbent party with abysmal approval ratings would have been rewarded with additional years in power. The American people would have ignored their intense conviction that the country is on the wrong track--a view held by 76 percent in the exit polls--and stuck with the devil they knew over the change agent they didn't. A stunning upset, the "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline on steroids. Yet when the Democratic Congress was returned to power with increased majorities in both houses, hardly anyone batted an eye. The single remarkable thing the Capitol Hill knitting circle led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid accomplished over the last two years was a negative: they managed to become even less popular than President Bush. That's no easy feat. Since late 2005, Bush's approval ratings have seldom budged above the low 30s. Only 27 percent of those who turned out on Election Day told exit pollsters they approved of the president's performance in office.