Opinion: Republicans, Democrats and others finally have found common ground

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Bipartisanship has staged a comeback!

No, there hasn’t been a surprise outbreak of good manners and comity in Washington. Nor have flowery appeals to our better natures had anything to do with it. Instead, it’s economic worries that have brought citizens of different political stripes closer to the same page.

During a belated check of a poll released in late March by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, this caught our eye: Sour views about the economy no longer respect ideological bounds.

A release accompanying the poll noted, ‘Throughout most of President Bush’s time in office, a large partisan gap has been evident in judgments about the state of the U.S. economy, with most Democrats and independents offering negative assessments and most Republicans offering positive assessments.’

For example, last June the Pew pollsters reported that 56% of Republicans rated the economy in excellent or good shape, while just 20% of Democrats and 30% of independents shared that view. As recently as January, with the imploding housing market increasingly making headlines, 46% of GOPers still replied with positive marks when asked about the economy.

In the latest poll, however, only 23% of Republicans expressed such optimism.

There’s still a political gap on the issue -- a measly 5% of Democrats said the economy was in excellent or good shape (down from 15% in January), and just 9% of independents expressed that opinion (down from 24% two months earlier). But, according to the Pew release, the ‘gap in Republican and Democratic evaluations of the economy is smaller today than it has been in five years.’

-- Don Frederick