Why does Roy Blunt keep avoiding a discussion of his time in the House Leadership?
On the Mark Reardon Show yesterday, Roy Blunt praised himself for the approval ratings Congress enjoyed when he was running the show with Tom Delay and Dennis Hastert, pushing through the George W. Bush agenda. No one would pretend that Congress as a whole has spectacular poll numbers these days, but Blunt has a very selective memory polling numbers from his last decade in Washington.
Speaking with Reardon, Blunt pointed to Congress' approval ratings after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, which were indeed high. What he didn't mention were all those numbers from, I dunno, the time when Roy Blunt was in charge. Using data posted at PollingReport.com for four national polls, I pulled data from four key points in time:
- January 2003, when Tom Delay picked Roy Blunt to be the GOP Whip
- September 2005, when Roy Blunt became acting Majority Leader, replacing Tom Delay
- February 2006, when House Republicans replaced Blunt with John Boehner
- Now (or very recently)
Looking at the numbers, it's clear that people had a relatively high opinion of Congress after the 9/11 attacks, as Blunt said. But then look what happened when Roy took the reigns.
The numbers are all a little different because of different question language and different sampling techniques, but the trend is consistent across the four polls. Things got worse when Roy Blunt was in charge. In three of the polls, the numbers were worst in the months when Blunt was continuing the Tom Delay legacy as Majority Leader. And in every poll, Congress' disapproval ratings were as bad or worse when Blunt was in charge.
Some perspective seems in order.
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Latest Congressional approval ratings
The questions in the different polls are asked somewhat differently, so you can read the wording and full trend data here.
- FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll: Approve 41, Disapprove 49
- Gallup: 37-57
- NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll: 29-57
- CBS News/New York Times Poll: 28-55
Blunt became Majority Whip on January 3, 2003
- FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll: 33-47
- Gallup: 49-40
- NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll: 42-39
- CBS News/New York Times Poll: 35-48
Blunt became Majority Leader on September 29, 2005
- FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll: 30-52
- Gallup: 29-64
- NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll: 28-57
- CBS News/New York Times Poll: 31-57
Blunt Ousted as Majority Leader on February 21, 2006
- FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll: 29-55
- Gallup: 25-65
- NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll: 29-56
- CBS News/New York Times Poll: 28-61
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Easy Answer to why Blunt avoids discussion of his leadership.
The easy answer to why Roy Blunt avoids discussion of his time in leadership is because he did not provide any leadership to our Nation. Roy Blunt cannot discuss something that never existed.