A May 5-8 telephone poll by Harris Interactive showing President Bush dropping below 30 percent approval got an enormous amount of media attention. Less well covered was what the same poll had to say about Congress.

Resident Fellow Karlyn Bowman

Harris measured Congress’ overall approval rating and also how Republicans and Democrats were thought to be handling their jobs in Congress. It turned out that a mere 18 percent gave Congress a positive rating--that is, “excellent” or “good”--with 80 percent giving the institution only a “fair” or “poor” rating.

What is striking about the poll is how negatively partisans rated their own party’s Congressional performance.

Only 44 percent of Republican respondents gave a positive rating to the job Republicans were doing in Congress, while 53 percent were negative. And just 40 percent of Democrats gave a positive rating to the job Democrats in Congress were doing, while 58 percent gave a negative assessment.

Would Democrats Do Better? In its May 11-12 poll, PSRA/Newsweek interviewers asked a follow-up question to those who disapproved of the way Bush was handling 12 different issues. In no case did a majority of those who disapproved believe a Democratic president would do a better job.

In three areas, the Democrats did at least come close. The poll found that 48 percent of those who disapproved of the way Bush was handling gasoline prices thought a Democrat would do a better job, and 46 percent felt that Democrats could do a better job on health care and the budget deficit.

Listening In. Thirty percent of those in a mid-May Fox News Opinion Dynamics survey said the government was listening to their phone conversations, including 31 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of Republicans.

People don’t seem too worried about the prospect, though. In a May 12-13 Gallup/USA Today poll, 22 percent said they would be very concerned if the government had their phone records, and another 13 percent said they’d be somewhat concerned. By contrast, 20 percent were not too concerned, while 44 percent were not at all concerned.

In a May 16-17 CBS News poll, 8 percent worried that the government might have their phone records. Seventeen percent were somewhat concerned about that possibility, 21 percent were not very concerned, and 53 percent were not at all concerned.

In a May 11-15 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 52 percent approved of the job Bush was doing protecting Americans’ privacy rights “as the government investigates terrorism,” while 45 percent disapproved.

(Speaking of phone calls, 42 percent of those surveyed by Pew said they see or talk with a parent every single day--up from 32 percent in 1989. For those who live in a different town, 22 percent maintain daily contact. In 1989, 8 percent did.)

Right Track: Your Community, State and Nation. In right-track, wrong-track polling about government, size apparently matters.

ABC News/Washington Post interviewers found that 58 percent of respondents said things in their local community were going in the right direction, compared to 41 percent who said they’re going in the wrong direction.

The right-track numbers for states are lower, with 45 percent saying that things in their state are going in the right direction, compared to 52 percent who said things were on the wrong track.

And the national right/wrong numbers? They were were 29 percent and 69 percent, respectively.

On another question, 48 percent of respondents were optimistic about the way things in this country would go in the next 12 months, compared to 50 percent who are pessimistic. Sixty-three percent were optimistic about the state of their local economy, and 79 percent were optimistic about their family’s financial situation.

Leaving the Country. Twenty-four percent of Democrats, compared to 8 percent of Republicans, told Fox News/Opinion Dynamics in a May 16-18 poll that if they had the opportunity to leave the United States and live permanently in another country, they would do so. Nationally, that proportion was 17 percent.

Feminists’ Forces. In an April 28-30 CBS News poll, 27 percent of women said they considered themselves feminists, while 68 percent did not.

Since the question was first asked in 1989, no more than one-third of women have ever said they considered themselves to be feminists.

Thirty-nine percent of Democratic women called themselves feminists, compared to 8 percent of Republican women.

“The Da Vinci Code.” In a May 5-7 Gallup/USA Today survey, 28 percent said they definitely planned to see “The Da Vinci Code” in a theater, and 43 percent said they wouldn’t go.

Thirty-four percent of Catholics, compared to 21 percent of Protestants, definitely planned to see the movie. Gallup reports that Catholics are more frequent moviegoers than Protestants.

In an early May poll by Zogby/LeMoyne College, 25 percent of Catholic adults said they had read the book, while another 44 percent said they were familiar with it.

Incidentally, in a February-March Pew survey, 75 percent said they prefer watching movies at home compared to in a theater. That’s up from 67 percent in 1994.

Karlyn H. Bowman is a resident fellow at AEI.