Still got hope?

Two weeks from today, voters across the nation will deliver their verdict in the mid-term elections. Will they, in their righteous and misguided indignation, refudiate (er, repudiate) what President Obama and the Congress have done to try to haul this country out of the ditch that Bush & Co. drove us into? Or will they show they have come to their senses?

Too many Americans either don't understand or don't want to admit that it was the previous administration that started two wars and mismanaged the economy -- and that you can't fix everything in less than two years.

The conventional wisdom says Republicans are poised to make net gains in both the House and Senate. I suppose that's inevitable, and I won't get into the specifics here. But I can hope (can't I?) that at least some voters will take notice of an important story by The Associated Press that contradicts the notion that partisan gridlock has resulted in a do-nothing Congress.

In the piece "A productive Congress gets no respect from voters," reporter Jim Abrams notes that this Congress was actually the most productive in nearly half a century, having passed significant legislation on everything from the stimulus, health care reform and Wall Street regulation to making college loans more affordable and enacting new consumer protections for credit card users and tax credits for first-time homeowners.

Yet recent polls show as many as three-fourths of Americans disapprove of Congress. What's amazing is how today's backlash mirrors that of nearly 50 years ago. "In 1966," the AP reports, "after Democrats created Medicare and Medicaid and passed civil rights laws, they got hammered in the [mid-term] election, losing 48 seats in the House and four in the Senate." 

Things are heating up in the Northwest this week, with the big guns coming out to support Democrats in important races. Bill Clinton was in the Seattle area yesterday, on behalf of Washington Sen. Patty Murray, and Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are all scheduled to stump for her in the next few days. The president will be in Oregon tomorrow to boost the campaign of John Kitzhaber, the former Democratic governor now seeking a third term.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin was in Reno yesterday kicking off a 15-day national tour in support of Tea Party candidates, including Nevada's Sharron Angle, who's perhaps the daffiest of them all.

At times, I despair. But then I take heart when I read Obama's call to action ("Obama Fights Back") in Rolling Stone's Oct. 15 issue:

"It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we've got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.

"The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible.

"Everybody out there has to be thinking about what's at stake in this election and if they want to move forward over the next two years or six years or 10 years on key issues like climate change, key issues like how we restore a sense of equity and optimism to middle-class families who have seen their incomes decline by five percent over the last decade. If we want the kind of country that respects civil rights and civil liberties, we'd better fight in this election."