This was one of Louisiana's two senators last week, dropping some knowledge on Chuck Todd of NBC News:
I'll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans.
—Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Oct. 30, 2014
Also—are you sitting down?—Germany has not always gotten along well with its neighbors. I just thought it was time people knew.
Unfortunately, this previously unknown fact does not really explain the president's low approval ratings (currently averaging 42% nationwide), which is what Landrieu was trying to do. They are indeed generally low in the South, and probably some of that does have to do with this allegedly targeted unfriendliness that Landrieu is claiming has historically existed there. Alabama (28%), Oklahoma (23%) and Kentucky (30%) have traditionally been located in that region, and Maryland (56%), Vermont (52%) and New York (50%) have traditionally not. But his very lowest numbers are in states like Wyoming (21%) and Idaho (22%), while even Mississippi, which technically did not get around to abolishing slavery until about 18 months ago, gave him a 36. When the nationwide average is 42, that's not all that unfriendly. Perhaps there are other factors in play?
Here are some other random poll results, really just because my plane is delayed and I'm tired of working. Congress's approval rating is a whopping eight percent; only 29% of voters think their representative deserves to be re-elected; but over 90% of incumbents were re-elected. It's almost like something is broken somewhere.
More importantly, Rasmussen Reports asked Americans what superhero they would most like to be, and they mostly said Superman. Asked what single superpower they would most like to have, most of them (24%) wanted to see the future, which—is that even a superpower? Others responded:
- Flight (19%)
- X-ray vision (14%)
- Immortality (14%)
- Super strength (10%)
- Super speed (4%)
- Other (8%)
- Not sure (6%)
Again, I don't really see immortality as a superpower (what's Immortal Man do, outlive his enemies? doesn't help the rest of us much), and if all you want is X-ray vision, well, that's just creepy.
Well, since I unfortunately can't fly on my own, now it's time to board.