Poll Shows Support for Democrats' Goals

[cal04]

People overwhelmingly support two of the Democrats' top goals — increasing the minimum wage and making it easier to buy prescription drugs from other countries — as the party takes control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years.

By a smaller margin, the public also favors relaxing restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a third issue Democrats have promised to tackle during their first 100 hours in charge.

The jury is out on incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Most people say they do not know enough yet to have an opinion about the California Democrat who will be the first woman in that office, an Associated Press-AOL News poll found.

The survey results come as the 110th Congress is set to convene Thursday at noon. Voters last November toppled Republican majorities in both the Senate and House, exasperated by investigations into the ethics of GOP lawmakers and unhappy with the war in Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070102/ap_on_go_co/congress_poll_3

[Zenlitened]

1. The Democratic Party has a mandate. Use it or lose it. - n/t

[mike_c]

2. STOP THE WAR, DAMMIT!

I applaud the issues the OP mentions. Yes, we must increase the federal minimum wage, yes, we must reform prescription drug laws that are a source of windfall profit for big pharma while patients go without their meds because they can't afford them. Yes, Congress needs ethics reform. God does it ever.

But those issues will still be there next month and they can be addressed any time. The most pressing issue facing America today is the illegal war of aggression against Iraq. NO OTHER ISSUE IS AS IMPORTANT. This should be the FIRST thing congress takes up when the 110th Congress assembles later this week. Doing anything else is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

[dogday]

3. My thinking exactly

Stop the madness called the Iraq War....

[Benhurst]

4. And how about a national health program?

The World's Only Superpower -- we've seen where that insanity got us.

Stop the war, and bring the United States into the Twentieth Century.

Then get to work on trying to drag us into the Twenty-First Century.