By Lynn Mueller

It has been almost one full year since Barack Obama was sworn in as our 44th President.

His inauguration also marked the beginning of the control of both Houses of Congress by the Democrat Party with significant majorities.

Now, one year later the President has seen his approval ratings drop sharply.

It is the second lowest ranking in half a century for any President at this point in his incumbency.

His disapproval rating is the highest ever measured at this point in a presidency.  

While his positives still exceed his negatives, they do so only marginally.

When it comes to specific performance measures, the President and the Congress get failing marks from American citizens on the handling of the economy, on their healthcare proposals, on job creation and on foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East, Korea and Iran.

On climate change and Cap and Trade, Americans also do not agree with the President.  

Given all of this data and the general rejection of his and the Democrat Congress' policy agenda, one can legitimately wonder why they continue to pursue these various initiatives especially given the off-year election results in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections.

 When those results are coupled with predictions that large numbers of Democrats in both the House and the Senate will lose in November of 2010, this does seem strange.

It seems to me, the explanation is clear.  

We are seeing political ideology trump political victories in the future.

This is because the policy agenda of the President and the leaders of his party in both the House and the Senate recognize the majorities they have are not sustainable.  

They also recognize that as unpopular as their various policy proposals for change are, this then is the only time in the foreseeable future that they can achieve their goal.  

That goal, simply stated, is to increase the reach and influence of government in the lives of Americans and in the overall U.S. economy.

This ideology belief is out of step with the majority of Americans who have a fundamental distrust of the government and look at the track record of what they perceive to be mismanagement in the ultimate bankrupting of social security, Medicare and Medicaid to mention but three major policy objectives, historically.

While most elected officials do not voluntarily behave in a manner that leads to their own defeat, the current White House and the Democrat leadership in Congress has decided that their ideology and philosophical belief as to the role government should play in our lives, is more important than sustaining or retaining the majority posture they currently hold.

As has always happened historically, when elected officials ignore the will of the majority of their citizens they pay a very high electoral price.

By the time this column is published, the most Democrat and liberal State in the Union, Massachusetts may have for the first time since 1952 elected a Republican Senator, whose campaign was based on running against the very agenda that the President and the Democrat leadership in Congress have been pushing for the last year.

Even if the Democrat candidate prevails in that race, the fact that this race was so close, validates the notion that the current power structure in Washington is even running against the grain of the liberal Democrat constituency in the Bay State.

We do indeed live in interesting times.

Lynn Mueller worked in government, politics and businesss. He lives in Georgetown.