Politicians:  A constant PR battle

It’s become almost an American ideal to complain about our government. We definitely do it more than most developed countries in the world.  One can argue that is indeed because our government needs to be complained about due to it’s lack of productivity.  However, nothing is perfect, and perhaps Americans should spend more time being thankful that they were born in America and weren’t born in North Korea or a poor, developing country.

Nevertheless, this is not the case.  People will continue to complain about the government until something changes.  The United States government hasn’t been seen in the best regard both domestically and abroad in the past decade or so, due to several overseas wars and a severe economic recession in 2007 and 2008.  Sometimes, the criticism the government is uncalled for, as people look for someone to blame for their problems instead of taking responsibility for their own lives.  But some criticism is definitely warranted.

Our congress, this past September, had a 14 percent approval rating.  That, quite frankly, is just horrible.  Members of congress and President Obama have been at odds for years, resulting in a lack of legislation and progress.  Fourteen percent is undeniably a low approval rating, but considering congress has done literally nothing productive over the past several years, it’s somewhat surprising that many Americans think they’ve actually done well in their service.  To use numbers, that’s 44.3 million Americans.

With a bad reputation gradually growing worse, managing the image of a member of congress sounds like a daunting task.  There are a variety of government public relations jobs with varying responsibilities, but justifying the actions of someone who isn’t appearing to do their job well is always difficult. 

This also brings up President Obama’s reputation.  As the results of the midterm elections have come to a close, it is clear Americans wanted some kind of a change, as Republicans won several chairs previously held by Democrats.  As a result, Obama has been blamed for some of his party’s losses, as his presidency hasn’t been as successful as people would have wanted it to be.  To say the least, there are very mixed feelings about his time thus far in office.  Basically, managing a politician’s image of this stature is most definitely a challenge for anyone.