Washington's gridlock: the capital seems to be at a standstill--not the streets, but the government itself. Is this any way to run a country?

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: NATIONAL

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Evan Giesemann, a senior at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, considers himself a political junkie. He's avidly followed politics since he was a freshman in high school, and during the 2008 presidential election, he worked as an intern on Barack Obama's campaign.

But these days, he's fed up with what he sees going on in Washington.

"It's been amazingly frustrating," says Giesemann, 21. "It's a depressing time to be observing politics."

He's not alone in his frustration.

With the nation confronting enormous challenges--from the slumping economy and ballooning national debt to climate change and a broken immigration system--Washington is stuck in political gridlock. Republicans and Democrats in Congress can't seem to work together, or with President Obama, on matters big or small. The result is an inability to get much of anything done.

Of course, polarization in Washington is nothing new, but the gulf between the parties has never seemed so wide and the tone of the debate has rarely been as nasty.

It's no wonder that a record 82 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job (see poll, facing page). Obama's approval rating has also suffered, with nearly half of those polled saying they disapprove of his leadership.

The frustration reached a peak with this summer's rancorous debate over raising the nation's debt ceiling so that the Treasury could continue to borrow money to keep the federal government running. After months of wrangling and posturing, Democrats and Republicans reached a last-minute compromise, with only hours to spare before a catastrophic default on the nation's debt.

Dirty Word: Compromise

"There's nothing wrong with our country; there is something wrong with our politics," Obama observed in the weeks following the debt-ceiling crisis.

How did things get so dysfunctional in Washington? Many blame the growing influence of each party's ideological base--conservatives for Republicans and liberals for Democrats--which limits the ability of party leaders to work together even when they want to.

Some Democrats adhere to liberal positions on issues like the economy and the environment that have no chance of getting enough votes in Congress. Some Republicans see opposition to, rather than cooperation on, any legislation supported by President Obama as the way to win back the Oval Office, and control of the Senate, next year.

In a nutshell: Compromise has become a dirty word in Washington.

One of the key causes of the gridlock is the decline in the number of moderates (see definitions, p. 11) in Congress who might be inclined to work with the opposing party.

The reasons are complex. One is the impact of redistricting: Every 10 years, states redraw their congressional districts based on the most recent census--a process taking place now following the 2010 Census.

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