President Obama said after the election that both parties need to work together — blah woof honk. “I am very confident hat the American people were not issuing a mandate for gridlock,” he said.

Oh, really? Actually — we're no president of America, but we thought that was precisely the mandate Americans were issuing. Do less! Debate endlessly! Leave us alone! Gack!

A quantum of vindication for our discerning political acumen arrives in a new poll from ABC News/Yahoo!, which finds that among Republicans at least, gridlock enjoys a certain popularity:

While the phrase customarily is taken as a negative, this ABC News/Yahoo! News poll finds that Republican registered voters in fact divide evenly, 42-43 percent, on whether gridlock is a bad thing because it prevents good legislation from being passed — or a good thing, because it blocks bad laws.

So dark! At the same time, independents — those sticklers and earnest competence-seekers — are far less enamored of gridlock. The poll found independents see it as a negative, 57 percent to 28 percent.

Democrats — all piety and activism, it seems — don't care for gridlock at all: 67 percent called it a bad thing, to 22 percent who called it a good thing. Overall, 56 percent of Americans said gridlock is a bad thing, to 31 percent who asked for seconds.

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