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This is exactly the kind of revolving-door synergy between corporate power and governance that turns off Americans left, right and, yes, center. Oblivious to this taint, No Labels named a few fat-cat donors who have ponied up $1million-plus. But like those shadowy outside groups invented by Karl Rove and his cronies for the 2010 campaign, No Labels has registered as a 501 (c) (4) and is not legally bound to release information about its contributors.

Two-thirds want the Senate to ratify Obama’s nuclear arms-reduction treaty with Russia, including most Democrats, about 6 in 10 Republicans, and independents — and even about half of conservative Tea Party movement supporters. Some Republican senators oppose the treaty. The Obama administration hopes to win Senate approval in the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress and will need GOP support to garner the 67 votes required.

So, are the clever really so ignorant about their own ideological leanings? Not necessarily, says Jonathan Rodden, an associate professor of political science at Stanford, who has done similar analyses of political opinion. “It’s a catchy title and a catchy claim,” he said of Dr. Rockey’s paper, “but my work has shown that as you get wealthier and more educated, you become more liberal on social issues like abortion, gay rights and women’s place in society.”

The Senate has not acted on global warming for several reasons, but not because of scant public approval. Contrary to the July 12 front-page story, public support for action on climate change remains strong. The Post's own June poll found that 71 percent favor action to "regulate the release of greenhouse gases" -- an increase since your poll in December. Americans clearly want investments in clean-energy jobs and to slash climate pollution. Whether 60 senators listen, or 41 follow big oil, is the real question.

And if you harbor the notion — popular on both sides of the aisle — that the solution is more education and a higher level of political sophistication in voters overall, well, that’s a start, but not the solution. A 2006 study by Charles Taber and Milton Lodge at Stony Brook University showed that politically sophisticated thinkers were even less open to new information than less sophisticated types. These people may be factually right about 90 percent of things, but their confidence makes it nearly impossible to correct the 10 percent on which they’re totally wrong. Taber and Lodge found this alarming, because engaged, sophisticated thinkers are “the very folks on whom democratic theory relies most heavily.”

Now, we have a compelling blueprint of just how to do that. A new book -- "The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will Into Political Power" -- shows that that kind of organizing is no pipe dream. Written by Michael Pertschuk, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and co-founder of the Advocacy Institute, the book focuses on the strategies and leadership of organizer Vincent DeMarco, who has waged successful advocacy campaigns in Maryland and Congress for 20 years.

Many Americans really do despise Wall Street, BP and the oil companies and bitterly resent the outsourcing of jobs. That is not a product of the policies or rhetoric of Mr. Obama or Washington politicians. It is because they genuinely believe that in these difficult times, fat cats are privileged and protected while they are getting the shaft. It is in the interests of both the Obama administration and the business community to appreciate and address this reality.

NEW YORK — People around the world say they firmly support equal rights for men and women, but many still believe men should get preference when it comes to good jobs, higher education or even in some cases the simple right to work outside the home, according to a new survey of 22 nations.

“Maybe it’s me,’’ Susan Tucker said, “but if we believe there are going to be children and pets abandoned because of this industry, should we be facilitating them? I don’t remember ever requiring a biotech company to check its parking lots for abandoned children.’’

All of which leaves the old kind of anticorporate populism — “the people versus the powerful,” as Al Gore put it — a beat behind the times, sort of like “flower power” or the Laffer Curve. Mr. Obama and his party are probably right to presume that voters don’t trust BP or any of the powerful companies the president has taken to castigating on a regular basis. The problem is that they don’t trust Washington to stand up for them, either.