Are Politicians Simply Playing a Game?

One of the main issues I have with the current government with so many political bodies around, is are the politicians simply selling what the american public wants to hear? An article written today by the New York Times covers an interview with president Obama. He is asked a series of questions about how the economic crisis has damaged his chances for the midterms in November. "Washington has spent an inordinate amount of time on politics - who's up, who's down - and not enough on how are we delivering for the American people," said the president. This got me thinking, is that what politics is all about these days? To me it seems almost as though it's a battle between two political parties to demean the other in whatever way they can. What has politics really come to?