Pollsters routinely take the pulse of Americans to see what issues they want addressed.

For several months now the top issues have been the same: Iraq, the war on terror, health care, gasoline prices, education, the economy, immigration and government corruption.

Congressional leaders also look at polls, namely the ones showing that the public isn’t pleased with their performance, and thus the midterm elections are looking grim. It isn’t so much that their typical supporters are going to vote for the other party; it’s that they might not vote at all.

What to do? Tackle the difficult issues foremost in most voters’ minds or energize the base? Judging by the “American Values Agenda” rolled out by Republicans last week, it looks like leadership opted to hit the hot buttons.

Get used to debates on homosexuality, abortion, flag burning, Internet gambling, human cloning, gun rights and whether Congress should forbid the judiciary from considering whether “under God” can be omitted from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Wait, scratch that last one. It didn’t even make it out of committee.

This packaging of bills has pleased social-conservative activists, with some calling it “proactive leadership” and “in touch with the values voters.”

There must not be many “values voters,” because those perennial social issues fail to register high in polls of the nation’s most pressing problems.

Instead, most people want congressional oversight for the war in Iraq and the war on terror. They want help with the escalating costs of health care. They want a better education system. They want Congress to clean up its corrupt ways. They want a comprehensive energy policy and a sensible solution to illegal immigration.

The immigration issue illustrates how Congress is angling for midterm votes rather than solving problems. For months, the issue was hotly debated. The House passed a bill in January. The Senate countered with a bill in May.

Rather than work out the differences in conference, House leadership decided to conduct field hearings over the summer, as if the issue hadn’t been studied enough. The aim appears to be preserving an election-year issue rather than reaching a resolution.

Most voters are not single-issue obsessives, and they don’t have the inclination to pester their representatives. They’re also not organized in such a way that they can issue press releases when they are displeased.

But the latest Gallup Poll shows that they are unusually interested in this fall’s elections. So they are watching and waiting for their concerns to be addressed.

If members of Congress value their jobs, they’ll junk this self-serving panderfest and go work for most Americans.