Posts Tagged ‘ Public opinion ’

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Win Dixie

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

As we all understand, Republicans are about to have a pretty good election in November. Much of the GOP excitement revolves around congressional races that could unseat “red-state” Democrats who won during the 2006 or 2008 cycles, along with a number of incumbents (some of whom have decided to retire) who have been around much longer. Ground zero for the Republican tsunami is, of course, the Deep South, where in some areas John McCain did better in 2008 than George W. Bush did in 2004, and where every available indicator shows the president to be very unpopular among white voters.

But beneath this storyline, some odd and counterintuitive things are going on. In three Deep South states, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, Democrats have a decent chance of retaking long-lost governorships, in part because of infighting among Republican candidates, and in part because Republican rule in those states has not been terribly successful or popular. It’s far too early to make predictions, but it’s possible that we’re in for a repeat of the astounding gubernatorial Trifecta that Democrats pulled off in those same three states in 1998. That event confounded widespread assessments that the South had become a one-party GOP region, and it could happen again, in even more unlikely circumstances.

Our own appraisal begins in Georgia, with one of the surprise winners of 1998, former Governor Roy Barnes. Barnes lost his reelection bid in 2002 to Sonny Perdue, a party-switching state senator, despite the power of incumbency and a huge financial advantage. Since then, Barnes has regularly admitted his mistakes. And, amazingly enough, in the latest Georgia gubernatorial poll, he’s running ahead of every single Republican candidate.

Meanwhile, Georgia Republicans, who have dominated state politics since 2002, are having some serious problems with their own gubernatorial bench. The consistent frontrunner in the polls, longtime insurance commissioner John Oxendine, is awash in ethics allegations about contributions from the insurance companies that he is responsible for regulating. His record is so blatantly bad that none other than Erick Erickson, the Georgia-based proprietor of the nationally influential, hard-core conservative web site RedState, has said he’d vote for Barnes if Oxendine is the GOP nominee.

Rather pathetically, the alternative to Oxendine and the favorite of some party insiders is Representative Nathan Deal of Georgia’s Ninth District (like Perdue, a party-switcher), who recently said he would resign his congressional seat after a health care vote to concentrate on his gubernatorial campaign. As it happens, Deal’s resignation managed to short-circuit a House Ethics Committee investigation into a no-bid state auto-salvage contract that was awarded to a company which Deal controls. The insider buzz in Atlanta is that Deal was motivated to resign, in part, because of panic among Georgia Republican pooh-bahs who worried that Oxendine would walk away with the gubernatorial nomination on name ID alone.

The rest of the Republican gubernatorial hopefuls are struggling as well. The entire party, and several of the gubernatorial candidates, were tainted by association with disgraced former House Speaker Glenn Richardson, who was forced to resign after a lurid sex-and-lobbying scandal. The one candidate who seems ethically starchy, Secretary of State Karen Handel, has struggled to raise the money necessary to win, and also suffers from the perception that she’s the unpopular Sonny Perdue’s chosen successor.

All these Republican problems could eventually fade, and Roy Barnes must also navigate a Democratic primary against Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a law-’n-order conservative who is one of the nation’s longest-serving African American statewide elected officials (as well as two other lesser but credible opponents). Nevertheless at present, Barnes—or Baker, if he could somehow upset Barnes—looks entirely viable for November.

Next door in Alabama, you’d think that the Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner, Congressman Artur Davis, wouldn’t stand a chance. He’s a member of the much-hated United States Congress; he’s African American; he’s a close personal friend of Barack Obama; and he’s frequently been tagged, like the president, as an Ivy League-educated, twenty-first-century–style black politician. But the sparse public polling available shows Davis in a very strong position for the general election, assuming that he dispenses with a primary challenge from state agriculture commissioner Ron Sparks, who’s been struggling to raise money. Davis, who has long nursed gubernatorial ambitions, carefully tailored his congressional record to Alabama public opinion: He voted against health care reform in the House, and he was also the first Congressional Black Caucus member (and, for that matter, the first one on the Ways and Means Committee) to call for Charlie Rangel to step aside from his powerful chairmanship.

Meanwhile, there is no real frontrunner in the Republican gubernatorial primary, which bids fair to become an ideological flame war. Back in 2002, the “establishment” candidate, state Senator Bradley Byrne, made the fatal mistake of voting for a-tax reform initiative that was soundly defeated in an emphatic expression of Alabamians’ mistrust of government. Tim James, son of former conservative Democratic and Republican Governor Fob James, was one of the main opponents of that initiative, and he will bring it up constantly. Meanwhile Christian Right warhorse Roy Moore, the famous “Ten Commandments Judge,” is actually running second to Byrne in early polls. All of the dynamics in the race will pull the GOP candidates to the hard-right, while Artur Davis continues to occupy the political center; and his candidacy will almost certainly boost African American turnout to near-2008 levels. That means anything could happen in November.

South Carolina is often thought of as the most Republican of Southern states. But Mark Sanford, the disgraced incumbent governor, has complicated his party’s prospects. Meanwhile, an ideological civil war is brewing that reflects the growing tension between the state’s two Republican senators, right-wing bomb thrower Jim DeMint and the more moderate Lindsey Graham (Graham, long suspect among home-state conservatives for his friendship with John McCain and his occasional bipartisanship, has recently been formally censured by two of South Carolina’s county GOP organizations for a variety of sins). As in Georgia and Alabama, the Republican gubernatorial field is a mess: Nobody is a frontrunner and all the candidates are stampeding to the hard right. And I do mean hard right. In a sign of the times, Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer, who has few friends in the state’s Republican establishment, delivered a speech comparing recipients of subsidized school lunches to “stray animals” who should no longer be fed unconditionally. While he took a few shots from fellow Republicans for his indiscreet language, nobody disputed, and some praised, his basic premise that any form of public assistance corrupts its recipients and should come with some sort of reciprocal obligation.

The frontrunners in early polls are Bauer and Attorney General Henry McMaster. Upstate Congressman Gresham Barrett, who must overcome the opprobrium of voting for TARP, is close behind. Meanwhile, Sanford’s protégé, state Representative Nikki Haley (who was even endorsed by the governor’s ex-wife), is trying to push the campaign hard right by opposing any expenditure of federal stimulus dollars in this high-unemployment state. At a recent candidate forum, when the rivals were pushed to call themselves “DeMint Republicans” or “Graham Republicans,” Bauer and Haley flatly identified with DeMint, while McMasters and Barrett dodged the question.

On the Democratic side, a Rasmussen poll in December showed the front-running Democrat, State School Superintendent Jim Rex, actually beating Bauer and running within single digits against other GOP candidates. (State Representative Vincent Sheheen is also a credible Democratic candidate). Again, anything could happen, but the assumption that Republicans have a lock on this state’s elections is as dubious as the same assumption back in 1998.

So, at a time when Democrats are despairing of good news, it’s important to understand that the donkey isn’t quite dead, even in the Deep South. There are consequences to Republican extremism and malfeasance in office. And, when GOP candidates battle for first place on the crazy train of contemporary conservatism, it’s Democrats who stand to benefit.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

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Posted in Daily Fix, Fiscal Responsibility | 1 Comment »

A Wake Up Call on National Security

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Democracy Corps and Third Way continue to hit on a theme I’ve been pushing for the last few weeks. Despite the president’s solid poll numbers on security, the organizations’ research shows that the historic national security gap is reappearing. Just after the president’s inauguration, the gap had closed to well within the margin of error. In early 2009, Democrats trailed Republicans by just three points on the question of which party was better equipped to “keeping America safe.” But in a new survey, Republicans now trump Democrats by 17 points. Ouch.

The poll digs much deeper than most polls, which traditionally lump in questions of national security with a slew of other issues. But this one is a full psychoanalysis of the country’s mood on our safety, and the results are more of a mixed bag than a downright nightmare for progressives. The president maintains stronger national security numbers than his overall approval rating (47 percent), with 58 percent approving of his handling of Afghanistan, 57 percent positive on “leading the military,” and 55 percent liking that he’s “improved America’s standing in the world,” among other similarly positive numbers.

Furthermore — and this is great — the poll continues to confirm that the public rejects accusations by Dick Cheney that Obama’s policies have made the country less secure. Oh yeah, and five percent believe Obama is doing a better job than George Bush against terrorists.

To sum up, the public approves of the commander-in-chief, but they’ve again become skeptical of generic Democrats. Or as the authors put it:

While ratings for the president may be softening, his party is facing an even more troubling trend. When the questions move beyond the president to Democrats generally, we see that the public once again has real and rising doubts about the Democrats’ handling of national security issues, as compared to their faith in Republicans. This security gap, which has roots stretching back to Vietnam, was as wide as 29 points earlier in the decade. The deficit began to close in 2006, with the Bush administration’s catastrophic mismanagement of Iraq and other national security challenges.

How do we firm this up? Basically, grab the ol’ bull by the horns, just like I’ve been blabbering on about. Seriously — Dems have a good record, now they just have to relay it through effective story-telling that connects with voters’ emotions. Progressives have been sheepishly responding to conservative attacks with wonky facts. But conservatives don’t care about facts — they painted Max Cleland, a Vietnam vet and triple amputee, as unpatriotic. Now that progressives have the facts behind them, they need to get aggressive about telling voters that we’re strong and smart on national security.

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Pro-Reform Majority?

Friday, March 5th, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

With Republicans beating the drums incessantly for the proposition that “the American people have rejected health care reform,” it’s probably not a bad time to recall the discussion that broke out late last year over evidence that many people saying they oppose specific proposals do so because they want to take reform much farther.

Exhibit A was an Ipsos-McClatchy poll taken in November. Here was Nate Silver’s take on it:

Ipsos/McClatchy put out a health care poll two weeks ago. The topline results were nothing special: 34 percent favored “the health care reform proposals presently being discussed”, versus 46 percent opposed, and 20 percent undecided. The negative-12 net score is roughly in line with the average of other polls, although the Ipsos poll shows a higher number of undecideds than most others.Ipsos, however, did something that no other pollster has done. They asked the people who opposed the bill why they opposed it: because they are opposed to health care reform and thought the bill went too far? Or because they support health care reform but thought the bill didn’t go far enough?

It turns out that a significant minority of about 25 percent of the people who opposed the plan — or about 12 of the overall sample — did so from the left; they thought the plan didn’t go far enough.

Well, Ipsos-McClatchey is back with another poll, and it’s shows an even stronger percentage of reform “opponents” thinking current bills don’t go far enough: more than a third of the 47% of respondents opposing “the reforms being discussed” say it’s because “they don’t go far enough.” Added to the 41% of respondents who say they support “the reforms being discussed,” that’s a pretty significant majority favoring strong government action to reform the health care system.

If that’s right, then maybe a majority of Americans technically favor a “no” vote on health care reform. But it’s not at all clear that they’ll be any happier with a perpetuation of the status quo, much less the kind of “reforms” Republicans are talking about. It looks like a significant share of the public wants something with a strong public option, or perhaps a full-blown single-payer system. It’s disengenuous to pretend these are people who have linked arms with Rush Limbaugh and congressional Republican leaders to fight against serious reform.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

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Posted in A New Framework for Growth and Equity, Daily Fix | No Comments »

All in on Health Reform

Friday, February 26th, 2010
Will Marshall


Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Will Marshall

There’s something poignant about President Obama’s attempts to reason with congressional Republicans. He keeps hoping that facts, evidence, and logic somehow can penetrate the depleted-uranium armor of conservative ideology. As yesterday’s health summit showed, it hasn’t worked, but a public frustrated with Washington’s tribal politics will probably appreciate the effort anyway.

The summit nonetheless achieved its real purpose, which was not composing differences but illuminating the two parties’ starkly contrasting visions for health care reform so that the voters can make a real comparison. For the past year, Republicans have had the advantage of attacking (often dishonestly) Democrats’ plans without anyone paying much attention to what they have to offer.

The summit put them on the spot, and the clear answer was: not much. Here’s what we learned about what Republicans mean by reform:

First, they don’t much care about health care’s “have nots” – 45 million Americans without coverage. Sure, they favor a modest expansion of coverage to about three million people, but that only begs the question of why the lucky few and not everyone? The answer is that Republicans don’t really believe it’s government’s responsibility to make sure everyone can get access to affordable coverage.

Second, Republicans do care about restraining rising health care costs for those with coverage. But their preferred solutions — medical savings accounts, and allowing people to buy cheaper insurance policies out-of-state — are tilted toward the healthy. The former takes healthy people out of insurance pools, raising premiums for those who remain. The latter allows people to end-run state mandates on the medical services insurance companies must offer. That’s fine for healthy people who can get by with bare-bones coverage, but it doesn’t help the sick. In fact, Republicans generally oppose the insurance market reforms that would prevent companies from cherry-picking healthy customers or dropping people when they get sick.

Third, the GOP has no intention of helping Obama and the Democrats improve their plans, let alone pass them. They feel little pressure to do so, because they think they have the public on their side.

It’s true that polls show majorities are leery of the Democrats’ reform proposals, even if Americans still want Obama to “do something” about health care costs and coverage. Rather than crumble in the face of public skepticism, Obama adroitly used the summit to reframe the health care debate as a choice between action or inaction on one of the nation’s most vexing problems.

The spotlight now shifts to his party. Will liberals torpedo health reform because it doesn’t include the public option? Will moderates play it safe or take a risk for the larger good of their party and their country? Will health care reform be a casualty of that hardy perennial of the culture wars, abortion?

Can congressional Democrats, in short, summon the will and discipline to rise above their own centripetal forces and govern? It should be obvious that failure would reinforce the Republican narrative: the bill was misbegotten in the first place, an overly ambitious, big-government monster that couldn’t even pass muster with Democrats.

Obama has gone all in; now his party needs to follow.

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Posted in A New Framework for Growth and Equity, Daily Fix | 2 Comments »

Walking Dead Incumbents

Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

To distract myself from the intense desire to scream while listening to Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) speak at the health care summit, I read a fine post by Nate Silver that explodes the myth that incumbents who don’t hold a majority in early polls are already toasty if not toast. This myth is being used by Republicans to declare a lot of Democrats as walking dead long before campaigns actually develop. Turns out, though, the available evidence doesn’t support that proposition. Here’s Nate’s conclusion:

1) It is extremely common for an incumbent come back to win re-election while having less than 50 percent of the vote in early polls.2) In comparison to early polls, there is no demonstrable tendency for challengers to pick up a larger share of the undecided vote than incumbents.

3) Incumbents almost always get a larger share of the actual vote than they do in early polls (as do challengers). They do not “get what they get in the tracking”; they almost always get more.

4) However, the incumbent’s vote share in early polls may in fact be a better predictor of the final margin in the race than the opponent’s vote share. That is, it may be proper to focus more on the incumbent’s number than the opponent’s when evaluating such a poll — even though it is extremely improper to assume that the incumbent will not pick up any additional percentage of the vote.

Nate goes on to say that a much narrower version of the “50% incumbent rule,” which focuses on polls taken late in an election cycle, has more merit, but isn’t really a “rule” either. On the other hand, incumbents who register at above 50% in early polls do typically win. This ought to be kept in mind by Republicans who are fantasizing about a late “wave” that will sweep popular Democratic incumbents (and there are some) out of office.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

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Progressives Need to Slam the Right With the Zazi Case

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Najibullah Zazi pled guilty yesterday in what should be a major coup for the administration. Right now, they’re not exploiting it for all it’s worth.

First, some background: Zazi traveled from Colorado to New York with explosives in his car and the intention to detonate them in the New York subway, potentially killing hundreds of innocent Americans. The NYT is reporting that Zazi copped to it after DOJ pressured him into cooperation out of fear that the inquiry might widen to include other members of his family. As a part of the deal, prospectors believe he’ll prove a valuable source of information about his contacts in Pakistan, where he met with al Qaeda and learned to make the devices.

Though Zazi’s plea has been sealed by the judge, he has admitted to conspiracies to use weapons of mass destruction, to commit murder in a foreign country, and to provide material support for a terrorist organization. In exchange, he’ll reportedly be sentenced to a life term in a June 25th hearing. Leaving Zazi to anonymously rot in jail is a win-win for the USA in the worldwide PR battle with al Qaeda, too. Sentencing him to die denies terrorists the sickening prospect of using Zazi as a “martyr” in recruiting and financing propaganda. This is worth remembering when KSM’s sentencing comes around.

The case demonstrates that the intelligence community can partner with law enforcement agencies to provide swift, effective justice to those who would harm us. The American security apparatus “connected the dots” to prevent a major terrorist attack. What’s more, it shows that the Obama administration is committed to defeating terrorism and can apply the civilian justice system as part of that effort.

The bottom line is that this is an absolutely huge win for a sound, progressive worldview on national security. The good news is that Attorney General Eric Holder is out making the case. The bad news is that he’s making the case in the wrong way. Here’s a telling statement on the usefulness of the civilian court system from his press conference:

To take this tool [civilian courts] out of our hands, to denigrate this tool flies in the face of facts and is more about politics than it is about facts.

It’s a perfectly sound and correct argument. It’s also one that most Americans ignore.

It would be much more effective to frame the national security argument in terms of emotion, not wonkery. Americans want to hear that their country is strong, that we’re beating terrorism, and that we’re on the offensive in that fight. Using civilian courts shouldn’t be referred to as a “tool”; rather, the entire case should be framed as a “strong victory over those who are dedicated to killing us.”

Conservatives don’t care about facts. They fight these ideological battles on emotional grounds, and for decades their arguments have resonated more with Americans than progressive ones. I would rather have the AG preempting conservative attacks using the Zazi case by projecting an image of staunch, fist-pounding resolve to defend the country, not wonkishly responding to conservatives’ false assertions that civilian courts are weak.

Think I’m wrong? Look no farther than this WaPo/ABC poll that shows the only category that conservatives are “winning” on national security right now is the civilian courts vs. military courts argument, despite the civilian courts’ effectiveness in the Reid, Moussaoui, and, now, Zazi cases. Why? My hunch is that the emotional idea behind a military court simply projects a better image of strength, irrespective of the justice it may deliver.

Now is the time to go on the offensive. Progressives should use this very tangible example of progressive strength and smarts on national security and show that conservative approaches continue to be reckless. Or we could continue fighting this battle on conservatives’ terms and keep wasting our breath.

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Don’t Tread on My Medicare

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

To continue some thoughts about the growing contradiction between conservative policy predilections and the GOP’s violent anti-spending rhetoric, there’s a specific political factor that’s intensifying the dilemma: the heavy, heavy reliance of Republicans on support from seniors.

Several smart commentators (Chait, Douthat, and Larison) have drawn attention to a new Pew survey on generational political attitudes which shows the exceptionally geriatric nature of the Republican Party’s current base of support. That’s a good thing for Republicans in the very short term, since seniors tend to vote at disproportionately high levels in midterm elections. But it’s not easy to be the Party That Hates Government Spending when your most important constituency is receiving Medicare and Social Security benefits. Here’s how Ross Douthat puts it:

[Y]ou can win an awful lot of elections just by mobilizing the over-65 constituency — they’re well-informed, they turn out to vote, and there are more of them every day. But the easiest way to do it, as the Democrats proved for years and years and years, is to defend Medicare and Social Security like McAuliffe at Bastogne. This means that while the energy of activists may be pushing the Republicans to the right on size-of-government issues, the concerns of their central constituency could end up pulling them inexorably leftward on entitlements….

This wouldn’t be a terrible thing if Social Security and (especially) Medicare accounted for, say, ten percent of the federal budget. But where the size of government — and if we ever want to cut the deficit, the burden of taxation — is concerned, they’ll be the whole ballgame soon enough. And if the Republican Party depends too heavily on over-65 voters for its political viability, we could easily end up with a straightforwardly big-government party in the Democrats, and a G.O.P. that wins election by being “small government” on the small stuff (earmarks, etc.) while refusing to even consider entitlement reform.

Now that’s how it looks if you are simply considering the fiscal numbers. But from a psychological point of view, there’s another problem for conservatives: how to rationalize a posture of maximum defense of Social Security and Medicare with a general hostility to transfer payments. The only obvious way to do that is to treat senior entitlements as benefits earned by virtuous old folks, as opposed to unvirtuous younger folks whose demands for “welfare” are to be resisted and demonized at all costs. You don’t have to hold a negative view of conservative motives to see how this can lead to highly invidious, and perhaps semi-racist, political appeals. Indeed, the current position of Republicans all but demands that they encourage seniors to view public life as a struggle to keep their own public benefits and their own private wealth against rapacious efforts by “elitists” and welfare “looters” to reduce their share of federal spending while increasing their taxes. And that’s a temptation Republican politicians don’t seem inclined to resist, illogical and immoral as it might be.

It’s not clear how long GOPers will continue to maintain this odd mixture of pro-government policies and anti-government rhetoric (a contradiction that extends, of course, to conservatives lust for ever-higher defense spending and foreign policy adventurism). But at present, they might as well emblazon on their Tea Party banners the legend: “Don’t Tread On My Medicare!”

Update: One obvious way around the GOP’s dilemma on entitlements is simply to “grandfather” current beneficiaries and introduce radical changes for younger generations. That’s how Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare Voucher proposal — central to the congressional Republican “plans” for both health care and the budget — operates. And that’s explicitly what Tim Pawlenty is talking about doing with both Medicare and Social Security.

It remains to be seen if this approach, which for all the talk about “keeping promises to seniors” sure looks like a cynical effort to buy off a demographic group that favors Republicans at the expense of groups less inclined — will fly with seniors or with anyone else. It does nicely comport with the “I’ve got mine! To hell with the rest of you!” spirit that Republicans are carefully cultivating among older white voters.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roebot/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Not-So-Independents

Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

This is becoming a pretty old story (Alan Abramowitz wrote about it definitively last year, as did John Sides), but since it hasn’t much sunk in amongst mainstream media political observers, its worth repeating ad infinitum: Mark Blumenthal makes the case that most “independent” voters aren’t very independent. The general consensus is that of the 30 percent to 40 percent or so of Americans who call themselves independents, no more than 10 percent are independent voters in any meaningful sense of the term. And “pure independents” are also less likely to vote than partisans.

This is important for a whole lot of reasons. For one thing, the idea that “independents” are a third force in politics positioned in some moderate, bipartisan space equidistant from the two parties is entirely wrong. They are not a bloc of voters who think just like David Broder or David Brooks, spending their days pining for deficit reduction and “civility.”

More immediately, the high percentage of Tea Party activists who call themselves “independents” obscures the fact that most of them are in fact highly partisan Republicans who are close ideologically to the right wing of the GOP. Here’s how Blumenthal puts it:

Remember the 52 percent of Tea Party activists who [in a recent CNN poll] initially identify as independent? It turns out that virtually all of them lean Republican. According to CNN, 88 percent of the activists identify or lean Republican, 6 percent identify or lean Democratic and only 5 percent fall into the pure independent category.Remember that CNN pollster Holland reported that 87 percent of the Tea Party activists would vote Republican if there were no Tea Party-endorsed third-party candidate running? That makes perfect sense for a group that is 88 percent Republican.

Why do functionally partisan, and sometimes quite ideological, people self-identify as independents in such large numbers? Some of it is just fashion: many folk conflate “independence” with “intelligence” or “thoughtfulness.” Some of it reflects short-cuts by pollsters, who often give respondents the impression that voters who have ever split a ticket should call themselves “independents.” In the case of the Tea Party activists, there is undoubtedly some mistrust of the godless moderate “GOP establishment” and its Beltway habits–mistrust that will not, however, keep them from voting uniformly for Republican candidates in any two-party contest, and which in any event may not last long given the rightwards trajectory of the party as a whole.

In any analysis, wherever possible “independents” should be broken down into D and R leaners and “true” independents, and the vast array of “independent” ideological tendencies should be explained. Better yet, pollsters should ask follow-up questions to determine actual voting behavior and specific views rather than self-identification by partisan or ideological labels. Otherwise, we’re allowing those labels to distort reality in major ways.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

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“Moderates” and “Independents”–Not the Same Thing

Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

One of the frustrating things about contemporary political analysis is the frequency with which key terms get used in a very sloppy manner that reflects highly biased or inaccurate assumptions. A perpetual example is the use of “independent” and “moderate” as interchangeable words for unaffiliated voters. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling explains why this can be so misleading:

One of the media mistakes that drives me the most nuts is when ‘moderates’ are conflated with ‘independents.’ This is most commonly a foible of TV news.Democrats are in trouble with independents right now. They are not, however, in trouble with moderates.

Independents as a group of voters are somewhat conservative leaning. Our last national poll found that 56% of independents were moderates but that among the rest 33% were conservatives to just 11% liberals. Overall independents were planning to vote Republican for Congress this year by a 40-27 margin. But break that out a little further and while conservative independents are tending toward the GOP by a 68-7 margin moderate independents are tied up at 33. And among all moderates — since moderates continue to identify more as Democrats than Republicans — Democrats lead 46-31 on the generic ballot.

It’s a similar story when it comes to moderates and independents and Barack Obama’s approval rating. Independents are split 48/48 on Obama. But moderates approve of him by a 62/34 margin.

Now there are also inherent problems with conducting political analysis based on self-identification of party or ideology; many “conservative” independents actually favor progressive policy views but call themselves conservatives for some essentially non-political reason; and many “independents” are actually reliable partisans who don’t like to be thought of as such. But if you are going to use such terms, Jensen is right, it’s important to keep them straight. And in terms of current political conditions, people who consider themselves “moderate” don’t seem to think President Obama is some crazy socialist.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

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Do Americans Hate Free Speech?

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Ed Kilgore


Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.

by Ed Kilgore

Looking for a “wedge issue” that will separate Republican politicians and interest groups from their rank-and-file, and from independents?

Check out this newly released finding from the most recent ABC/WaPo poll:

Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose a Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations and unions to spend as much as they want on political campaigns, and most favor new limits on such spending, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court’s Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent “strongly” opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits.

The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent). …

Nearly three-quarters of self-identified conservative Republicans say they oppose the Supreme Court ruling, with most of them strongly opposed. Some two-thirds of conservative Republicans favor congressional efforts to limit corporate and union spending, though with less enthusiasm than liberal Democrats.

What makes this finding so interesting, of course, is that Republican politicians and conservative intellectuals have fallen over themselves praising the Citizens United decision not just as a Good Thing, but as a heaven-sent vindication of First Amendment free speech rights. This is particularly true of the solon who is supposedly well on his way to becoming Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who said of the decision:

Any proponent of free speech should applaud this decision. Citizens United is and will be a First Amendment triumph of enduring significance.

So I guess Mitch is saying that 80% of Americans don’t care much for free speech. And that may even be true if you think money talks.

The good news in this poll is that it shows a very strong base of bipartisan popular support for the legislative efforts of Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen to fence off some of the more deplorable implications of Citizens United. But unfortunately, “fencing off” is about all Congress can do in the way of “reinstating limits” on political spending, which is what Americans manifestly want to happen. Unless Citizens United is actually overturned by a future Court (possible if Democrats hang onto the White House for a while) or a constitutional amendment (rarely a real option), the only practical counterweight to massive corporate political spending would be a system of public financing for congressional campaigns. It would have been nice if the ABC/WaPo pollsters had asked about that option. But I strongly suspect this isn’t exactly the best political environment for politicians to ask taxpayers to pay their campaign costs.

Still, the yawning gap between public opinion and the GOP on Citizens United should draw immediate and sustained attention from Democrats. And particularly at a time when the advantages of power in Washington have been so visibly minimized by structural obstacles, Democrats should open up a broader front in supporting political reforms. The status quo isn’t working for anyone other than those who don’t want government to work at all.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

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The GOP’s Health Farce

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Will Marshall


Will Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

by Will Marshall

President Obama hopes his bipartisan health care summit on Feb. 25 won’t degenerate into “political theater.” Too late: the partisan jockeying over health care reform already has turned into a farce worthy of Moliere.

It’s bad enough that Democrats, despite holding the White House and commanding majorities in Congress, can’t pass their top domestic priority. They look as feckless as Moliere’s cuckolded husbands.

But now Republicans are trying to dictate health care policy, despite having been soundly whipped in the last two national elections. As piously as one of Moliere’s hypocrites, they profess their devotion to covering the uninsured and restraining health care costs in a market-friendly way, though somehow they never got around to pushing a serious proposal when they held power.

Republican leaders have warily agreed to attend the summit, for fear that a no-show would cement their image as the party of “no.” But they are telling reporters it will be a waste of time unless Obama agrees to jettison reform bills that have passed both Houses of Congress and start over from scratch.

“Why would they want to keep pushing something that the public is overwhelmingly against?” GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell asked rhetorically after meeting with Obama this week. “Really, right now, it’s up to the President and Speaker Pelosi to start listening to the American people,” chimed in Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican. “If they don’t, there’s not much to talk about.”

They may be the minority party, but Republicans are effectively claiming a new mandate on health reform – from opinion polls.

True, public opinion has turned against the health reform blueprints that emerged after many months of haggling and horse-trading on Capitol Hill. Obama says Americans were turned off by the “process,” but then, he was the one who decided to offer only the most general reform guidelines and let lawmakers fill in the blanks.

But public opinion is mutable, even fickle. Most Americans were strongly for health reform before they were against it. And it’s highly unlikely they oppose it because they’re intimately familiar with the complex provisions of the House and Senate bills. The way they were put together – basically, by paying off powerful interests and hold-out lawmakers – no doubt was a factor, but polls indicate that worries about the economy and jobs were a bigger one.

Public opinion may yet be turned around by a decisive show of political leadership. That’s why Obama is right to keep pressing for reform, even if in the end he has to settle for less than he wants or the country needs. And the coming summit is shrewdly conceived to give Republicans a chance either to win some substantive points – Obama is already talking about adding tort reform to the mix – or to show their overriding motive is to defeat a Democratic president, not fix health care.

In any case, shifting polls, tea parties and a single U.S. Senate victory in Massachusetts don’t give Republicans the right to speak for the country, much less shape the nation’s health care agenda. That would turn a farce into a tragedy.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/talkradionews/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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Not Working: Republicans’ Assault on Obama’s National Security Policies

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll confirms what we already knew: Republicans may be hammering away at Obama for being soft on terrorism, but the public isn’t listening.

Since the Christmas Day bombing attempt, the percentage of Americans who approve of the White House’s handling of terrorism has actually increased by 3 percentage points, from 53 to 56 percent between November and now (39 percent disapprove). Respondents also gave the president a five-percent edge over Republicans on the question of who is more capable of handling terrorism issues. Public attitudes have shifted, however, on the issue federal courts vs. military tribunals — the number supporting federal courts has slipped a full eight points since the end of last year.

It’s slightly curious that Republicans view terrorism as such a winner, especially because the only effect they’re having is on the electorally dubious issue of which mechanism should be used to try suspects. Even there, the administration has made arguments in favor of federal trials (like the one that sentenced shoe bomber Richard Reid to life) that are only now taking hold.

So why are Republicans continuing to hammer away? I imagine its a bunch of factors. The anti-Obama sentiment has them pushing back on absolutely everything (even if they supported the same policies under Bush), they really believe Obama is a weakling, and they fundamentally misunderstand national security in the 21st century. It’s also an issue that really fires up the conservative base almost as much as taxes, and that will be important to motivate volunteers and donors in an election year.

Take Sarah Palin’s remarks at the Tea Party Convention. She said, “We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law.” The truth is that in the fight against terrorism — if we really stand a chance at long-term American security — we need the president to be both. And a clear majority of the public believes he is.

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