Dems Up. Repubs Down.
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Democrats, Polls, Republicans
Chuck Todd does that voodoo that he does so well…
To paraphrase Dickens, the last six weeks have been the best of times for Obama and the Democrats, and the worst of times for the Republicans.Just consider the latest findings from our NBC/WSJ poll: Obama’s favorability rating is at 68% (an all-time high in our survey), 67% say they feel more hopeful about his leadership, 60% approve of his job in the White House, and 49% have a positive view of the Democratic Party (which is also near a high).
On the other hand, just 26% view the GOP positively (an all-time low in the poll), respondents blame Bush and congressional Republicans for most of the partisanship in DC, 56% think the GOP’s opposition to Obama is based on politics, and Republicans lose by nearly 30 percentage points on the question about which party would do a better job of leading the country out of recession.
While we have covered all the new administration’s ups and downs, it is absolutely clear which party has suffered the most in public opinion these first six weeks: the GOP. NBC/WSJ co-pollster Peter Hart (D) says Republicans “have been tone deaf to the results of the 2008 election… They never heard the message. They continue to preach the old-time religion.†Adds co-pollster Bill McInturff (R), “These are difficult and problematic numbers.â€
What’s make me scratch my head is how many in the chattering class don’t get this either.
Yes, I know you have your principles, but a colleague of mine recently told me that he puts principles above outcomes, and I’m sorry…but I just don’t get that.
Americans didn’t vote for the tax cut philosophy. And Obama’s delivering.
Also, you don’t get elected leader of the free world by nearly 10 million votes to then have the opposition party define how your policies will be shaped. Still, the stimulus bill was cut by almost $200B because of concessions he made to moderate Republicans in the Senate. So they did work with their colleagues to find a compromise. And the folks who didn’t work with them were calling for something half the size and mostly comprised of tax cuts (as mentioned earlier, that’s an electoral non-starter).
So for my fellow friends/bloggers to so quickly judge Obama as having failed on trying to change Washington because he hasn’t adopted Republican’s “Let’s Cut Taxes!” ideas is a shaky stance at best. It’s excruciatingly easy to stand back, fold your arms and say, “See! See! More of the same!” without really appreciating the critical situation we’re in or the results of the last election.
I leave you to it…
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March 4th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Justin,
Since it’s impossible to have a truly relevant debate in 140 character bursts on Twitter, let me expand on the comment you linked to.
First, it depends on how you define “success.” If we’re using Obama’s phony “create or save” metric, then I’m simply not going to agree to it. That metric is not a real measure of success, it’s a political ploy by the Obama Administration that guarantees (absent an even more catastrophic collapse, of course) they’ll be able to claim that their plans succeeded even though there’s no objective way to prove it.
Second, and quite honestly, if Obama succeeds in any meaningful respect without burdening the country with trillions of dollars in debt we can’t repay and new entitlement programs we can’t afford, then he’ll be doing something that has never been done in human history.
So, you know, I’m pretty comfortable right now sticking with my principles and opposing him.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Obama charmed America, and America voted to be saved by him. He is truly a cult of personality and Americans will give whatever he asks for to solve all of the problems that they don’t understand.
The best part is, whatever Obama says is the root of the problem, people will believe. Like how a 3% marginal tax cut for Americans making over $250,000 caused our current recession, or how the Great Depression lasted so long because the government didn’t spend enough or intervene enough in the financial system.
He can lower the Fed’s interest rates even more, borrow or print more money, and subsidize even more of the mortgage and lending industry – all what got us into this mess in the first place – and nobody will even care. Doing the same is still change if its Obama.
Lets hope that the current treasury bond bubble either burts right now so that Obama can blame Bush (who is still fresh in the mind of his constituants), or he is able to keep it inflated until his term is over and pass the total economic collapse of our country to the next guy (hopefully a republican).
March 4th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
This poll doesn’t mean much.
Of course President Obama’s rating is high. Voters wanted things fixed; he looks like a guy running around fixing things so they’re happy with him. But in the end it’s whether the stimulus bill actually does fix things that will make the difference. 67% approval now isn’t going to mean anything 2 years from now.
As for the Republicans, though they’d never admit it, they are rooting for things to be roughly the same 2 years from now. That’s when they can point back to now and say “See! See! We were opposed to this because we knew it would do no good.” And if things aren’t significantly better by then they’ll have a pretty good case against the Democrats which means a 26% approval rating now isn’t going to mean much.
So this is a poll that was inevitable for Democrats, meaningless for Republicans and pretty much pointless over all.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
The Iraq war was also very very popular at first…ya know, just sayin’…
Given how Obama’s policies will eventually make thinks much much worse than what they are and what they would otherwise have been (take oh I don’t know, the continent — Europe — that has been trying this kind of crap for about a generation and that is consequently in an even deeper hole, sorry crater than the US for example), well enjoy the ephemeral poll numbers while they last. Because my friend, Obama has the potential to make both Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush look good by comparison…
March 4th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
140 characters isn’t the best way to debate? Hey, it works on TV. :-)
Still, to your point about the supposed phoniness of Obama’s “saved or created,” I think there’s a very common sense way of defining “saved” and those are people who were laid off but then rehired. I proposed this yesterday and for some reason you rejected it outright. And yet we both know that if economic circumstances get better, somebody who is rehired to the same job is not a “new” job. New jobs come when businesses are either created or expanded, not when they return to the levels they were at before a round of layoffs.
And listen, fair enough if you’re sticking to your principles, but I am a bit surprised at how certain you can be with your economic philosophy given how awful a situation we’re currently in. How can you be so sure? And how can you continue to paint Obama as some sort of socialist when he obviously believes in capitalism?
March 4th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
There’s tension between these numbers and the voting in the last election, to make only the most obvios point (is the poll counting people who didn’t and don’t vote? Why?), but let’s set that aside for now. Many aspects of the poll are question-begging. For example, “just 26% view the GOP positively,” but that doesn’t say much; how does the 74% break down in terms of why they view the GOP negatively? For some purposes it might not make a difference, but it makes no sense to hector the Congressional GOP to take or reject particular positions based on these numbers, as your post does, Justin. Janeane Garofalo and I are both in the 74%; you think she and I agree on what we see was being wrong with them? You think they could craft a policy response that pleases both of us?
Lastly, the number that’s just bizarre, and really demands to see how the question was phrased: “56% think the GOP’s opposition to Obama is based on politics….” What else would it be based on, other than political difference? Are we supposed to infer that 56% think the GOP’s opposition to Obama is based on politics and 44% think it’s based on racism? Of course the disagreement is about politics. We think his are wrong, and profoundly damaging for the country.
One should be very skeptical of polling based on questions that can so clearly and obviously have entirely different rings in the ears of different respondents.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Justin,
There seems to be an undercurrent argument in your post that I’d appreciate if you could clarify. Is it your position that those voters who didn’t vote for Obama should keep quiet and get on the bandwagon because they lost? Obama only got 53% of the vote so there were 47% of the voters who thought his ideas inappropriate. I think they post here. Moreover, I’m confused by your comment: Americans didn’t vote for the tax cut philosophy. And Obama’s delivering. One of Obama’s biggest campaign promises was tax cuts for 95% of Americans. I’d argue that it was one of the biggest reasons Americans voted for Obama; he wanted to give me more of my money back. As I see it, a significant portion of the 53% of American voters did vote for a tax cut policy. I’m confused and perhaps misunderstood your position. Please clarify.
March 4th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Simon, Don’t you think that maybe what they mean by politics is that these very same people who are bemoaning deficit spending were the exact same people who were doing it under Bush?
What they mean is that it’s politics not principle, because if they people were principled they would have been complaining while Reagan, Bush I and Bush II ran up more deficits than all the rest of the presidents combined–and they did it during mostly prosperous times.
I just cannot take seriously anyone who suddenly has decided that running up the deficit is bad under Obama but it was good under Bush–and that applies to a lot of the folks posting here.
March 4th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
GerryF, that very dichotomy is precisely why many Republicans are in the 74% who are mad at the Congressional Republican Party – precisely my point above. I don’t think that anyone who wasn’t feathering their own nest thought that running up the deficit on wasteful spending was good under Bush while it’s bad under Obama, although once one gets into the broader question of deficit spending, lines begin to blur and it becomes an argument about what is wasteful spending (to my mind, for example, the argument that Reagan’s deficit spending was bad is absurd insofar as it had a direct and clear causal link to growing the economy).
March 4th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Good questions shane.
To your first question, no, I’m not saying that people should simply get on the bandwagon. But do I think folks should be a bit more open to new ideas? Sure.
Also, I think it’s pretty sad that we’re hearing way too many Republicans and Libertarians say that this president has failed two months in. Failed in relation to what? The last 8 years? The massive financial collapse that happened last year and is continuing to happen this year? That line of reasoning seems to me to be intellectually dishonest and blindly ideological.
To your second question, I think there’s a big difference between a tax cut philosophy, which is what Republicans have, and a single targeted tax cut that’s paid for by a tax hike on the wealthiest 5%. And yes, I think it’s why some folks voted for him, but there’s was a lot more to his campaign than that.
About that 53/47 spread you cite, just because I didn’t vote for McCain doesn’t mean I think all of his ideas were bad. So I don’t think you can say that 47% of those folks reject Obama’s ideas, and the numbers above lend that some credence, no?
Also, while it appears as if you’re characterizing that 53% mark and 6% as rather slim, do you know the last time a Democrat got a higher than 53%? 1964. He won by 9.5 million vote, and just because he didn’t get 60% doesn’t mean that some serious political ground hasn’t shifted.
Hope I answered your questions.
To Simon, if Reagan’s deficit spending had a direct and clear causal link to growing the economy, what do you call spending for infrastructure, healthcare and renewable energy? And if you say socialism, I swear… :-)
March 4th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
thank you justin, for asking that last question.
that’s one of those brick in the forehead questions that seem totally obvious to all but the people who they are aimed at
March 4th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Thanks for the clarification. Open to new ideas is in itself a good idea.
I brought up the the vote difference to point out that 58+ million Americans didn’t agree with Obama at election time. A high opinion poll number suggests that Obama is gaining ground with those voters. I also agree 6% is significant gap, but that he started in the hole with 58 million Americans is likewise significant to this discussion. A point we seem to agree on.
With regards to my tax cut philosophy comment, it actually was a bit of an overlap from your other post challenging others to ask around to see if the populous understood our tax system, at least in general theory. I conducted a similar exercise during the debate season to see how many people understood the difference between refundable and non-refundable tax credits. To my surprise, quite a few folks that were in support of Obama cited his tax policy. Likewise for those opposed. I agree with you that it isn’t the only thing for voters, but I was surprised how much weight it had with those that were polarized in one camp or another.
In this case I see the distinction between the two sides of the argument not of whether tax cuts will be good for America, but as to who gets them, how they are implemented and to what purpose we are implementing. I was trying to make the distinction that both sides of the isle supported tax cuts in different forms as did the voters.
thanks for a lively discussion today!
March 4th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Justin, speaking only for myself, I have no objection to spending on infrastructure. All I would point out (although I realize that libertarians hate the term “tax expenditures,” and for good reason) is that tax breaks are a more efficient way to stimulate economic growth.
Healthcare has almost nothing to do with stimulus, and is better analyzed as a standalone item anyway. Renewable energy – well, I know I mentioned this on twitter the other day. I don’t take anyone seriously about the environement and energy unless they support a crash nuclear program.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:27 am
. . . tax breaks are a more efficient way to stimulate economic growth.
I just spent a couple of days in Vegas. While there I went to a Russian-themed restaurant (Red Square) and ate ossetra and drank Champagne. If you give me a tax break I promise to spend it on more Russian caviar and French wine.
If that’s the way to stimulate the economy, swell by me.
But if you think maybe new schools, better roads, airports and so on are perhaps more useful to society than me getting still fatter on fish eggs and blinis (gummy blinis, by the way, whatever happened to buckwheat?) then I think you’re going to need me to pay some taxes.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:36 am
By the way, Justin, you really should link to three recent posts at http://notapottedplant.blogspot.com. TL has done an extraordinarily thorough job of debunking any link between individual tax rates and overall economic prosperity.
March 5th, 2009 at 2:21 am
A few comments here:
Obama doesn’t believe in socialism. He believes in a mixed economy — a market system with government intervention in areas where the market doesn’t deliver. This is what John Maynard Keynes believed in. Also, many of the interventions Obama is proposing are not permanent, but temporary, to address the economic crisis.
The policies Obama are proposing are not his alone. They are the product of some of the sharpest, most experienced minds around. Conservatives are trying to paint Obama’s policies as some sort of radical agenda he dreamed up, but in reality they’re the result of thoughtful analysis and discussion by his brilliant economic and policy advisors.
The Obama Administration has a plan to bring this country roaring back to greatness again. Conservatives are still chained to moldy, discredited ideologies that are responsible for the economic mess we are in now. Why would we want to listen to them?
March 5th, 2009 at 10:16 am
It’s comments like this that make me have absolutely no respect for the modern Republican. It shows such an amazing level of ignorance and foolishness that it just boggles the mind. Anyone who thinks that this is true understands absolutely nothing about the scope of human history and how limited the labels that they apply to politics, society and economics are. We exist in a time that bears no resemblance to any previous one. The parallels that those who claim otherwise attempt to draw are laughable. Globalization is so much more pervasive and means so much more than they apparently understand. Technology makes more of a difference than they appreciate as well. But no, “principles” based on how things were perceived to work over 200 years ago are what really mean something, not the real world suffering of actual human beings.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Simon says:
This has never been proven. Ever. Claimed, yes. Proven, never. Trickle down is a complete myth in the age of globalized financial systems. Investments do not go directly into areas that will produce jobs in the United States.
March 6th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Jim, relativity has never been proven, either (nor does it need to be), but don’t think that you can make a venn diagram of “theories that haven’t been proven” and “myths.”