Rasmussen: Repubs Trusted More Than Dems
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Democrats, Economy, Polls, RepublicansBut the most important one right now: the economy…
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues, while 39% trust Democrats more.This is the first time in over two years of polling that the GOP has held the advantage on this issue. The parties were close in May, with the Democrats holding a modest 44% to 43% edge. The latest survey was taken just after General Motors announced it was going into bankruptcy as part of a deal brokered by the Obama administration that gives the government majority ownership of the failing automaker.
Voters not affiliated with either party now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues by a two-to-one margin.
That 2 to 1 margin among Independents is what Dems should really worry about. Because if they lose them on this issue, 2010 could be a painful year.
No doubt the recent decisions about GM have hurt Obama and the Dems, but what if the car maker turns around and the government makes money off the deal? Will people still think they should have gone under?
And what if banks start paying back the TARP?
Oh, wait…
A handful of small banks have already payed back TARP, but the large recipients have been waiting around for rules and permission to do so.According to WaPo, the initial list of TARP repayees will be announced sometime today or possibly tomorrow. Among those on the list: JPMorgan (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS) and American Express (AXP). All three were deemed among the healthiest institutions following the release of the stress test results.
I’m just saying, perception is not always reality, but it usually catches up to it.
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 and is filed under Democrats, Economy, Polls, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Um… Rasmussen? I’m not sayin’ they’re wrong, but I’d like a second opinion.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:05 am
It’s no surprise here!
That jives with the gallup poll trends on party affiliation:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx
It probably also has something to do with this New Era of Accountability and how terrible the administration and congress is doing at following through with it:
http://drawnlines.blogspot.com/2009/05/blue-accountability.html
June 9th, 2009 at 7:43 am
/agree with rachel, but there is some logic behind these numbers. Obama could gain some headway by presenting some specific reprivatization plans.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:08 am
“What if the car maker turns around and the government makes money off the deal? Will people still think they should have gone under?”
I’ll certainly still think so.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:41 am
It’s true that Rasmussen’s numbers have tended to skew a bit more red since Obama took office, but they were pretty much dead on during the 2008 campaign. And the readers of this blog know that since I posted the numbers every…single…day. :-)
Exiled, agreed. But I think we need these car companies to go through the bankruptcy proceedings before we know what we’ve got. Then the detailed plans will emerge. Also, look at how quickly the TARP money is being paid back. The government is not interested in owning banks or car companies. Trust me on this.
Polimom, fair enough, and I appreciate the candor. But…why? Listen, I’m all for creative destruction, but these last 12 months have been crazy. Personally, I don’t want to see our manufacturing base overtaken by foreign interests, so I think us stepping in and making sure they didn’t liquidate was appropriate. The same thing happened with GM back in the early 80s and we made money off the deal. Should they have gone under then? I genuinely don’t think so.
What we need now are rules where companies can’t get “too big to fail” because corporations shouldn’t be able to hold the taxpayers hostage to their bad decisions. It’s a clear failure of the deregulatory philosophy that has been the mantra in Washington and I hope we can shift to a more sensible, long term mindset. But I’m not holding my breath.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Justin Gardner Says:
Except that the “stepping in” has required us to borrow globs of money from… Foreign interests.
And why assume that the choice was bailout or liquidate? If only there were some other form of bankrupcy available, some alternative to chapter 7!
Again, you’re forgetting about chapter 11, but either way, the answer is yes. If they had liquidated, or if they had gone into chapter 11 and dealt with the underlying structural problems back then, it is far less likely (although one can’t discount the possibility) that they would have had to come back for more. Instead, what lesson did they learn?
There was a serious case for bailing out the financial sector, although it was debatable. There was no case at all for bailing out Detroit.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Citibank and General Motors will pay back the U.S. government a lot sooner than Iraq.
Oh, wait… silly me… that whole debacle paid for itself, thanks to all that nifty Iraqi oil money… How many zillions of dollars have we made off that deal? Anybody keeping track?
Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com
June 9th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
“Voters not affiliated with either party now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues by a two-to-one margin. ”
That is the most important sentence in the report. But maybe this shows that the republican media machine is doing a good job at pointing out all the negatives, but not having a plan of their own?
June 9th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
# Chris Says:
“the republican media machine is doing a good job at pointing out all the negatives, but not having a plan of their own?”
For most people, standing pat beats going to hell.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Chris Says:
The empty can rattles the most…
June 11th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Polimom, fair enough, and I appreciate the candor. But…why?
Simon’s response, just below yours, contains part of my “why”. There are avenues in place already for downsizing / re-structuring / re-organizing. But the automakers weren’t interested in going there, even after decades of increasingly obvious structural problems. If they’d suddenly been failing, I might think about this a bit differently.
Along with that — I really truly think this set a horrible precedent, the ramifications of which cannot be known from today, but are unlikely to be good.