Gallup: Public supports Obama, Democrats over GOP on stimulus by wide margin
I have to admit that I read the Washington Post piece on GOP anti-stimulus strategy with a bit of glee. Replete with photo of an arrogant Rush Limbaugh the article cited various and sundry Republican officials who believe in their heart of hearts that opposing the stimulus is the key to their return from the wilderness.
What really struck me was a quote from Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin who claimed that “You can’t walk down the street in Janesville, Wisconsin, without someone trashing [the stimulus].” Really?
This the same Janesville, Wisconsin that just witnessed the closing of its Chevy Tahoe plant – one that lasted more than 90 years. Are the people of Janesville really trashing the stimulus for its excessive pork barrel spending? Without polling of that southern Wisconsin town it’s impossible to know.
But if new nation-wide polling from Gallup is any indication, the people of Janesville are probably trashing their conservative ideologue Representative more than they are the stimulus bill.
It turns out that a supermajority of Americans support President Obama on the stimulus bill. By a 67-25 margin, the pubic approves of the way Obama has handled the stimulus package.
This isn’t terribly surprising given the overall popularity of Obama in his honeymoon phase. Even Republican opponents of the bill have taken to praising Obama for his bipartisan appeal.
But what about the Congressional Democrats? Surely they must be deeply unpopular, tagged and mocked as pork barrel spenders and clingers to liberal special interest groups, right? And the Congressional Republicans, whom the Washington Post just claimed to have finally found their voice and tapped into a deep popular anger against pork barrel spending and “generational theft,” are more popular than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi’s gang, right?
Wrong.
A plurality of respondents approves of the role that the “Democrats in Congress” have played in the stimulus debate, 48-42. Seems the public isn’t so outraged with Pelosi and Reid after all.
What about those suddenly principled Republicans?
The public DISAPPROVES of them by a 58-31 margin.
Again, we have a unified Republican Party heading toward suicide, holding desperately to a time warped 1980s-era ideology, and viewed as fighting the wrong fight.
I am reminded now why I felt so gleeful watching the Republicans cheerfully opposing the stimulus. I’ll be sure to peer over the cliff to watch the GOP wreckage below knowing that at least one party is trying to fix the economy.
UPDATE: Here’s one Gallup graphic that illustrates the polls’ findings:
And here are some more:
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And this one that shows the partisan divide (and Obama’s support from independent voters):
Here is the breakdown in support for Obama, Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans:
For more weblog reaction go HERE.
17 Responses to “Gallup: Public supports Obama, Democrats over GOP on stimulus by wide margin”
38% of people polled support the bill in its current form, the other 62% either want major changes, don't like it at all, or don't know. That is hardly a rousing show of support.
What the poll does say is that people generally like what Obama is doing with the bill, which is fine but that's really a secondary issue. The primary issue should be getting the bill right.
That graph is from an outdated poll. I will put up the appropriate numbers
Republican officials who believe in their heart of hearts that opposing the stimulus is the key to their return from the wilderness.
Discussing a 1 trillion dollar spending binge by the minority party is not Antipatriotic. IS IT?
Is the GOP now anti patriots? We hate Americans. We loathe and despise everyone who makes under 5 million dollars per year.
Fascism………..Fascists aim to create a single-party state in which the government is led by a dictator who seeks unity by requiring individuals to subordinate self-interest to the collective interest of the nation or a race
The more I hear the Obama supporters the more I hear the drum beat of Italy and Germany pre 1940.
DARE NOT QUESTION US. For we know what is best for you.
Greenschemes,
Notwithstanding your invocation of Godwin's Law here, your point is absurd. The problem is not the presence or vehemence of opposition. It's the media assumption that the opposition has more substantive merit and political support than the governing majority.
Elrod's improper handling of polls is unfortunately par for the spin cycle in current politics, but it's badly lacking in objectivity.
In the first place, it's questionable whether any of the questions address the current stimulus bill, since it's Congress' bill, not Obama's. Ask the question accurately to avoid the Obama halo effect, and I'm sure the results will be different.
In the second place, the only question that addresses the stimulus bill, the question whether stimulus should be accepted as Obama proposed it (a terrible question, since it's not clear what Obama himself proposed) shows that 54% either want major changes or reject the bill outright, where only 38% are willing to accept it without changes. The other questions regard whether people think SOME stimulus bill is necessary, and even there, the margin in favor is only 51 to 45.
Finally, the question regarding whether people “approve of the way Obama is handling the bill” has no bearing whatsoever on the bill, and constitutes only a general endorsement of Obama himself.
Elrod illustrates why I think the word “moderate” in the name of this blog is misleading. The blog consistently represents the positions of the mid-left wing of the Democratic party, and is moderate only in comparison to the hard left. This is not, by any means, a centrist blog.
Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post article, page two:
****
“The party, these Republicans say, need only hold true to its small-government principles for a center-right electorate to gravitate back. That means rejecting the stimulus package and offering in its place an alternative package centered mostly on tax cuts, as House Republicans did last week.”
*****
Heh… see,
The problem is that the GOP base is made up largely of either the super-rich or the working poor. Their inaction on providing stimulus at the only place it will work: the bottom, is a formula guaranteed to cost membership to their base. This is a no-win situation for them and why I'm laughing my ass off at their gyrating machinations holding up the economy. It will ONLY play bad for them.
Here's how:
As more and more of the working poor making up the vast majority of their ranks (go figure?) lose their jobs, their homes and their very reason for existance, beer and cheeto money…lol…they're going to be looking for someone who wasn't doing their job right. If they, God forbid, discover that their own party, the GOP is behind the reason their plant shut down…for lack of stimulative spending, that's the end of them. And at the top of the GOP ranks in the piggie-trough of exploitative CEO-ville (the people who use the lower ranks of their own party to live the life of ease), will see a plummeting of their stock and holdings due to the economy tanking. You take the money part away from ANY of the republican element and they're going to jump out like rats off a sinking ship.
And so it is that the GOP has an invisible noose around it's own neck called “reflexive sloth and stubborn traditionalism”…and the weak little stepstool underneath their feet keep creaking ever-louder with each passing day they hold up the works..
Elrod illustrates why I think the word “moderate” in the name of this blog is misleading.
Ed note: Management of this weblog had originally registered as “Students of Noam Chomsky”., but ran into unfortunate problems at the Trademark Office. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause for our readership.
The word “moderate” has always been misleading. As for Elrod, he has been agitated and even neurotic since approximately the GOP convention or the selection by McCain of Sarah Palin as his Vice-Presidential running mate. Most people are opposed to the pork-laden, irresponsible, insulting “stimulus” bill put together by the House Dems, and opposition continues to materialize the more in it is exposed. Why anyone would actually try with any vigor to pathetically and wrongly seek support (descending to plaintive propaganda, which fools nobody with a room-temperature-or-greater IQ) for such a bad bill?
Obama is making a blunder at visiting the more ailing, Dem-filled larger states. Even there he's not necessarily preaching to an unlearned, unquestioning choir but to many skeptics, and why would he support this bill? It is not his; it is the misbehavior House Dems' bill, and it is tainting anyone associating with it (or trying to defend it). It's disturbing that someone is convincing him to pander for this bad bill — is it because this is an attempt to try to force the public to get used to much larger spending, no matter of what kind, how bad?
“Students of Noam Chomsky”
He's a “centrist.”
It's disturbing that someone is convincing him to pander for this bad bill — is it because this is an attempt to try to force the public to get used to much larger spending, no matter of what kind, how bad?
If we didn't still have an adorant and pliant media, I think we'd already be seeing cartoons of an Obama marionette being handled by Pelosi.
“The more I hear the Obama supporters the more I hear the drum beat of Italy and Germany pre 1940.”
To date I've noticed more the hymn-singing and the exaggerated claims of his ability and his accomplishments. But you have a point in that you are describing the Dems' and their supporters attitude toward, as well as their nature of what they view is “bi-partisanship.” Do it our way, no other way.
More to the point, we'll see things more like Italy or Germany if we see more bank equitity positions taken by Washington, more kinds of restrictions imposed on the banks or on other industries, federal corporate charters or federal officials participating not only in shareholder activism, but insisting on making management decisions. All that's missing is a truly managed cartel in such a case along with government presence and decision-making affecting the banks, or other industries. Certainly such a sickening thing is possible.
You mean moderates don't gleefully celebrate positive polls for Obama and cheer Republicans going over a cliff?
“If we didn't still have an adorant and pliant media, I think we'd already be seeing cartoons of an Obama marionette being handled by Pelosi.”
I can see some people on this site pathetically bleating in favor of the bill, no matter how bad it is. But Obama??? Where's the change?
You mean moderates don't gleefully celebrate positive polls for Obama and cheer Republicans going over a cliff?
It's been explained to me before, but it's apparently over my head so I've given up trying to understand it, DaGoat. Something about the center moving, truth has a liberal bias, Republicans brought this on themselves, can't even consider voting for Republicans when they fearmonger and demonize the opposition.
I guess when Obama said that it was time to put aside childishness, some translate that as “time to play hardball!”
Don't forget the venom from “moderates” when the Republicans aren't going over a cliff — or directed against Bush, any time.
It's the media assumption that the opposition has more substantive merit and political support than the governing majority.
Yes Elrod. My point is not absurd. The GOP was accused of Hitlerism and Fascism for not listening. Rushing Willy Nilly headlong into a war. Not questioning. Not seeking the truth. Believing that they had to act now for the good of the country.
Now the shoe is on the other foot and the Left is crying foul and trying to paint the gop as anti patriotic obstructionists for asking questions, trying to curb costs and yet you respond that the media are essentially idiots for assuming that the opposition has any MERIT>
Good gawd. How the worm has turned. Just a few years ago the GOP was pointing those same fingers at the democrats and the cry was foul. Now we face the same dilemna while Obama and the democrats try to nationalize big business and turn this country towards something unrecognizable.
I will continue to point out hypocrisy when I see it.
“I will continue to point out hypocrisy when I see it.”
Like the “reconciliation” part (the “truth” part already means other than what's said) in Leahy's idea appealing to the far-left hate-filled kooks of a Bush-administration “truth commission” (show-trial star-chamber witch-hunt circus extraordinaire) with subpoena powers, also called (so ironically and hypocritically) a “truth and reconciliation commission”? (It's got the sewage of our society excited already!)