New York Times: Obama Coalition Is Fraying, Poll Finds
94 replies, posted
NY Times
[Release]Critical parts of the coalition that delivered President Obama to the White House in 2008 and gave Democrats control of Congress in 2006 are switching their allegiance to the Republicans in the final phase of the midterm Congressional elections, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Roman Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents. All of those groups broke for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for Congressional Democrats when they grabbed both chambers from the Republicans four years ago, according to exit polls.
If women choose Republicans over Democrats in House races on Tuesday, it will be the first time they have done so since exit polls began tracking the breakdown in 1982.
The poll provides a pre-Election Day glimpse of a nation so politically disquieted and disappointed in its current trajectory that 57 percent of the registered voters surveyed said they were more willing to take a chance this year on a candidate with little previous political experience. More than a quarter of them said they were even willing to back a candidate who holds some views that “seem extreme.”
On the issue most driving the campaign, the economy, Republicans have erased the traditional advantage held by Democrats as the party seen as better able to create jobs; the parties are now even on that measure. By a wide margin, Republicans continue to be seen as the party better able to reduce the federal budget deficit.
The public wants compromise from both sides, though it thinks Mr. Obama will try to do so more than Republicans will. Yet for all of its general unhappiness, the electorate does not seem to be offering any clear guidance for Mr. Obama and the incoming Congress — whoever controls it — on the big issues.
While almost 9 in 10 respondents said they considered government spending to be an important issue, and more than half said they favored smaller government offering fewer services, there was no consensus on what programs should be cut. There was clear opposition to addressing one of the government’s biggest long-term challenges — the growing costs of paying Social Security benefits — by raising the retirement age or reducing benefits for future retirees. Support for one of Mr. Obama’s main economic proposals — raising taxes on income above $250,000 a year — has declined substantially over the course of this year.
Though Republicans have managed to keep Democrats on the defensive over the health care plan they enacted this year, the poll also shows Americans remain divided over Republican promises to repeal it. Forty-five percent said the law should stand, and 41 percent said it should go.
The poll does not measure the strength of individual candidates in specific districts, where indeterminate factors like voter turnout and even weather can affect results. And the poll, taken nationally Thursday through Tuesday with interviews of 1,173 adults, did not ask about United States Senate contests, as 14 states do not have Senate races this year. (The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.)
But it does offer a clear indication of party strength at the end of what has been a particularly intense and hard-fought midterm campaign with more bad news than good for Mr. Obama and his party.
Over all, 46 percent of likely voters said they would vote for Republicans and 40 percent said they would support Democrats.
A higher percentage of Americans continues to have a more favorable opinion of the Democratic Party than of the Republican Party, with 46 percent favoring Democrats and 41 favoring Republicans. But the Republicans’ favorability rating in the New York Times/CBS poll is at its highest level since September 2006.
Disapproval of Congress, however, remains near its highest level in the history of the Times/CBS poll: 76 percent of respondents disapproved, 14 percent approved, and 10 percent expressed no opinion.
Mr. Obama’s approval rating remains below 50 percent. It is 43 percent among registered voters, which is about where President Bill Clinton’s approval rating was in the 1994 midterm elections when Republicans swept control of the House and the Senate.
Yet nearly 60 percent of Americans were optimistic about Mr. Obama’s next two years in office and nearly 70 percent said the economic slump is temporary. Half said the economy was where they expected it would be at this point, and less than 10 percent blamed the current administration for the state of the economy, leaving the onus on former President George W. Bush and Wall Street.
Still, Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress have their work cut out for them if they intend to rebuild the voting coalition that gave them their current positions at the levers of power, whatever the outcome on Election Day.
In the case of women — a traditionally Democratic-leaning group that the White House has been courting actively in recent weeks — the shift toward the Republicans was marked in the latest poll, especially when compared with their stated preferences in the last Times/CBS poll, in mid-September.
In the earlier poll, women favored Democrats over Republicans by seven percentage points. In the latest poll, women said they were likely to support a Republican over a Democrat by four percentage points, suggesting Republican gains among women who were undecided as of last month.
But the shift extended geographically, as well. Among poll respondents from the Western United States, more said they expected to vote for Republicans this year than said they expected to vote for Democrats; majorities of voters from that region voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for Congressional Democrats in 2006, according to the exit polls taken in those elections.
The Democratic House speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, clearly emerged as a political liability for her party in the latest Times/CBS poll. Over all, 43 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Ms. Pelosi; 15 percent had a favorable opinion, and 40 percent said they had no opinion. The minority leader in the House who would probably become the speaker if Republicans win the majority, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, remains largely unknown. Three quarters of respondents said they had no opinion of him.
In a follow-up interview, one poll respondent, Judy Berg, an independent from Morton Grove, Ill., said she voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 because she was “looking for a change,” adding, “the change that ensued was not the change I was looking for but something totally out of left field.”
This year, Ms. Berg, a registered nurse, expressed a preference for Republicans because “I’m pro-life and I’m also looking at the immigration issues and the tax issues.” She added, “I like the Republican agenda on these issues better than the Democratic agenda.”
Like several other national polls, the latest Times/CBS poll shows a considerable “enthusiasm gap” between Republicans and Democrats. Six in 10 Republicans said they were more enthusiastic about voting this year than usual. Four in 10 Democrats said the same.
The poll includes indications that Republicans will have their own challenges should they gain control of one or both chambers of Congress with a new crop of lawmakers who identify with the Tea Party.
About 6 in 10 Republicans who are likely to vote think the views of most Republicans are consistent with those of the Tea Party movement, which, though diffuse, has had success this year in arguing that Republicans have been too eager to choose compromise over principle.
Yet 78 percent of respondents said they believed Republicans in Congress should compromise some of their positions to get things done and 15 percent said they should stick to their positions even if it means getting less done. Similar percentages said they wanted Democrats to choose compromise over principle.
Marjorie Connelly, Dalia Sussman and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 28, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.
[/release]
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/us/politics/28poll.html?_r=1&ref=politics[/url]
(This article has been read in full before being posted)
Democrats sure aren't doing well at the moment.
Yourk
I really doubt there would be a mass, or even significant migration of support to the GOP. I know i'm not exactly happy with the Democrats right now, but the GOP is way, way the greater of two evils.
[QUOTE=gRuKz;25704160]Yourk[/QUOTE]
Fixed in title.
No, Palin will cease power :ohdear:
I concur. Democrats are really fucking up, but they're still not quite as bad as the GOP.
They're not really fucking up if the Republicans block everything they try to pass.
[QUOTE=5killer;25705489]They're not really fucking up if the Republicans block everything they try to pass.[/QUOTE]
They're nothing wrong with blocking something if you disagree with it.
[QUOTE=5killer;25705489]They're not really fucking up if the Republicans block everything they try to pass.[/QUOTE]
GOP can't block anything. They can filibuster.
Filibustering is having speakers speak for hours on end so the debate is prolonged. Nothing can be blocked.
When the previous question is envoked, the bill WILL pass. The Republicans are the MINORITY party. There is pretty much a 1 party rule over the government right now.
[QUOTE=Uberman77883;25707267]GOP can't block anything. They can filibuster.
Filibustering is having speakers speak for hours on end so the debate is prolonged. Nothing can be blocked.
When the previous question is envoked, the bill WILL pass. The Republicans are the MINORITY party. There is pretty much a 1 party rule over the government right now.[/QUOTE]
Yeah and that 1 party is full of blubbering pussies who concede to the minority party all the time. So no, it's not a one party totalitarian rule right now.
Some of the shit congress is pushing through is stupid as shit.
Cap and trade, for example.
We should be trying to stop corporations from giving off emissions, instead, the government sees this as an opportunity to get more money to spend by having corporations pay fines and literally buy smaller companies "caps" so that the larger factories can increase their emissions.
I disagree with the article. Traditionally I've been sceptical with drawing these conclusions from polls, but I don't really see this as an accurate conclusion from the data. What the Democrats are worried about right now is not so much of their supporters (which I suppose is what they mean by the "coalition") going to vote Republican, but that these people will simply not come out to vote in the numbers they did before. Voter turn out has usually been abysmal in American elections unless sufficient political agitation occurs, and usually to the effect that the supporters of one will come out in force while the others are disillusioned and could care less.
The Republicans and their backers, on the other hand, are not concerned about their supporters not coming out to vote. The Tea Party has sufficiently energised their base for this purpose, and certain hotwire issues the media spammed- immigration, "Obamacare", "big government", the erroneously termed "Ground Zero Mosque", and other big name issues furthers this.
Just take a look at the way the two are campaigning currently- Republican campaigns seem more like pep rallies at the present, yelling about Obamacare or big government, some token words on taxes, but not so much on the real concerns and what they will do (beyond WE WILL REPEAL *insert hot button law* or TAX CUT). Democrats on the other hand have been going into overtime to their districts to try and get the same energy, but will fail to do so in many areas. Their campaign speeches and what not are different from Republican ones as they are specifically targeting crowds that had turned out for them in 2008- union workers, antiwar activists, healthcare advocates, gay and civil rights activists, urban poor, etc who have been utterly screwed over by the Obama administration and have become disillusioned with him. Unlike the article implies though, I highly doubt they will go and vote Republican.
The main change we will see in districts are the ever-popular "independents" that can swing the vote either way. The problem with "independents" is that they're not a cohesive category and run the gauntlet of various ideologies. Additionally the other problem with the category is that it varies on what people choose to classify as "independent"- whether it refers to the person having a party membership or if they respondent claims to be "independent" because they don't commit wholly to a party.
I'm inclined to think the "independents" that are often mentioned are the latter, but will probably tend to vote for one party over the other. This is the case with independents in general really- there are plenty of people who might tend to vote for one party more than the other but are not registered as a member of that party. Party registration is only necessary for those who are committed enough to go into primary campaigning and issues of party management, which not a lot of Americans are concerned about.
This brings up another issue about American politics in general- it is a revolving door, more so than other countries and magnified by having a two-party system. Nothing is really consistent and the goal to victory is to simply find something unpopular and ride it as long as possible. One will have upswings at the expense of the other, proclaim to be the defender of the little man while decrying big business and/or government. What ever they need to keep their cozy political position.
And I don't know, maybe it is because of my own political leanings, but quite frankly there is no real difference between the Republicans and Democrats- they just take advantage of the political landscape at the time to create an illusion of difference.
The debt is going to exceed the GDP by 2030. So we either need to cut spending drastically, or raise taxes gradually. It looks like this congress couldn't raise taxes (unfortunately). Lets see if Republicans actually cut spending this time. I seriously doubt it, because no Republican President has ever lowered the deficit over the course of their entire term except Eisenhower, who raised taxes and cut spending significantly, and Nixon who did the same. So that's pretty much why I hate Reagan; his economic policy makes no sense and yet we essentially continue to use it.
By 2030? Try 2011. Its already only 1 trillion dollars away from the deficit and the way the government is spending, it will probably exceed that in a year.
Which is why we should go 1 year without spending anything, and run the government on 1 trillion dollars.
Minimize the size of government to prevent spending, and increase state's power to manage state-side things.
What would you minimize? Health Care? Education? Unemployment benefits? Defense? (while I do want the defense budget to be cut, currently as we are still at war, it can't be cut significantly.)
Increase state powers to manage state side things? What does that mean? A lot of money taken from taxes goes back to the states. Most of the states, with some exceptions being California and Texas, receive more money from the federal government than they give to the federal government.
Minimize4 federal government by nearly cutting all military spending, cutting spending by 50% or more, and minimize employment and general power the government has. For instance, right now, if the federal government passes a law, they can literally extort the states by imposing a fine because that state will not mandate that federal law. Get rid of that shit.
Healthcare will only have a set of standards instituted by the government, but all appropriation will be handled by the states.
Education will have a set of governmental standards, but will be instituted by the state.
Unemployment benefits should vary by state.
Each state should have a militia for itself, while there is a very small standing army arbitrated by the federal government.
Eliminate income tax, and institute a progressive sales tax based on the cost of the object being purchased.
Taxes will be mandated by the federal government, but 75% of tax money will be given to the state.
Also, in the world of foreign affairs, pull out completely or minimize the presence of all US military bases.
Basically, just keep some in Europe and South Korea to keep stability.
Foreign affairs will be limited to the ability to make treaties. Permanent alliances will be dissolved.
No more loans will be taken from other countries. Once we get back on track, focus all efforts on solving domestic issues, and modernizing the country.
This is my dream of a perfect America, an America that used to exist, under Thomas Jefferson.
[QUOTE=Uberman77883;25707513]By 2030? Try 2011. Its already only 1 trillion dollars away from the deficit and the way the government is spending, it will probably exceed that in a year.
Which is why we should go 1 year without spending anything, and run the government on 1 trillion dollars.
Minimize the size of government to prevent spending, and increase state's power to manage state-side things.[/QUOTE]
I heard that they reduced the deficit actually.
[url]http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/[/url]
The deficit has been growing at a steady rate of 4 billion dollars a day, for 3 years.
As of october 24, 2008, the debt was 10 trillion.
As of october 28, 2010, the debt is 13.6 trillion.
Deficit has not gone down.
The stimulus did create 3 million jobs, however it could not stem the rate at which unemployment was still rising.
Nothing to see here. Our Democratic Union is strong. Carry on with your everyday lives, and be sure to get out and vote on November 3rd!
[img]http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3156/bagdadboblarge.gif[/img]
I thought it was November 2nd.
[quote]
This is my dream of a perfect America, an America that used to exist, under Thomas Jefferson.[/QUOTE]
What "perfect" America under Jefferson? I know some people glamorize the concept Jeffersonian Democracy, but it didn't work like that under Jefferson. I mean I for one wouldn't want to live like it was then- voting was largely limited to property-owning whites. Oh, and slavery too. Jefferson only stopped the importation of slaves in that regard.
I mean if you weren't poor, black, or Native American, I guess it could work for you.
For what it's worth Jefferson probably would have disagreed the proposal for the progressive income tax:
[quote]"Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual." ~Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1784. FE 4:15, Papers 7:557[/quote]
[quote]"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."
~Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785. ME 19:18, Papers 8:682
[/quote]
Your other points about removing the military and turning the US more isolationist is swell and all, but no one will adopt that. It has only been through the US's military and its foreign policy that it became a world power and has been able to exploit foreign markets for its own benefit.
I said nothing about a progressive income tax. A progressive SALES tax.
Learn to read.
Also, the times were different back then indeed. But social issues then, do not interfere with the way government would be run at all.
They both suck.
[editline]28th October 2010[/editline]
Democrats just suck less.
[QUOTE=Uberman77883;25710940]I said nothing about a progressive income tax. A progressive SALES tax.
Learn to read. [/quote]
What? I'm pretty sure I'm reading:
[quote]Eliminate income tax, and institute a progressive sales tax based on the cost of the object being purchased. [/quote]
Which comes out to me as saying you do not want a progressive income tax (I'm assuming you mean the US's income tax, which is progressive), rather a national progressive sales tax. The two are different things and Jefferson would have not agreed with it. In fact Jefferson's taxation rants focused more on tariff and sales rates as well, so he probably would have not liked what you are proposing to replace an income tax either.
[quote]Also, the times were different back then indeed. But social issues then, do not interfere with the way government would be run at all.[/QUOTE]
Yes they do. I know it's become the mode to try and separate social from political-economic, but they have a large impact on one another. The way the United States was at birth had a lot to owe to the fact it was mostly run by propertied white males who concentrated the power of the country and the economy into themselves, mostly by disenfranchising and eliminating other segments of society from political participation.
Jefferson's America was vastly different from the rosy interpretations that people have now, trying to make it into a Classical Liberal utopia.
I forgot to include tariffs on trade goods, but that is only common sense.
But if we were to implement Jeffersonian ideals today, with a few modifications of course, would be a model country, that would pioneer the world to the future.
[QUOTE=Ridge;25710335]Nothing to see here. Our Democratic Union is strong. Carry on with your everyday lives, and be sure to get out and vote on November 3rd!
[img_thumb]http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3156/bagdadboblarge.gif[/img_thumb][/QUOTE]
vote for the gop
[img]http://www.bing.com/caption/image/?bid=Dsc4Wa+llFGCEA&bn=REFERENCEANSWERS_ORIGINAL[/img]
wow fuck am i witty
[QUOTE=BURN DOWN;25707177]They're nothing wrong with blocking something if you disagree with it.[/QUOTE]
Theres disagreeing with it then theres just blantantly doing it to be a bunch of dicks the latter of which.....is the republican's
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;25710953]They both suck.
[editline]28th October 2010[/editline]
Democrats just suck less.[/QUOTE]
I think we'll find out soon now that Obama and the rest have effectively brought down their own party. Of course, whoever's elected next will gain an unfair advantage now that the economy seems to be rising out of the pit.
[QUOTE=BURN DOWN;25707177]They're nothing wrong with blocking something if you disagree with it.[/QUOTE]
Theres disagreeing with it then theres just blatantly doing it to be a bunch of dicks the latter of which.....is the republican's
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