jeffreymark

MAD AS HELL

The American people seem more emotionally polarized today, except for the during Civil War, than at any point in history. Not that polarization suddenly appeard, but people's dispositions metamorphosized in recent years from goodwill ambassadorship to "kick ass, my way or the highway" egocentricity. This penchant for self absorption, in my opinion, offers nothing more than a total breakdown of our traditionally conservative and Christian traditions. 

Pollster Scott Rassmusen recently coauthored a book which compellingly offers a glimpse into this contemporary character and how it plays out in our political world. Of course he reminds us that Mad As Hell:How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking our Two-Party System is a must read. Publishers offer this synopsis of the work:

The riotous tea parties and angry town hall meetings of last summer seemingly took everyone by surprise. They shouldn’t have: populist movements have always arisen in times of economic hardship and uncertainty. In Mad As Hell, pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen use extensive and original research to explore the mind and heart of the populist uprising that has suddenly thrown American politics into turmoil.

In the past, populist movements have taken root either on the right or on the left. Today’s populist revolt is unusually broad and has two wings: a left wing that wants universal health care and redistributive economic policies, and a right wing that wants to reduce the power of government to interfere in our lives. Both are hostile to the Washington political class, Wall Street, and the mainstream media—all of which they consider out of touch with the concerns of “real” Americans. The key difference is that left populists are effectively represented by Barack Obama and congressional Democrats who are pursuing their agenda, while right populists are chiefly represented by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh— an angrier and potentially more powerful political force.

So-called professionals in politics, business, and media have completely failed to comprehend the new populism and have dismissed it as marginal and extreme. The authors explore the broad-based nature of the new populist movement and explain how it is reshaping American politics—whether politicians and elite journalists like it or not.

The Tea Party movement is not a flash in the pan,as many have assumed. Nor is it a movement of racist rednecks and ignorant boobs, as its detractors have crudely suggested. To the contrary, it is an authentic grassroots movement of concerned American citizens demanding to be heard by an out-of-touch political establishment. Their concerns are real and their issues are legitimate, the authors maintain; moreover, the new populism is here to stay, and it has already changed our politics for the better.

In Mad As Hell, Rasmussen and Schoen have produced an authoritative guide to the new populism, featuring a combination of proprietary polling data, political analysis, results from online focus groups,and interviews with on-the-ground players. It is must-reading for anyone interested in American electoral politics for the remainder of the decade.

 

NEWT GINGRICH DEFINING THE CULTURAL/POLITICAL CLIMATE

The current cultural/political climate in America needs reformation. At the heart of our malaise lies a moral bankruptcy unrecognizable to those who have not eyes to see. Something seems so fundamentally wrong in a society whose cultural narrative replaces reason, tradition, and experience with materialism and political correctness as the standard barer. The ever controversial Newt Gingrich (controversial because his truths threaten liberalism) challenges conservatives to take back Congress in historical fashion. (via Instapundit; via Hot Air)

CITY SLICKERS WANT OUT

A recent Pew poll discovered that most Americans want to live in a place other than their current location. Of particular note is this information concerning city slickers:

"City residents disproportionately are more likely than people living in other types of communities to say they would prefer to live in a place other than a city," Morin says. "Fewer than half of all city residents say there is no better place to live than in a city."
A smaller proportion of women express the desire to live in the nation's largest cities. "Women are less drawn to big cities," says Robert Lang, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. "It could be safety."

I say come out to West Texas where the men are men, woman are champions, and everybody spends lots of time eating dust when they are not picking it out of their ears. Furthermore, out in West Texas one will not find many Texas Longhorn thug-Mack Brown sellout types. The state keeps those people in weird Austin. Coach Mike Leach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders once called West Texas the Australian Outback of the USA.

POLL FALLIBILITY

Attorney Bill Dyer (Beldar Blog) exhorts when reading the daily barrage of polling data: "don't let the bastards get you down."  He bases his optimism on this claim from Real Clear Politics:

So, we have made three observations: (a) relative to 2004, the standard deviation for Obama and McCain's polls are high, indicating more disagreement among pollsters at a similar point in this cycle; (b) the shape of the distribution of each candidate's poll position is not what we might expect; (c) multiple polls are separated from the RCP average by statistically significant differences. Combined, these considerations suggest that this variation cannot be chalked up to typical statistical "noise." Instead, it is more likely that pollsters are disagreeing with each other in their sampling methodologies. In other words, different pollsters have different "visions" of what the electorate will look like on November 4th, and these visions are affecting their results.

Continue reading Dyer here.

RACE NOT MUCH AN ISSUE IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The Gallup organization recently published some expected, yet telling numbers concerning the issue of race and this election. In spite of the numbers the race card continues to get played with hope some naive fools will bite.

(Hat Tip: Althouse)

THE MORNING AFTER

According to today's Washington Post/ABC poll Nancy Pelosi's little diatribe launched at Republicans had an effect on public opinion, or liberal public opinion. (Remember who conducted this poll) Not many people talking about the real issue here-the Dems who voted against the bailout bill. Some interesting orthodox patterns took place in this poll. For one, when asked about the national economy and personal finances here's the way the poll played out:

1. (ASKED OF REGISTERED VOTERS) Thinking about the next 12 months, would you say you feel (optimistic) or (pessimistic) about (ITEM)?

9/29/08 - Summary Table 

                                       Optimistic   Pessimistic   No opinion
a. the state of the national economy       43            53            4
b. your own family's financial 
   situation                               61            34            5

Every one of these liberal polls determine that people personally feel good about their own finances, yet see a bleak economic situation nationally. I attribute this to the persuasive power of the media. Second,I found a contradiction concerning these two issues:

3. (ASKED OF REGISTERED VOTERS) The government has proposed using up to 700 billion dollars to shore up failing financial institutions on Wall Street. Some people say (it's a bailout that those companies don't deserve). Other people say (it's necessary to protect the broader economy). On balance, do you support or oppose this plan? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

              -------- Support --------   --------- Oppose --------     No   
             NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   opinion
9/29/08 RV   45       17         28      47       20         27         8

7. (ASKED OF REGISTERED VOTERS) Who do you think is mainly responsible for the rejection of the plan in Congress - the (Democrats in Congress) or the (Republicans in Congress)?

                                                    

                                         Both         Neither    Bush    No
             Democrats   Republicans   equally (vol.)    (vol.)   (vol.)   op. 
9/29/08 RV      21            44            17             5        *      13 

The number is divided equally among those who supported and opposed the bailout plan yesterday. But, an overwhelming majority blame the rejection on Republicans. 47 opposed the bill and only 21 blamed the rejection on Dems as compared to 44 who placed the responsibility for failure on Republicans. I would think out of the 47 opposed there might be an overwhelming number of free market types who witnessed the Dem's usual collectivist mentality in the bill's supposed shift of power to the Treasury Secretary thus, placing the blame on Democrats whose leadership could not round up a mere 10 votes to get this bill through. Jeff Birnbaum, managing editor of the digital Washington Times, expounds on the matter.  His comments are diagnostic:

     

I don't think either Nancy Pelosi and her team or John Boehner and his team, the Democrats and Republicans, I don't think they did their job here. I think that Pelosi didn't push hard enough on the floor to get enough votes.There were five Committee Chairman who voted no on this issue. Part of the leadership.There were many senior Democrats that should have been persuadable. There were more than five Californians who were supposedly close to Nancy Pelosi, and they voted no here.

The leader of leaders, Nancy Pelosi, could not pull much of her leadership on board. Because of this some are calling for her to step down.Given the current climate, and remembering Bill Clinton's famous, "It's the economy stupid," added to an unpopular president, however, her resignation will not happen.

 

REUTERS BREAKS DOWN MACCAIN'S NEW POLL NUMBERS

MCCAIN BETTER EQUIPPED TO HANDLE RUSSIA

How could anyone doubt McCain's foreign policy advantage over Obama following the Saddleback forum? Looks like a no brainer according to one poll:

US voters believe by a two-to-one margin that Republican White House candidate John McCain is better qualified than his rival Barack Obama to deal with a resurgent Russia, a new poll found on Tuesday. The Quinnipiac University survey also finds McCain gaining on his Democratic rival in the national race, in which he now trails by 47 percent to 42 percent overall, ahead of party nominating conventions next week and the week after. McCain had been down 50 to 41 percent nationally in the same independent organization's poll in July. The Republican senator has attempted to leverage the fallout of Russia's showdown with Georgia, and his own vehement early condemnation of Moscow's actions, to portray Obama as lacking in commander-in-chief credentials. He led 55 to 27 percent over Obama when likely voters were asked who is best qualified to deal with Russia, figures likely to highlight wider doubts among some voters about the Illinois Democrat's lack of foreign policy experience. Quinnipiac figures however show that Russia is not among the top concerns of US voters, despite the crisis in the caucuses. "In dealing with Russia, even a large minority of Democrats think McCain would do better than Obama," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "We'll have to see how important this issue becomes in the Fall campaign." Obama's first response to Russia's clash with Georgia was seen as more even-handed than McCain's, but he has since stiffened his rhetoric, and there is now little difference on policy towards Moscow between the two candidates. The survey confirms that the slowing US economy is the prime election issue -- 52 percent of those asked said it was most important, compared to 16 percent who said Iraq, 10 percent who cited healthcare and nine percent who said terrorism. Obama leads McCain 49-41 percent on the economy, 61-30 percent among voters most worried about the war and 66-24 percent on healthcare. "The poll underlines Senator Barack Obama's strengths and weaknesses," said Carroll. "He leads overall and he's strong with women, even stronger among young folks and astronomically strong with blacks. "Weaknesses: Senator John McCain beats him among white voters, men, older folks and white Catholics," said Carroll. The poll surveyed 1,547 likely voters nationwide, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

OBAMA TAKE PRIDE

You lead in the new Barna poll among atheists and agnostics 55/17:

For the most part, the various faith communities of the U.S. currently support Sen. Obama for the presidency. Among the 19 faith segments that The Barna Group tracks, evangelicals were the only segment to throw its support to Sen. McCain. Among the larger faith niches to support Sen. Obama are non-evangelical born again Christians (43% to 31%); notional Christians (44% to 28%); people aligned with faiths other than Christianity (56% to 24%); atheists and agnostics (55% to 17%); Catholics (39% vs. 29%); and Protestants (43% to 34%). In fact, if the current preferences stand pat, this would mark the first time in more than two decades that the born again vote has swung toward the Democratic candidate.

(Hat Tip: Hot Air)

PREDICTING THE HORSE RACE

Poll watching looks a lot like a spectator sport, especially during the summer. Both presidential candidates have put the spin on the seesaw nature of recent polls. An article from the Houston Chronicle explains why the polls often deceive us:

You could get whiplash just trying to scan the most recent presidential campaign polls. In the past week, there was one national survey from Gallup declaring that Republican John McCain is leading the race by 4 percentage points. But another from CNN put Democrat Barack Obama ahead by 7 percentage points. You can't even figure out who has the momentum. Quinnipiac University polling in seven key swing states finds Obama's lead is shrinking. But CNN's poll shows the Illinois Democrat gaining ground. What in the name of President Kerry is going on here? Here are some explanations for the current polling confusion:

•Summertime polls are notoriously unreliable. Families take vacations, so the samples used by pollsters are less representative of the population. Fewer people are home during the hours when pollsters call. And many voters are thinking of the beach — or paying for that next tank of gas — rather than making a final decision on their local congressional race or even the presidential contest.
"It's just not a good time to poll," said Clay Richards, associate director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

•The increased use of cell phones makes some polls less reliable. Pollsters have been bedeviled in recent years by the increasing number of Americans, particularly younger adults, who use mobile units as their primary — or sometimes only — telephones. The problem is exacerbated in the summer, when more people rely on cell phones.
Some pollsters conduct business entirely on land lines, while some create formulas for taking into account people without old-fashioned service. Add to that the fact that more people are away from their home phones, where most pollsters call, and you have a recipe for disaster.

•Blame it on cable. The insatiable appetite of 24/7 cable news, the Internet and the blogosphere have accelerated the trend toward covering new poll results like a new inning in a baseball game.
Sunday's newest poll showed McCain ahead, 49 percent to 45 percent. Tuesday, the latest numbers were Obama 51, McCain 44. Thursday, it was tied at 44.
Next up at the plate, Carlos Lee.
Trouble is, we're really mixing Astros and astrology here. Polls are just snapshots in time — blurry snapshots. We should not mix and match polls at will.
All polls are not the same

•Pollsters are surveying different audiences. Some summertime polls measure all adults, some measure registered voters, some try to guess who will be a likely voter in November. After Labor Day, just about every poll focuses on likely voters, so it's more valid to compare one poll to another. If you do that in the summertime, you're asking for trouble.

•Nobody knows yet who's going to vote in November. Even the polls that claim to measure likely voters aren't the same. All use a formula called a "screen" based on answers to several questions. Some polls base their likely-voter screen on whether a person has voted in recent elections. Others base it on the person's enthusiasm level about the current election.
Some Democrats argue that most screens undercount young voters, first-time voters and charged-up anti-Bush voters. As independent pollster John Zogby says, all polling mixes art and science. There's no scientific formula that can perfectly predict who will show up to vote.

•Public opinion is volatile three months before an election. In the summer, voters are more likely to change their minds based on the breaking news story of the day.
"Opinions are soft during summer months," said pollster Thomas Riehle. "For all the excitement about turnout in the primaries, there are about 40 or 50 million people who have not confronted the obligation to vote for Obama or McCain yet in 2008.
"Most of them will turn to this task soon, but few will before Labor Day. That great mass of voters will solidify and may change the balance of public opinion on the presidential race."

The polls, however deceiving, raise more questions about Obma's candidacy than McCain's. First of all the Obama bounce via his Iraq/German photo op. tour never arrived. One assumes this is a policy statement more so than a holistic commentary on Obama's credentials. The recent foreign Messianic tour failed to drive home the point that a whirlwind education in foreign policy can prepare one for the highest office in the land. Given today's historical climate, that's one area in which smart voters refuse to compromise. And Obama handicapped whatever gains he made on his trip with his arrogant, proud refusal to acquiesce to the relevancy of the surge. McCain wins the commander-in-chief argument even before taking the playing field. And Obama's conceit goes against the American ethic of practicality over ivory towerism. Average Americans often relinquish reason to what works. In the voter's minds McCain possesses more of the latter.

Second, perhaps Americans sense Obama's teleprompter co-dependency. When challenged to speak off the cuff he often stutters and staggers desperately grasping for a toehold. This gives the appearance of a confidence deficit. Americans want a president who looks confident with a propensity toward contagion. McCain, not the most compelling candidate in my life time, with the right advice could reasonably destroy Obama's house of cards-an act destined to give the polls fits.