Poll: Obama Beating Republicans In Stim Battle
Some striking numbers in today’s new Gallup Poll seem to directly counter the conventional wisdom that President Obama has botched the politics around the stim package and that the GOP has taken control of the debate (click on the image to enlarge):
The poll finds that a big majority (67%) approve of Obama’s handling of the efforts to pass a stim bill, while only 25% disapprove. It seems fair to assume, incidentally, that the disapproving one-fourth wouldn’t support Obama if he opened the Heavens and showered thousand-dollar bills upon the multitudes for a solid month.
Meanwhile, a sizable majority (58%) disapprove of the GOP’s handling of it, versus only 42% who disapprove of Congressional Dems, and 51% say it’s “critically important” to pass something. Gallup observes bluntly that these numbers “underscore the degree to which Obama appears to be maintaining the upper hand over his opponents from a public opinion perspective.” Not exactly perfect timing for Republicans who are claiming that their handling of this fight has put them on the road to recovery.
That said, earlier polling suggests that the GOP did make gains with the public in persuading them that tax cuts should be in the package. It’s unclear to me precisely how today’s numbers translate into support for the specifics of the package itself, which is obviously important now that the House and Senate are sitting down in conference to wrangle out what stays in the bill and what goes.
Obama is going on the trail today and tomorrow in Indiana and Florida to sell it directly to the American people, which means he’ll have another chance to try to hold the bill up in the reflected glow of his popularity, but again, it’s unclear how this effects the politics of the conference.
How do you square “51% say it’s critically important to pass something” with Gallup’s Feb 3 poll which shows “Three in four Americans (75%) want Congress to pass some version of President Obama’s economic stimulus package”? If the suggestion is that support has eroded, I’m not buying it. I think it has more to do with manipulating public perception through polls.
yeah, I’d forgotten that number. I think the question here is how Obama and/or Dems can capitalize on the GOP’s rising disapproval numbers to get more of what they want in the bill.
A nice simple lesson in macroeconomics tonight would go a long way. Especially if it explains specifically how education spending, food stamps, medical research and tax cuts each stimulate in different ways, and to different degrees.
Those numbers square. 51% (critically important) + 29 (important) = 50%. If anything, more people now want to see something done, rather than fewer.
But I understand that conventional fiction, er, wisdom is telling us that Americans are “souring” on the plan. Will this poll get as much play as Rasmussen’s?
Argh. 51 + 29 = 80%.
Obama is on top of this situation with the public, to judge by the public response which means the Republicans are just digging a deeper hole for themselves with their almost gleeful obstruction.
DanP wrote: “A nice simple lesson in macroeconomics tonight would go a long way.”
Only if, I’d suggest, the lesson(s) are made personal…”have a face put to them” in the jargon. Drew Westen and others who’ve researched how our cognition actually functions in response to different sorts of appeals make it pretty clear that we have commonly failed to frame issues in the manner which actually reaches people. The right, by contrast, have been brighter about this.
This is pretty funny, just up from David Kurtz
Tomasky: “I love the smell of stimulus spending in the morning. It smells like … victory.”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
I think Tomasky’s piece is pretty damned astute. What do you guys think?
Bernie Latham – (Forgive the paraphrase)The right is better at putting a face to the problem in order to explain it.
True. Unfortunately, the left do it too often, but poorly. I don’t want to hear that Jimmy Oneleg is losing his job, but if you can show how the AMT wouldn’t have helped him in any meaningful way, or the electric grid project provides jobs with similar skills and pay to his former job, great.
“A nice simple lesson in macroeconomics tonight would go a long way.”
I agree completely, DanP and this is where President Obama has done less than a stellar jobfor the stimulus package. He proved in the campaign that he could explain complicated things in an adult fashion so that everyone understands them. If he informs and convices the American people, the republicans will follow along, whether they like it or not.
DanP
Understood. I don’t want to hear about Johnny either. Or Joe the Plumber. Those of us who come out of an academic or scientific background (and other traditions marked by care in thought) are properly wary of the anecdotal. Not to mention the downright cheesy.
Really, I’m just tossing up the reminder that wonk-speak doesn’t have broad appeal.