Poll: Over Two-Thirds Of Independents Trust Obama On Economy
We keep hearing from some commentators that Obama is a “polarizing” president and that this will be borne out when Obama loses the backing of independents, which is said to be inevitable.
So this number in the new Gallup poll, which finds that an overwhelming number of independents have confidence in him on the economy, is pretty striking (click to enlarge):
So 68% of Independents — more than two thirds — have confidence in Obama to do the right thing on the economy. That’s only three points less than the 71% overall who feel this way. Meanwhile, the same can be said of only 38% of Republicans — thirty points less than the percentage of independents who feel this way.
Two points on this. First, it illustrates a trend we’ve been seeing since 2008, and even 2006: A merging of the attitudes of independents and Democrats. And second, it illustrates that the American people’s starkly polarized attitude towards Obama — something that was a big topic last week — continues to be driven largely by increasing Republican isolation.
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Don’t miss the fact that virtually the same percentage of Repubicans who trust Obama on the economy mirrors Independents that trust Republican leaders on the economy. In fact the Independents are 2 percentage points less confident in Repubican leaders than Republicans are of Obama. The GOP better start reading the writing on the wall. Preaching to the pulipit will get you nowhere.
oliver willis has an interesting take on this btw:
http://www.oliverwillis.com/2009/04/13/the-fringe-are-who-we-thought-they-were/
Not. Gonna. Happen.
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At least, not yet. The GOOPers have not yet hit bottom, and that’s what it’s gonna take for them to commit to a 12-step recovery program. They need to stop talking about God and seriously start building personal relationships with their Higher Powers.
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More massive losses in 2010 might be a start. Or maybe it’ll hafta wait ’til 2012. Meanwhile, enjoy watching the slow-motion train-wreck that they’ve become.
sgw~ Totally agree. Sometimes when I listen to these Republican talking heads I can’t decide if they get that or not…as someone who truly believe is a viable two party system, it is increasingly frustrating to see the Republican talking heads discussing the state of the GOP. It almost seems as if they are so far in denial (if I don’t address it, it does not exist) that they don’t even acknowledge what is going on…I can’t decide if they are truly in denial, or if they are just putting on a front for perception. The problem for them is, perception is reality and they are quickly becoming more marginalized than I have ever seen in my adult life. It will be interesting to see how these “tea-parties” effect the perception of the GOP. I am not quite sure how some of these “protests” will be perceived by the greater majority of the population that is paying attention. I can’t tell you how many conversations that I have had with my politically independent co-workers/friends where they have stated – “you know I have always been an independent type thinker and voted a split ticket, but I don’t even recognize the Republican Party that has emerged over the last few months” – Well, this is what happens when you become the Party of No and the Party of No New Ideas (tax cuts for the wealthy) – It makes you very popular with the base, but as far as independents and moderates – ummm, not so much!
jzap and Jenn D
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I think the biggest thing is that the people who are still voting Republican also aren’t calling on them to change anything. Notice another thing about that polling. 57% of people who self identify as Republican trust Republican leadership on the economy. Thats over 20 percentage points higher than independents. And for the people who keep bagging on Pelosi and Reid they beat Republican leadership by 10 points with Independents
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Whenever you have that kind of disconnect then the party will suffer. Republicans don’t dare change (not that they want to) because their actual base thinks what they are doing is great. Of course the fact that self identified Republicans now number fewer than in the last few decades should worry politicians from the GOP. Unfortunatly so far I don’t see any sign of concern.
The problem is there needs to be a middle ground – and there’s not.
Do I trust Obama to fix the economy – I don’t know yet. Do I trust the government to fix it? – no I don’t. The government caused the crisis in the first place.
The problem is – you have 15% liberals that holler & get a lot of attention (you all here are an example) – then you have 15% conservatives (the fox news crowd) – The rest of the 70% are in the middle. That’s where this tea-party movement comes from – you’d be surprised how many of us blue-Dems are attending them.
Get ready – the revolution is coming – and it’s not democratic nor republican – those are two brands of the dirty diaper.
cheers.
BlueDog
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I am sure you will fit right in
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwdOwgD5OsY
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If that represents 70% of the country then I will happily stay over here in the 15% that isn’t batsh*t crazy.
A reasonable view. Gov’t deregulation allowed too-big-to-fail “banks” to evolve, comingling previously reliable banking functions with speculative gambling enterprises.
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Many point to greed on Wall Street as a prime cause. That’s misplaced. Wall Street has always been greedy and always will be. That’s its nature. And that’s why regulation is needed to protect the essential banking infrastructure from (hugely) over-leveraged bubble-followers.
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You can’t expect Wall Street to regulate its own greed. That’s gummint’s function. Even Alan Greenspan came to see that, but, alas, much too late.
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BlueDog: I think you will get more mileage for the “70%” you mention if you went to soup kitchens and church basements and handed out tea bags for those who can do with a hot drink. Flinging good tea into the river shows how stupid the optics are. Are you a Foxite BlueDog: or a Glen Becker having a nervous breakdown? Can you tell me if there is a distinction between a BlueDog Dem and a Southern Republican?
It’s an interesting dilemma. Willis uses the phrase “fringe of the fringe” to describe that (roughly) 30% we’re speaking about but ‘fringe’ suggests periphery while these people actually sit at or near the present nucleus of the party – if they don’t like you, you probably have little chance in a primary. ‘Fringe’ is a proper notion here only as regards the broader electorate in total.
But his means, I think (and barring any unforeseen game-changing future event) that the party itself will somehow have to form a new nucleus. How that might come about is difficult to imagine not least because extremists are more tenacious than moderates.
Perhaps the growing disallusionment and apathy of the Dobson/christian right segment is a fore-runner of what we’ll see more broadly in the movement – activists will slowly drift back to country/western bars and wife-beating and fast-draw competitions. But as jzap suggests, this will probably take one or two more election drubbings.
Still, this won’t be a simple matter because the party/movement has, in its relatively long program to ensure doctrinal purity, divested itself so thoroughly of institutional means to cultivate fresh ideas.
BlueDog~
Thanks for joining the coversation. There’s not a lot of hollering that goes on around here. And I am not sure how much “attention” we get – we are just a few people batting around commentary, not really any hollering. HOLLERING LOOKS LIKE THIS IN THE BLOG WORLD and there isn’t that much of that on this blog. Yes, the government was part of the problem in the decade long making of the financial problems, and the vast blame belongs to the deregulation legislation written by then Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) – the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Future Commodities Modernization Act – both of which specifically allowed for credit default swaps and debt leverage of 30 to 1. That legislation combined with the financial industries desire to maximize profits was at the center of this storm. And while Fannie/Freddie also played a role, frankly we have always had poor and/or credit challenged people in our Country, but it was never profitable for the banks to lend to them until the two pieces of legislation described above. But none the less – let me propose a question regarding your described “revolution” – can you please explain to me where the “revolution” was over the last eight years when George W. Bush and the Republican led Congress (Republican led until 2006) blew through seven trillion dollars and took this Country from a 5.6 trillion dollar surplus (when Clinton left office) to a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit? Where was the “revolution” then? Where were the “tea-baggers” and “tea-parties” in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008? You see, that is the credibility problem with the so-called “revolution”. Most people attending them now conveniently say that they are “non-partisan” and that they don’t have any use for either of the two most populous political parties in our democracy – the “tea-baggers” main issue is “any government spending or growth”, but the government spent and grew exponetially under George W. Bush and I didn’t see any “tea-parties”. This is why many people view these “tea-parties” as really, bitter Republicans having a hard time adjusting to being in the minority. Sure you have a few true libertarians sprinkled in the “bagger bunch”. But really, mainly, it is Repubicans that just oppose the Democratic policy platform, but they are trying to wrap it up into this “new found” revolt against all government. Heck, maybe you are one of those true libertarians, and if so, that’s great – good luck with your cause. However, most of these “baggers” are just “anti-government” now…because Republican’s lost and have no real solutions (besides tax cuts) to solve the financial hole our Country has dug itself into over the last decade. So pardon us if we don’t take the majority of the “revolting bagger bunch” all that serious. No hollerin’ here, I’m just sayin’. Have a fantastic day and enjoy tea-baggin’ at your tea-party!
Looking at partisan ID numbers, it’s clear an “if we want to know whether Obama’s truly popular, we should look at the opinion independents have of him” approach doesn’t hold water.
In the past 4 years, we’ve gone from a roughly even D/R self-identification split (D’s had a 1-2 point preference) to a situation where Americans identify as D’s 6-10 points higher than they identify as R’s. That is, a LOT of people have moved from the “independent” and “Republican” columns into the D column. In addition, a lot of people have moved out of the “Republican” column into “independent.” And practically nobody has moved out of the “Democratic” column.
Against this backdrop, using “support for Obama among self-identified independents” to answer the “Is Obama polarizing” question is, frankly, wrong.
Looking only at the opinion of independents means you are over-valuing the opinion of people who used to be Republicans but became independents, while totally ignoring the opinion of people who liked Obama so much that they actually decided to quit being Independents or Republicans and become Democrats for him!
It’s like trying to gauge the popularity of a religion while ignoring the fact that millions of people have converted to it!
Really, it should be factored into Obama’s popularity that millions more people have chosen to identify as Democrats! But if we just look at the opinion of “Independents,” we are essentially ignoring the converts who became Democrats!
That’s not reality-based analysis.
Once again an excellent written post from you. Keep it up!