Tuesday, April 7, 2009

GOP 'brand damage' not repaired

Since I don't want to be accused of existing inside an "echo chamber," I feel obligated to link this item by Christopher Orr at TNR:
The latest New York Times poll is loaded with good news for the Obama administration and news that would be devastating for the GOP if it were ever able to penetrate the conservative-media echo chamber. . . .
Obama has a 66 percent approval rating, which is the highest this poll has recorded, while the GOP's favorability is at 31 percent, the lowest the poll has recorded in 25 years of asking the question. Arguably more remarkable still is that, asked whether Obama or the GOP Congress would be more likely to make "the right decisions about the nation's economy," respondents broke for Obama 63 percent to 20 percent. That means that even within the 31 percent rump that holds a positive view of the GOP, at least a third trust Obama's instincts on the economy equally or more.
Uh, "the GOP Congress"? Was this a "push poll"? But never mind that. What did the polls say about Bill Clinton in April 1993?

We are barely five months past the last election, the biggest Democratic victory since 1964, and Obama's been in office less than 90 days. It would be truly startling if polls showed Republican Party voter ID surging in popularity at this point. More importantly, economics is not public relations:
Don't you people understand that it doesn't matter how "popular" you and your policies are, if what you are doing is the wrong thing to do? And that it doesn't matter how clever and persuasive your arguments are, if your policies bring disaster?
As a question of electoral politics, it matters not a whit, in April 2009, whether a poll shows that people "trust Obama's instincts on the economy," if Obama's instincts are wrong, and they are. It Won't Work.

Opponents of Obamanomics ought not be worrying about polls at this point. Organize! Raise money! Identify and support promising candidates in promising districts. When the Dow is below 6,000 and unemployment is near double digits on Labor Day 2010, then we'll see what the polls say about who's been living in an "echo chamber."

3 comments:

  1. NYT/CBS poll has its thumbs on the scale … again

    It’s not unusual for the Gray Lady to cook the numbers, either, to make sure their poll shows that support. This is the breakout in their demographics on page 23:

    * Democrats - 39%
    * Republicans - 23%
    * Independents - 30%

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  2. The only thing the NYT needs to do to skew a poll is to identify themselves when calling. At that point many right-thinking Americans will tell the pollster to commit anatomically improbable acts on himself, and hang up.

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  3. Look at the poll, Rae, at the pdf. The Times sampled almost exclusively Democrats. It's a bogus survey ... totally meaningless.

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