AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform
Date
Approve
Disapprove

Sep 16-17
43%
56%

Sep 15-16
44%
53%

Sep 14-15
42%
55%

Sep 13-14
45%
52%

Sep 12-13
51%
46%

Sep 11-12
48%
48%

Sep 10-11
47%
49%

Sep 9-10
46%
51%

Sept 8-9
44%
53%

Aug 25-26
43%
53%

Aug 9-10
42%
53%

Jul 26-27
47%
49%

Jul 20-21
44%
53%

Jul 10-11
46%
49%

Jun 27-28
50%
45%

Friday, September 18, 2009 Email to a Friend ShareThisAdvertisement
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide now oppose the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the highest level of opposition yet measured and includes 44% who are Strongly Opposed.

Just 43% now favor the proposal, including 24% who Strongly Favor it.

But the overall picture remains one of stability. While the numbers have bounced a bit following nationally televised appearances by the president to promote the plan, opposition has generally stayed above 50% since early July. Support has been in the low to mid 40s.

The number who Strongly Oppose the plan has remained above 40% and the Strongly Favor totals have been in the mid-20s. This suggests public opinion is hardening when it comes to the plan that is currently working its way through Congress.

However, now just 48% say that health care reform plan is at least somewhat likely to pass this year, a figure that has been trending down in recent days. That figure includes 17% who say passage is Very Likely.

Rasmussen Reports has been tracking support for the health care plan on a daily basis since the president's speech to Congress last week intended to revitalize the troubled initiative. Given the seemingly settled nature of this week's findings, we will now begin to track support for the plan on a weekly basis (see day-by-day numbers).

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/ideology/62_hold_populist_or_mainstream_views
62% Hold Populist, or Mainstream, Views
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sixty-two percent (62%) of voters nationwide now hold populist, or Mainstream, views of government. That’s up from 55% earlier in the year. These voters are skeptical of both big government and big business. (see crosstabs)

Only four percent (4%) now support the the Political Class, down from seven percent (7%) six months ago. These voters tend to trust political leaders more than the public at large and are far less skeptical about government.

When leaners are included, 79% are in the Mainstream category, and 12% support the Political Class.

Polling conducted from September 7 through September 13 found that 70% of voters generally trust the American people more than political leaders on important national issues. Sixty-eight percent (68%) view the federal government as a special interest group, and 71% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.

The Political Class Index is based on three questions. All three clearly address populist tendencies and perspectives, all three have strong public support, and, for all three questions, the populist perspective is shared by a majority of Democrats, Republicans and those not affiliated with either of the major parties. We have asked the questions before, and the results change little whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge of the government.

Over time, we have found that those with Mainstream views often have a very different perspective from those who support the Political Class. In many cases, the gap between the Mainstream view and the Political Class is larger than the gap between Mainstream Republicans and Democrats.

Initially, Rasmussen Reports labeled the groups Populist and Political Class. However, despite the many news stories referring to populist anger over bailouts and other government actions, the labels created confusion for some. In particular, some equated populist attitudes with the views of the late-19th century Populist Party. To avoid that confusion, and since a majority clearly hold skeptical views about the ruling elites, we now label the groups Mainstream and Political Class.

The questions used to calculate the Index are:

-- Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgment do you trust more - the American people or America’s political leaders?

-- Some people believe that the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Has the federal government become a special interest group?

-- Do government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors?

To create a scale, each response earns a plus 1 for the populist answer, a minus 1 for the political class answer, and a 0 for not sure.

Those who score 2 or higher are considered a populist or part of the Mainstream. Those who score -2 or lower are considered to be aligned with the Political Class. Those who score +1 or -1 are considered leaners in one direction or the other.

In practical terms, if someone is classified with the Mainstream, they agree with the mainstream view on at least two of the three questions and don’t agree with the Political Class on any.

That's not a rebuttal to what I said.

You asked how they came up with that number; I simply pointed out that a thourough reading of the article would tell you HOW they came up with the number. A fact checking of the article apparently tells you that their math is iffy.

You would be taken more seriously, if you ever posted any other pollster besides
Rasmussen, who is notorious for their Republican/Conservative bias.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

You would be taken more seriously, if you ever posted any other pollster besides
Rasmussen, who is notorious for their Republican/Conservative bias.

Rasmussen has claimed he is a Democrat!

I'd take you a lot more seriously, if you were able to more frequently get your facts straight.

The left adds FICA and payroll taxes to 'income tax' all the time, in other contexts of course.

Like when Obama gave an income tax deduction to millions of people who paid ZERO income taxes. The rebuttal was that they were receiving payroll tax refunds; but Obama just called them income tax refunds.

Everyone does it. It's wrong in both cases of course, but if you want to chide the right for doing it and support it when the left does it, then by all means, continue to do so.

It's hard to take ya seriously on this issue, when you seem to have huge misunderstandings of how the tax code works, and when they are pointed out to you, you ignore it and pretend you were right all along.

I strongly urge you to review Parados' posts, which clearly point out the several factual errors your 'valid sources' made.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

It's hard to take ya seriously on this issue, when you seem to have huge misunderstandings of how the tax code works, and when they are pointed out to you, you ignore it and pretend you were right all along.

I strongly urge you to review Parados' posts, which clearly point out the several factual errors your 'valid sources' made.

Cycloptichorn

I strongly urge you to pay attention to the sources I posted and not so much to Parados. I am pretty darn sure I understand the tax code better than he does, and I am positive that my sources understand it better than any of you attempting to rebut my opinion here.

And it is only fair that you don't take me seriously since I rarely have reason to take your 'statements of fact' seriously.

December 29, 2007
Poll of Pollsters: Rating the IA Polls

By Mark Blumenthal

The main impetus for our "Poll of Pollsters" (from which I posted the first results on Thursday) is the desire to find better objective criteria to help sort out pollsters. As both Charles and I review today in complementary posts (here and here), the handful of past Iowa polls do not lend themselves to easy assessments of accuracy. The lack of transparency by many public pollsters makes it difficult to fairly assess differences in their methods, although I would propose the degree of their disclosure as a surrogate measure of quality. A third possibility is to measure pollster reputation, especially among their peers. We decided to start with a survey of pollsters about the public polls now in the spotlight in Iowa and New Hampshire.

I included all the details in the previous post, but here are the highlights: We sent out invitations to just over a hundred pollsters and had 46 complete the entire survey, although a few more (49) completed the questions about the reliability of the polls in Iowa. Of those, 22 are media pollsters and and 27 campaign pollsters (16 Democrats and 11 Republicans). There is no margin of error because the results represent nothing more or less than the views of the pollsters that participated. Like any survey respondents, we promised to keep their identities confidential.

We started with a simple question asked about each of the 16 pollsters that have released public polls in Iowa: "How reliable do you consider surveys of IOWA CAUCUS goers done by each of the following organizations, very reliable, somewhat reliable, not very reliable or not reliable at all?" We also provided an option to say they "do not know enough to rate" each organization.

We left "reliability" in the eye of the beholder, but it is fair to assume that few are in a position to evaluate the performance of each organization in past Iowa caucuses. As one pollster put it (in a space provided for comments the end of the survey) that there is "no way we can know who's most reliable until we can compare their final estimates with actual vote." Instead, it is safe to assume that most based their judgements on the reputation of each organization and its methods. As you will see, the pollsters had little trouble making such judgements.

As the following table shows, the Des Moines Register "Iowa Poll" conducted by Selzer and Company easily earns the highest marks, with virtually all rating it either very (36%) or somewhat (50%) reliable. The other pollsters with the highest scores are nationally known media surveys: ABC/Washington Post, the Pew Research Center and CBS/New York Times.


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