How Much Is All This News Swaying Public Opnion?

[ThomWV]

I have no idea where people come up with all the polling numbers they do but I haven't seen much lately. I would have to think with all the bad news for the administration in the last week that many a mind has been changed. Even the Christian Science Monitor (a truly great newspaper) has run pieces very critical of him.

Has anyone seen any late numbers that might give insight to if any of this is sticking to the public attention? You'd expect mobs with kegs of hot tar and baskets of feathers assembling on Pennsylvania Avenue. Well, maybe "expect" is a little much, but I expect some reaction.

[Chipper Chat]

1. My Republican friends just dont want to talk about it.

Snobbishly eager to rub the 2000 & 2004 elections in my face ad nauseum, they now offer to talk about, say, the weather or clothing (or hurricanes). "John who? Oh yeah, the new SCOTUS nominee? Well, that new barbeque sauce they have on sale at Walmart is really tasty." etc:

[jaysunb]

2. Wow ! you know people that shop

at Walmart ? :evilgrin:

[Lexingtonian]

3. it's not doing magic

if that's what you're asking.

About 50-52% of the electorate has given up on Bush, the Administration, and Republicans on everything. It has taken 4 1/2 years and a lot of Bush, Administration, and Republican failures and hypocrisies. It's all the real Democrats and half of Independents.

The other half of the Independents are wavering and make for most of the fluff and variation in polling. Bush has lost them on everything except 'handling terrorism'. Every Al Qaeda attack gets all the remaining ones in support of him again, then Bush drops with them again and a bunch of these Indies goes over to giving up on him. He's ratcheting downward with them. These past two weeks- following the London attacks- Bush spiked to 52% or so for a day, but in the very rapid dropoff he seems to have shed enough of them to have gone to or under the 50% mark on 'handling terrorism' permanently. I haven't see enough polling to know where the new ceiling is going to set- but the lower the better for Democrats, of course. Al Qaeda is starting to drive down- beat- the Bush Administration inside America.

On everything other than 'handling terrorism' Bush has fallen to 40% support or slightly below. There's essentially a 38% bloc, Republicans, that really isn't letting go of Bush and the Administration and their Congressfolk yet on much of anything. They're obviously ever less thrilled with Bush's Social Security gaming and the creeping failure in Iraq.

They have so far held together and with Bush under an ideological shield that proposes that what they are doing is all ethical (in the ends justifies the means sense) and necessary, and Democrats taking over means doom and degradation and failure of America. The scandals Democrats have so emphasized recently are not useful in getting defections, but they've had the effect breaking down the ideological shield in several of the issue areas. The 'Downing Street memos' and the Rove/Plame matter have undermined the pretense to integrity and necessity and Worthwhile Ends in foreign affairs and in domestic politics.

Having broken down the ideological barrier, the story is that the 38% bloc of Republicans breaks up into a quarter moderates and three quarters hardliners. The hardliners will only abandon their leaders if they no longer distinguish themselves from Democrats as demanded, i.e. betray them politically on fundamentals. (Bush raising taxes or appointing a liberal to the Supreme Court or getting caught naked in a bed with Jeff Gannon would be such things.) The political negotiations and arguments hardline Republicans actually respect from Democrats involve unanswerable questions and taunts...and on rare occasions Louisville Sluggers, frying pans, brass knuckles, or cat o' nine tails in motion at their heads at damage-inflicting speeds.

The question is then how to peel moderate Republicans away as a group, the key step in smashing the GOP in its present incarnation. As mentioned, first the ideological shielding has to be broken. My impression of the arguments they listen to, being or in effect behaving like largely 'business' folk of various stripes, are demonstrations of absurdity and cost/benefit analyses of Bush (i.e. hardline Republican) policies in their results. As it stands, they know of them but can't openly acknowledge them.

They need Democrats pointing out -i.e. publicly accepted knowledge of- the logically and factually selfdefeating nature of Bush policies and the impossibility of further or any positive return on political or financial investment in public. Kerry was actually pretty good at this, unfortunately enough relevant facts weren't available for him to make this kind of case in enough policy areas.

Kerry is in fact now engaged in doing exactly this- quietly working toward doing what it will take to achieve moderate Republican breakaway, which means political demolition of the post-Nixon GOP- and it pains me to see all the stupid misanalysis of his work and efforts here.

Long story short, Rove and DSM haven't done magic but they're opening doors. Al Qaeda is actually driving Bush down most at the moment. Moderate Republican support for Bush and the present GOP leadership is hollowing out but not given up yet, and that last part is going to take some active work by Democrats in a particular form of argument. Getting Bush and Republicans in Congress down to around 32%, wedging away moderate Republicans to neutrality in time for the '06 elections, seems within reach.