Obama's Job Approval among Independents down to 38%

[Aunt Spiker]

No, Soclialsm IS EVIL. It's meant well, good intentions and all that ****, but the underlying premise is that the average person is incapable of living their own life without Gov't direction and care. You aren't capable of making the "Right" choices, only a benign Gov't entity can do that for you.

The INTENT is to make life fair (which the very act of trying to make life "Fair" is unfair but that's a different debate) and make sure "everyone is cared for". The reality is that is an immpossible utopian dream that can only lead immoral, wrong and yes, EVIL ends.

You only feel this way because you are *not* a socialist and we are *not* a socialist country.
If you were born into it - you'd likely see nothing wrong with it.

 

[Renae]

You only feel this way because you are *not* a socialist and we are *not* a socialist country.
If you were born into it - you'd likely see nothing wrong with it.

You're partially right, if I had no idea what freedom and liberty were about, I might think being coddled by govt't cradle to grave was the "right" way. There's a book about that, called "1984"

However, that doesn't alter the fact socialism is inherently evil.

 

[Deuce]

No, Soclialsm IS EVIL. It's meant well, good intentions and all that ****, but the underlying premise is that the average person is incapable of living their own life without Gov't direction and care.

The fact that you portray this as some sort of battle between GOOD and EVIL just further proves how partisan you are.

Socialism is a form of government that, in practice, doesn't work very well. That doesn't make it evil. It just makes it another failed experiment.

Besides, Obama is nowhere near a socialist. It is helpful if you are able to see options in between Socialism and Libertopia.

 

[ptif219]

Aren't a lot of the independents former Republicans anyway?

I thought independents were left leaning moderates

 

[ptif219]

The fact that you portray this as some sort of battle between GOOD and EVIL just further proves how partisan you are.

Socialism is a form of government that, in practice, doesn't work very well. That doesn't make it evil. It just makes it another failed experiment.

Besides, Obama is nowhere near a socialist. It is helpful if you are able to see options in between Socialism and Libertopia.

So wealth redistribution is not socialism?

 

[teamosil]

Rasmussen uses "likely voters" while most other polling organizations use "registered voters" or "all adults". The "likely voters" number is more Conservative because the voting portion of our country is more Conservative than Liberal (as well as the country in general). It makes sense that a polling company would make adjustments to reflect that, they would be reflecting the country.

Rasmussen has a right lean because the country usually leans right, the "secret equation" is based on objective fact. To get a more accurate result, the polling organization needs to consider who is actually voting and make the adjustment in their numbers. That is what Rasmussen does and that is why they are usually so accurate.

That is true that he uses likely voters instead of registered voters or all citizens for approval numbers. But, that isn't really how approval ratings are normally calculated. It doesn't really make sense for a lot of reasons. First off, because approval rating is supposed to be an indicator of how the country as a whole feels about a president, not so much the outcome of an election. It doesn't map well to election outcomes really. One could approve of Obama, but approve of Republicans more. Or, more likely, one could feel that they are always voting for the "lesser evil" in elections although they don't approve of either candidate. For example, a lot of those disapprovers are likely disapproving of Obama because he is too moderate. When they removed the public option from the health care bill, for example, his approval rating actually went down substantially. People who strongly support a public option don't approve of removing it at all, but they would still certainly vote for Obama over a Republican. That isn't really what it is meant to measure, so using likely voters is a bit strange.

Also, who is likely to vote varies by election. It isn't static. Obama got a lot more young and minority voters to come out than usual. Bush got more evangelican Christians out to vote than usual. Reagan got more young people out to vote than usual. Mobilizing those who are likely to vote for you is like half of campaigning. That's why most pollsters only use likely voters on polls that tie to a specific election. The people who are likely to vote in a presidential election are a very different breakdown than the people who are likely to vote on a year when they only have representatives up for election. So, to just use a fixed formula across all elections is not a reasonable way to analyse it.

Lastly, why won't he publish his formula? Everybody else does. Given that he is actually getting paid by the RNC and Republican candidates, we can't really just trust that his secret formula is accurate... He could well be using a breakdown of likely voters from 2000 since that would have been the last presidential election before he started using his secret formula, for example, when very few minorities and a huge surge of evangelican christians came out to vote, but that doesn't accurately reflect who voted in 2008 at all, let alone who will vote in 2012. A pollster needs to be transparent to be reliable and Rasmussen makes a big show of the secrecy while at the same time taking cash from one side... Not a good sign in a pollster...

 

[Alex]

The Conservative/Liberal voter turnout does stay basically the same each election. It is a reliable number for polling every presidential election.

Conservative
2000: 29%
2004: 34%
2008: 34%

Liberal
2000: 20%
2004: 21%
2008: 22%

Also, the racial minority vote was not relatively higher in 2008 than it was in 2004. The youth vote was even less higher. More minorities and the young may have come out in absolute numbers, but not relatively speaking, more whites and older people also came out to vote. This makes each of these demographics a reliable source of polling also.

Blacks
2000: 10%
2004: 11%
2008: 13%

Latinos
2000: 7%
2004: 8%
2008: 9%

Ages 18-29
2000: 17%
2004: 17%
2008: 18%

Whatever formula Rasmussen is using, it is working in presidential elections and midterms. They are the most accurate, and that is exactly what a pollster should be, regardless of any secrecy.

Here are some articles that explain: Who nailed the election results? - By David Kenner and William Saletan - Slate Magazine, Grading the Pollsters - WSJ.com

Sources:
Demographics of How Groups Voted in the 2000 Presidential Election
CNN.com Election 2004
Local Exit Polls - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com

 

[cpwill]

exactly; whatever Rasmussen does, it works, and makes him among the best. his formulae is how he makes his money, and if he doesn't want to publish it, that's fine. as for the fact that he get's contracted by the Republican Party to run polls.... um.... duh? pollsters get contracted by people to do polls. they don't exactly do it out of morbid curiousity. you can complain about him all you like, it doesn't mean that he's not right.

 

[d0gbreath]

Aren't a lot of the independents former Republicans anyway?

They're all former Republicans.

 

[Renae]

They're all former Republicans.

Proof?

Of course you have no proof. But it's a great libby talking point.

 

[Deuce]

They're all former Republicans.

I'd say "all" is certainly an exaggeration. I suspect a majority of the recent additions to the independent ranks were former Republicans disillusioned by the Bush administration, but saying it's all of them is obviously not correct.

 

[Magill]

Ronald Reagan From the People

Indeed, although 1983 began for Reagan with a 35% job approval rating -- the worst of his administration -- things started to look better.

 

[Groucho]

Ronald Reagan From the People

Indeed, although 1983 began for Reagan with a 35% job approval rating -- the worst of his administration -- things started to look better.

I was just reading a new ABC poll that, among other things, compares Obama to Reagan and shows that Obama is still doing better than Reagan did at the same time in his first term. The lesson of course is that all of this can change.

 

[d0gbreath]

I'd say "all" is certainly an exaggeration. I suspect a majority of the recent additions to the independent ranks were former Republicans disillusioned by the Bush administration, but saying it's all of them is obviously not correct.

But if I repeat it enough times......

 

[cpwill]

I was just reading a new ABC poll that, among other things, compares Obama to Reagan and shows that Obama is still doing better than Reagan did at the same time in his first term. The lesson of course is that all of this can change.

you may find this analysis by Kraughthammer to be interesting:


In the political marketplace, there’s now a run on Obama shares. The Left is disappointed with the president. Independents are abandoning him in droves. And the Right is already dancing on his political grave, salivating about November, when, his own press secretary admitted Sunday, Democrats might lose the House.

I have a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama.

Consider what he has already achieved. Obamacare alone makes his presidency historic. It has irrevocably changed one-sixth of the economy, put the country inexorably on the road to national health care, and, as acknowledged by Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus but few others, begun one of the most massive wealth redistributions in U.S. history.

Second, there is major financial reform, which passed Congress on Thursday. Economists argue whether it will prevent meltdowns and bailouts as promised. But there is no argument that it will give the government unprecedented power in the financial marketplace...

Third is the near $1 trillion stimulus, the largest spending bill in U.S. history...

The result? There just isn’t enough to cut elsewhere to prevent national insolvency. That will require massive tax increases — most likely a European-style value-added tax... Obama’s wild spending — and quarantining health-care costs from providing possible relief — will necessitate huge tax increases.

The net effect of 18 months of Obamaism will be to undo much of Reaganism. Both presidencies were highly ideological, grandly ambitious, and often underappreciated by their own side. In his early years as president, Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. (Typical Washington Post headline: “For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over” — and that was six months into his presidency!) Obama is attacked from his left for insufficient zeal on gay rights, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo — the list is long. The critics don’t understand the big picture. Obama’s transformational agenda is a play in two acts...

That’s why there’s so much tension between Obama and the congressional Democrats. For Obama, 2010 matters little. If the Democrats lose control of one or both houses, Obama will likely have an easier time in 2012, just as Bill Clinton used Newt Gingrich and the Republicans as his foil for his 1996 reelection campaign.

Obama is down, but it’s very early in the play. Like Reagan, he came here to do things. And he’s done much in his first 500 days. What he has left to do, he knows, must await his next 500 days — those that come after reelection.

So 2012 is the real prize. Obama sees far, farther than even his own partisans. Republicans underestimate him at their peril.

 

[Groucho]

you may find this analysis by Kraughthammer to be interesting:

I did indeed, and posted it in another thread already! While I disagree of course with his analysis concerning the effect of Obama's policies (some of us think that "undoing much of Reaganism" is a good thing) his overall theme is correct concerning warning Republicans not to become over confident.