In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot,’ TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira cites new data indicating that “the public is strongly supportive of moving forward” on financial system reform, and “they are likely to view those who try to delay or derail action quite unfavorably.” As Teixeira explains:

Consider these results from an early March survey conducted by Pew’s Financial Reform Project. The poll asked how important it is to take action now to reform big Wall Street banks. The public was overwhelmingly convinced (79 percent) that it was very (47 percent) or somewhat (32 percent) important to take action, compared to just 18 percent who thought it was not too (9 percent) or not at all (10 percent) important.

As for the Democratic plans for financial reform now being considered by congress, Teixeira notes that, when provided “a short description” of the plan, respondents favored it “by a lopsided 69-25 margin.” Even better, adds Teixeira,

The public also said that if their member of Congress voted for the financial reform plan, they’d be far more likely (50 percent) to be more favorable toward their representative than less favorable (18 percent).

As Teixeira concludes, “These data should encourage those in Congress seeking to move forward swiftly on sending a financial reform bill to the president’s desk.” As the screaming about HCR gradually subsides, it appears that Dems are on very solid ground regarding one of the public’s critical priorities — financial reform. Should be fun to watch Republicans squirming their way through this one.

Reid Wilson has a fun post up at Hotline On Call, with a somewhat misleading title “Sports Viewers largely Republican.” Wilson discusses the results of a Nielson/Arbitron survey 0f 218,000 respondents, conducted between 8/8 and 9/9 by National Media Inc., a GOP firm. Among the findings, according to Wilson:

GOPers are most likely to watch the PGA Tour, college football and NASCAR, according to the study. But if GOP ad buyers want to reach more frequent voters, they should focus on the PGA; golf fans told researchers they were much more likely to vote than NASCAR fans say they are. Meanwhile, Dems hold the largest advantages among basketball fans, both those who watch the NBA and the WNBA. And fans of World Wrestling Entertainment are also much more likely to favor Dems — if they vote. Wrestling fans are less likely to cast ballots than any other sports fans…Those who watch Major League Baseball and the NFL are only slightly more conservative than the average voter, while those who watch college basketball are about 5% more likely to vote with the GOP.

No big shockers there, other than presumably intelligent grownups referring to pro wrestling as an actual ‘sport.’ But the following is kind of interesting:

Among the major sports, college football fans say they are most likely to vote, followed closely by MLB aficianados. NFL fans rate with NASCAR fans as less likely voters…The data is fun to peruse, but it has practical implications as well. Ad buyers should focus on sports programming, according to the analysis. That’s because sports fans are most likely to view events live instead of on a DVR machine, meaning they don’t skip the ads.
Dems tend to watch more TV than GOPers, and they dominate most kinds of programming. That means GOP ad buyers have fewer choices, and sports offer the best opportunity to reach their voters…Then again, not every sport has a devoted following. Fans of minor league baseball are high-propensity swing voters, but there aren’t all that many of them.

Almost all sports are covered in the survey analysis, including motocross, bull riding and monster trucks. No doubt the data is useful to political ad-buyers. As Wilson notes, “If you’re a GOP strategist looking for key primary votes, spend your valuable advertising money on PGA Tour events. If you’re a Dem trying to win over your base, focus on advertising during NBA games.”

John Sides of The Monkey Cage flags a recent study, “If Only They’d Ask: Gender, Recruitment and Political Ambition” by Jennifer Lawless and Richard Fox. Sides quotes from the study:

Highly qualified and politically well-connected women from both major political parties are less likely than similarly situated men to be recruited to run for public office by all types of political actors. They are less likely than men to be recruited intensely. And they are less likely than men to be recruited by multiple sources. Although we paint a picture of a political recruitment process that seems to suppress women’s inclusion, we also offer the first evidence of the significant headway women’s organizations are making in their efforts to mitigate the recruitment gap, especially among Democrats. These findings are critically important because women’s recruitment disadvantage depresses their political ambition and ultimately hinders their emergence as candidates.

Sides adds that the discrimination in recruitment is “not because men are more likely to win: there is little evidence that women candidates suffer at the ballot box.” While the study gives an edge to Democrats in recruiting women, there is plenty of room for improvement, with nothing to lose and much to gain by making a more energetic commitment to recruiting women candidates.

In his latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages, TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira reports that “the public appears to be warming” to “President Barack Obama’s decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan but start withdrawing forces in 2011.” Teixeira elaborates:

Prior to the announcement back in November, just 36 percent thought the military effort in Afghanistan was going very or fairly well and 57 percent thought the effort was not going too well or not at all well. This month, a new Pew poll shows these figures almost reversed: Fifty-two percent now think the effort is going very or fairly well, while those with a negative judgment are down to 35 percent.

The even better news for the President is that the uptick carries over into his approval rating for his Afghanistan policy, as Teixeira notes:

Reflecting this more positive assessment, Obama’s approval rating on handling the Afghanistan situation has also improved over the time period. Before the decision to send troops was made, 36 percent approved of his handling of Afghanistan, compared to 49 percent who disapproved. In the new Pew poll, his approval ratings have flipped to 51 percent approval and 35 percent disapproval.

An impressive turn-around for the President and his Afghanistan policy, contributing to a very good week at the white house.

A new poll of American Jews finds strong support for President Obama and his Middle East peace efforts. The poll, sponsored by J Street, designed by Gerstein | Agne Strategic Communications and administered by Mountain West Research Center and Opinion Outpost, was conducted 3/17-19 “in the aftermath of escalating tensions between Israel and the United States after Israel announced new housing construction in East Jerusalem during Vice President Biden’s recent trip.”
According to the news release announcing the poll’s findings (survey data here):

Obama’s approval in the Jewish community is holding steady at 62 percent. Gallup reported 64 percent approval rating in an October 2009 poll. Obama’s approval rating among Jews is 15 points higher than among all Americans, 47 percent, according to a Gallup poll conducted during the same period.
And in a hypothetical 2012 matchup against his most vociferous Republican critic during the last few weeks on Israel, Obama beats former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin by 70-18 percent.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street explains:

As the Obama administration moves forward toward the goal of achieving Middle East peace, they should be reassured that significant numbers of American Jews support their efforts and recognize that these efforts benefit the shared national interests of both the United States and Israel

The poll also found solid support for the Obama administration’s even handed approach regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict:

And by a 71-29 percent margin, American Jews support the United States “exerting pressure” on both the Israelis and the Arabs to make the necessary compromises to achieve peace. An earlier J Street poll last March found a similar level of support.
A majority of all American Jews, 52-48 percent, still support an active role even if the United States were to publicly state its disagreements with only Israel. American Jews are evenly split on support for exerting pressure on only Israel, a notion that J Street opposes.

What Jim Gerstein, a top expert on public opinion of U.S. Jews and Israelis, who heads the Gerstein | Agne firm, noted about a survey conducted last year is still true: “Jews believe that President Obama is honest and trustworthy…and that he is restoring America’s standing in the world…Trust in the new American President also extends to his Middle East policy…”

Mike Lux does a particularly good job of putting the enactment of health care reform in historic perspective in his HuffPo post, “The Big Change Moment:” First, the overview:

…For all the ups and downs of this process, for all the compromises we had to make to get here, when you see the tens of millions of dollars insurance companies were pouring into lies to defeat this bill, and see John Lewis called a nigger, and Barney Frank called a fag, and see all supporters of this bill called Stalinist, it makes you pretty confident you’re on the right side of history.

Lux acknowledges what we didn’t win:

Is this the change we have been looking for? Only partly. Insurers and other big corporations remain far too powerful, and we will have to keep working hard to improve health care policy in America. We need a public option to provide Americans better choice in their health care system; we need for the federal government to be able to negotiate with the big pharmaceutical companies; we need the insurance anti-trust exemption to get repealed, and for the federal government to do more to regulate insurance rate increases; we need to repeal the Hyde Amendment. Many other changes and improvements will be important to keep fighting for in the years to come.

And what we did:

Yet for all those things we still need, we have won an enormous amount in this bill. You know the list of things we accomplished- universal coverage, an end to pre-existing condition clauses and lifetime caps, more people eligible for Medicaid, more young people able to stay on their parents’ insurance policies, an end to the Medicare drug donut hole, and more. These are bigger changes than we have seen in health care policy since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid, and maybe even bigger that them, since this means almost every American will have insurance. Most importantly, health care will be a right instead of a privilege.

And how it sows seeds of hope and a vision for an even better future:

That is progressive change, and big change. That builds the narrative in this country that we are all in this together, that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, that we are a beloved community. Flawed as this bill is, as many improvements as will be needed, this is a very big deal. It gets us over this massive hurdle that nothing big can be done to change health care, or in general. It sets the stage of another of those Big Change Moments I wrote about in my book, The Progressive Revolution: those eras where big change was possible and really happened. It gives us hope again that this era may join the 1860s, early 1900s, 1930s and 1960s as a time when the country truly was able to move forward more than just a little bit at a time.

Lux warns of the perils and pitfalls that lie ahead, then he spells out the challenges going forward:

…Maybe this bill can help build hope and courage for doing the next things that need to be done. We still have millions of new jobs to create, big banks to be better regulated and broken up, climate change and immigration reform and the Employee Free Choice act to pass. We have a very big and very important agenda in front of us, and with health care done, that gives some momentum to moving forward.

And he gives today’s Democratic leaders their due:

…Readers of mine know I have been very critical of Obama at times on how he managed this health care fight, but I am enormously grateful that he brushed past all the advice to give up, and that he hung tough. And Speaker Pelosi, who argued passionately to keep pushing for comprehensive reform, and then delivered the votes twice in tough, tough circumstances, gets enormous credit as well…To not walk away, to stand and fight for big change even when the going gets very tough and the politics are dicey (at best): that is the measure of great leadership. Hopefully, this result gives everyone in the Democratic Party the courage to keep going to give us another Big Change Moment.

It’s hard to imagine a better way to begin Spring 2010 — a new season of hope.

Ron Brownstein’s post, “Obama And The Supertanker” at The National Journal takes a look at the President’s overall philosophy and strategy of change and offers some illuminating observations about his leadership style. Brownstein begins by noting Obama’s consistent advocacy of “comprehensive, big bang” health care reform in response to his chief of staff’s more cautious incremental recommendations:

…Emanuel said he has intermittently provided Obama his assessment of “the equities” in more- and less-ambitious approaches, especially “given everything [else] we’re trying to do.” He continued, “This is what I’m supposed to do as chief of staff. But he has… always said, ‘This is what needs to be done,’ and he has said he is willing to pay the political price to get it done.”
…Win or lose, Obama has pursued health care reform as tenaciously as any president has pursued any domestic initiative in decades. Health care has now been his presidency’s central domestic focus for a full year. That’s about as long as it took to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, originally introduced by John F. Kennedy and driven home by Lyndon Johnson. Rarely since World War II has a president devoted so much time, at so much political cost, to shouldering a single priority through Congress. It’s reasonable to debate whether Obama should have invested so heavily in health care. But it’s difficult to quibble with Emanuel’s assessment that once the president placed that bet, “He has shown fortitude, stamina, and strength.”

Brownstein sees Obama as a big-picture thinker, whose

…aim is to establish a long-term political direction — one centered on a more activist government that shapes and polices the market to strengthen the foundation for sustainable, broadly shared growth. Everything else — the legislative tactics, even most individual policies — is negotiable. He wants to chart the course for the supertanker, not to steer it around each wave or decide which crates are loaded into its hull.
Obama’s core health care goals have been to establish the principle that Americans are entitled to insurance and to build a framework for controlling costs by incentivizing providers to work more efficiently. He has been unwavering about that destination but flexible and eclectic in his route. He has cut deals with traditional adversaries, such as the drug industry, and confronted allies to demand an independent Medicare reform commission. But Obama has also waged unconditional war on the insurance industry. He has negotiated and jousted with Senate Republicans. He has deferred (excessively at times) to congressional Democratic leaders but has also muscled them at key moments. He has pursued the liberal priority of expanded coverage through a centrist plan that largely tracks the Republican alternative to Clinton’s 1993 proposal.

Browstein quotes Yale University political scientist Stephen Skowronek, who argues that Team Obama embraces both a “consensual and confrontational” leadership style, “bringing everybody to the table [for] rational, pragmatic decision-making,” followed by “wrenching confrontation” — such as that embraced by “the most consequential presidents,’ including Lincoln and FDR.
Brownstein believes that Obama “…will continue to seek broad coalitions on some issues (education, energy, immigration) while accepting, even welcoming, greater partisan conflict on others (financial reform)…” But overall, says Brownstein, “The constant is Obama’s determination to turn the supertanker — and his Reagan-like willingness to bet his party’s future on his ability to sell the country on the ambitious course he has set.”
It appears we have a President who is also a strategic thinker, and today the results look very good indeed.

One of the Republicans’ favorite bashing points regarding the Democratic health care reform package is that it does too little too late. Well, Rep. John B. Larson (CT-1), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, has the antidote for that particular lie in his HuffPo post, “The Top Ten Immediate Benefits You’ll Get When Health Care Reform Passes.” Larson keeps it short and sweet, so HCR supporters can have a one-pager they can tap to win over fence-sitters:

* Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
* Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
* Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
* Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
* Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
* Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
* Require plans to cover an enrollee’s dependent children until age 26;
* Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
* Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
* Require premium rebates to enrolees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

The immediate benefits Larson cites are so good, so light-years ahead of where we are now. that memorizing just five of them and sharing the information with uncommitted voters should impress many of them enough to win their support. Emphasizing them to uncommitted House members can’t hurt either.

As the hand-wringing and nail-biting about HCR shifts into overdrive, the latest polls bring some good news for Dems, explains WaPo‘s Chris Cillizza:

A new polling memo from Joel Benenson, the White House’s pollster of choice, argues that support for President Barack Obama’s health care plan has been building in the wake of his State of the Union speech in late January.
Since February 1, according to data compiled by Benenson, 44 percent of those tested in national surveys support the bill while 45 percent oppose it — a sea change from the 38 percent favor/52 percent oppose average of polls conducted in the three months prior.

Not that anyone is going to get overly-optimistic about the new polling numbers, but Cillizza also warns:

While Benenson’s numbers about the trend line of approval for the President’s plan will be encouraging to nervous Democrats, even under his best case scenario the America public is deeply divided over whether the plan will work or not.

However, the GOP meme that “the public opposes the Democratic HCR legislation” was always a gross oversimplification, but unfortunately one which got a lot of media play. In addition, Benenson notes:

…Obama remains a more trusted figure than Congressional Republicans on the issue citing, as evidence, a Gallup poll released earlier this month that showed 49 percent of the sample confident in Obama’s ability to reform health care and just 32 percent saying the same of congressional Republicans.

At least the trendline is in the right direction. In crafting their arguments during the next week (or longer if that’s what it takes), Dems should take note of the latest Gallup poll, conducted 3/4-7, which indicates “the main reason” for opposing Dem HCR is the concern that it “will raise costs of insurance,” cited by 20 percent of those opposing the legislation — up from 9 percent in the Sept 11-13 poll.

The Republicans are flogging the ethics problems of Reps Massa and Rangel to smithereens in hopes of winning new support from independents and swing voters, a hefty percentage of whom see integrity in government as a pivotal issue. It would be a smart strategy — if not for the fact that their own ethics problems dwarf those of the Dems.
To call attention to this comparison, the DCCC’s Brandon English has just released a report entitled “Michael Steele: Republicans’ Glass House is Shattering,” and it provides an excellent example of the fine art of political counterpunching. The text follows:
“That cracking noise you just heard was Republican National Committee Michael Steele’s glass house shattering. While Republicans hypocritically try to make ethics an issue, they would be well served to remember a few facts:
It is the Democrats who passed and enacted historic ethics reform that broke the link between lobbyists and legislators: no gifts, no private jets, and no meals from lobbyists.
It is the Democrats who passed and enacted unprecedented levels of transparency and disclosure, shining sunlight on the activities of Members of Congress and lobbyists.
It is the Democrats who established the Office of Congressional Ethics.
It is the Democrats who got the Ethics Committee – which didn’t function under Republicans – back to work.
When questions about ethics have been raised about any Member of Congress, Democrats have acted quickly to make sure it the question was addressed by the appropriate entity.
The Republican culture of corruption under Tom DeLay and Republican leadership had devastating consequences that the American people are still paying the price for: a complex and costly prescription drug bill written by drug companies, an energy policy written by the Big Oil companies, and record deficits to pay for tax breaks for their most wealthy friends. That’s why it’s not surprising to see disgraced former Republican Congressman Richard Pombo—who embodied the Republicans’ culture of corruption—win the endorsement of NRCC Recruitment Chair Kevin McCarthy.
Here are some of the residents of Republicans’ ethical glass House:

Read more…