by EDM Staff
A just-released Harris Interactive Poll should strongly encourage Democratic candidates to support a broad range of health care reforms. The poll, conducted 9/6-12, measured attitudes of Americans of different faiths on a dozen health and health care-related issues, and found scant support for conservative or status quo health care policies, except among ‘born-again Christians’ and evangelicals. According to the poll:

Medicare (health insurance for the elderly and disabled). Fully 96 percent of adults support Medicare, including 92 percent or more of all religious categories.
Birth control/contraception is supported by 93 percent of all adults, including 90 percent of Catholics and 88 percent of born-again Christians, the “very religious” and Evangelicals.
Condom use to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is supported by 92 percent of adults, including 93 percent of Catholics, 82 percent of born-again Christians, 83 percent of the “very religious” and 81 percent of Evangelicals.
Medicaid (health insurance for people with very low incomes) is supported by 91 percent of all adults, including 88 percent of all religious categories.
Sex education in high schools is supported by 87 percent of the public, but only by 76 percent of born-again Christians, 77 percent of the “very religious” and 72 percent of Evangelicals.
Funding of international HIV prevention and treatment programs is supported by 87 percent of the public, including not less than 82 percent of all religious categories.
Universal health insurance is favored by 75 percent of all adults, including 63 percent or more of all religious groups.
Embryonic stem cell research is favored by 70 percent of all adults, including 70 percent of Catholics. However, it is supported by only 45 percent of born-again Christians, 38 percent of Evangelicals and 51 percent of the “very religious.”
Funding of international birth control programs is supported by 70 percent of the public, including 66 percent of Catholics, but only 53 percent of born-again Christians and 48 percent of Evangelicals.
Withdrawal of life support systems/food for those in a vegetative state is supported by 68 percent of the public, but by only 47 percent of born-again Christians and 45 percent of Evangelicals.
Abortion rights (which were not defined) are supported by 63 percent of the public, including 56 percent of Catholics, but by only 30 percent of born-again Christians, 39 percent of the “very religious” and 28 percent of Evangelicals.
Abstinence from sex before marriage is supported by 63 percent of the public, but by fully 85 percent of born-again Christians, 85 percent of the “very religious” and 91 percent of Evangelicals.

Interestingly, the views of Catholics were not significantly dissimilar from other groups:

…the attitudes of Catholics are generally very similar to those of all adults and, on some issues, very unlike the official position of the Pope and the Church. For example, overwhelming majorities of Catholics favor contraception (90%), condom use to prevent HIV and STD infections (93%), the funding of international birth control programs (66%), embryonic stem cell research (70%) and the withdrawal of life support for those in a vegetative state (68%). A majority (56%) also supports abortion rights.

The poll did not measure the opinions of Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists. And the report was unclear as to whether “universal health insurance” was defined for respondents as covering all illnesses and all expenses. Taken together with recent polls discussed in EDM posts by Ruy Teixeira on September 10th and 16th, it is clear that Democratic candidates have little to lose by supporting bold health care reforms — and a lot to win.

by EDM Staff
President Bush’s net job approval fell to minus 21 in October, down from minus 16 in September, according to 50 separate but concurrent SurveyUSA statewide polls conducted 10/14-16. The President had a positive net job approval rating in just 7 states (UT, ID, WY, AK, NB, OK and ND), and a negative rating in 41 states — including 21 “red” states he won in 2004.
When all of the state polls are combined and proportionately averaged, 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush is doing, while 38 percent approve. SurveyUSA reports that Bush’s net job approval fell by double digits in TX, SC, MS, TN, MI, IL and NC.

Janet Hook’s “Storm Clouds Hanging Over Republicans” in today’s LA Times reveals more GOP-nail biting overt the effect of their corruption problems in next year’s congressional elections. Hook quotes several Republican insiders:

“This vague issue of corruption hanging over Republicans is not good, because it is the one thing on which Democrats don’t have to have an alternative policy . . .I don’t want that cloud over us going into [next year’s] elections…Of all the things hanging out there, the one that Republicans are most concerned about is Abramoff, because nobody knows where it’s going to lead” – former Rep. Vin Weber
“You have Frist, DeLay, the Plame case, and you have Democrats with a theme: the culture of corruption and incompetence. [Republicans] are concerned that next year could be a bad year.” – a GOP lobbyist who requested anonymity
“This is not the environment we want to have come next year” – Republican pollster David Winston

Hook and others have reported that the tarnishing of the GOP’s image has helped to ignite a prairie fire of appealing Dem ‘outsider’ candidates for congress. But Republicans have always been particularly good at floating distractions from their internal problems and from some of their less popular policies. For an insightful discussion about the GOP’s ‘wicked genius’ for evasive action, see Christopher Hayes’ “No Right Turn ; If Americans haven’t gotten more conservative, why is the GOP in charge?” in the current issue of the Washington Monthly.
Bottom line is that the GOP’s ethics problems offer fresh hope to Dem challengers in the months ahead. But it doesn’t relieve Dem candidates of their obligation to provide credible alternatives.

by Ruy Teixeira
Last week, I examined public opinion on America’s role in the world to see whether the move toward unilateralism in American foreign policy could be traced to shifts in public opinion. The verdict was: no, not really.
But perhaps that examination was looking in the wrong place for the relevant change. Maybe the real shift has been in the realm of the economic, as the public has shifted from a pro-free trade to anti-free trade stance. There is little evidence of this either. We lack a consistent time series, but in 1953, Gallup found a 54-33 majority favoring a policy of free trade. Almost half a century later, in 2000, the Pew Research Center found a 64-27 majority in favor of the idea that free trade with other countries is good for the United States.
If anything, support for free trade, at least in principle, may be increasing, not decreasing. When posed as a question of whether tariffs across countries should be eliminated to bring the costs of goods down for everybody or are necessary to protect manufacturing jobs, Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (CCFR) surveys recorded a steady drop from 1978, when 57 percent thought tariffs could be justified in that way, to 49 percent in 1998.
Finally, in the 2004 CCFR survey, 64 percent described the process of globalization as mostly good for the US, compared to just 31 percent who said it was mostly bad. And in the same poll, the public said, by a 73-22 margin, that international trade is good for “consumers like you”, by a 65-29 margin that it was good for “your own standard of living, by a 59-37 margin that it was good for American companies and by a 57-39 margin that it was good for the US economy.
Nor do Americans wish to stop or even slow down the process of globalization. Surveys invariably find large majorities favoring the continuation of the globalization process and little support for opting out of that process.
Again, it is hard to know for sure, but these data do not suggest there has been a substantial decline in public support for the principle of free trade in recent decades-certainly not enough to be a significant factor in the decline of internationalism. And it is possible that there has been no decline at all in pro-free trade sentiment and that change has actually been in the opposite direction.
On to other factors, then. What about salience? It is possible that support for internationalism has remained about the same, but the salience of internationalism to the average American has declined, perhaps drastically. This is the argument of James Lindsay in his 2000 Foreign Affairs article, “The New Apathy: How an Uninterested American Public Is Reshaping Foreign Policy”. While Americans’ views continue to support multilateralism, international institutions like the UN, etc., these views matter much less to them than they once did, so politicians feel free to ignore these views when they form policy. They know they won’t be punished by an American public in the grip of an “apathetic internationalism”.
This is a more promising line of analysis. It is true, for example, that Americans’ tendency to describe some foreign policy problem as the nation’s most important problem has declined over time. Political scientist Mark Smith has found that, from 1950-1972, an economic problem was the dominant problem mentioned by the public just 5 percent of the time, while from 1973 onward, an economic problem was the dominant problem 65 percent of the time. Consistent with this shift, the number naming a foreign policy issue as the most important problem declined from 10-20 percent or even more of the public to 2-3 percent in the late 1990’s.
But there has been a resurgence, naturally, of the tendency to name a foreign policy problem since 9/11, so this point seems less sharp than it once was. On the other hand, since internationalism’s problems accumulated over decades, perhaps a long-term decline -even if now partly reversed–in the apparent salience of foreign policy to the public did play a role in eroding internationalism.
Lindsay also argues that Americans follow foreign affairs less closely than they once did, contributing to the decline in foreign policy salience. This seems a more difficult case to make. The first CCFR survey in 1974 found 50 percent saying they were “very interested” in following news about the relations of the US with other countries and the last one, in 2004, found 53 percent expressing that level of interest (after a spike to 62 percent in 2002, the first survey after 9/11).
But if attentiveness to foreign affairs has not declined, perhaps the aspects of foreign affairs that most engage the public have changed. A clue is provided by Smith’s data on the extraordinary post-1973 surge in importance of economic issues to the public. And it does appear that these concerns have spilled over into foreign affairs. Since 1974, concern about jobs has been very high in the CCFR survey and, in the 2004 survey, 78 percent thought “protecting the jobs of American workers was a “very important” goal of US foreign policy. This was higher than for any other goal, including combating international terrorism. This apparent rise in the importance of economic foreign policy goals in the eyes of the public may have contributed to the erosion of internationalism, at least in its classic post-World War II form.
This discussion suggests some ways in which shifts in the composition and intensity of public sentiment about foreign affairs may have contributed to the decline of internationalism. But it is worth asking the question at this point: how much does the public really influence foreign policy anyway? If there is little connection there, then, logically, even if there have been significant shifts in the structure of public opinion on foreign affairs, these shifts could not have played much of a role in the demise of internationalism.
Some evidence for a lack of connection between the public and foreign policy is provided in a 2005 American Political Science Review article by Lawrence Jacobs and Benjamin Page. Jacobs and Page examine data from CCFR surveys of the public and of policymakers, labor leaders, business leaders and foreign policy experts between 1974 and 2002 and find that it is primarily business leaders and, secondarily, experts that exert influence over the preferences of policymakers, not the public.
The Jacobs and Page work is hardly definitive. It covers a limited period and leaves open the possibility that public sentiment may set the overall agenda for foreign policy within which business and experts exert the most direct influence. But it should add to our doubts that changes in the structure of public opinion on foreign affairs have had much to do with the fading of post-World War II internationalism and the rise of Bush-era unilateralism.
For the latter trend, we probably need look no further than the current occupant of the White House and his allies in the Congress. The public, however, can justifiably plead innocent.

by Ruy Teixeira
It is commonplace to call attention to the polarized nature of partisan views on Bush’s administration and policies. Republicans approve; Democrats don’t and the gulfs between them are immense by historical standards.
The latest CBS New poll confirms this yawning gulf between Democrats and Republicans. But it shows something else that is actually far more significant: the views of political independents are now almost as far away from Republicans as Democrats are. In fact, the two groups-independents and Democrats-have converged so strongly in their political views that we could almost lump them together as one group, “Indycrats”, whose views are starkly different from those of GOP identifiers.
Consider these data from the CBS News poll:
1. Bush’s overall approval rating is 79 percent among Republicans and 14 percent among Democrats-a gap of 65 points. But his rating is also just 29 percent among independents, producing a very sizable gap of 50 points relative to GOP identifiers. Put another way, independents are 50 points away from Republicans, but just 15 points away from Democrats.
2. Only 20 percent of independents believe the country is going in the right direction, a mere 12 points more than the comparable figure among Democrats-but 37 points less than the figure among Republicans.
3. Twenty-six percent of independents approve of Bush’s handling of the economy (66 percent disapprove), 14 points more than the number of Democrats who approve-but 44 points less than the number among Republicans.
4. Twenty-six percent of independents approve of Bush’s handling of the Iraq situation-15 points more than Democrats; 43 points less than Republicans.
5. On handling the campaign against terrorism, 38 percent of independents approve of the job Bush is doing. That’s 11 points more than Democrats, but 45 points less than Republicans.
6. How about whether Bush has “the same priorities for country as you have”? Sixty-nine percent of Republicans agree, but just 11 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independents.
7. Was removing Saddam Hussein from power worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq? Only 30 percent of independents and 15 percent of Democrats say yes, compared to 70 percent among Republicans.
8. And what should the US do now? Just 24 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents believe we should “stay in Iraq as long as it takes to make sure Iraq is a stable democracy” (the administration position), compared to 61 percent of Republicans.
You get the idea. Independents and Democrats-“Indycrats”-see eye to eye on the policies and priorities of the Bush administration-which they find very wanting indeed–while Republicans are off seemingly on a different planet.
This helps clarify an important aspect of today’s political polarization. It’s not that there are two roughly equal groups in the public that are at loggerheads with one another. Or that the Democrats and Republicans are light years from one another, while the political center stands in a crossfire, equidistant from both extremes. Instead, what we have is one large group, Indycrats (two-thirds of the public), on one side and a much smaller group, Republicans (one-third of the public), on the other.
That’s polarization, all right, but polarization that pits a big center-left majority against a small right wing minority (inverting the claims of many after the 2004 election that the US had become a center-right nation). And it’s polarization that raises a vexing question: why can’t this big majority-the Indycrats-get more of what they want? Why do the policies and priorities of the country seem skewed toward the minority, not the majority?
That’s a huge question and certainly part of the answer lies in GOP manipulation of cultural issues and the war on terror to promote their narrow agenda. But that’s by all means not the whole story of how the public and public policy got so divorced from one another. The other part of the story is about a GOP leadership increasingly responsive to its own base and increasingly clever about circumventing the popular will to promote that base’s agenda. For that story, I refer you to the important new book, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson.
In the meantime, we shall see how long the Bush administration is able to keep the Indycrats at bay. Given the way the Bush administration is currently unraveling, even all the clever tricks described in Hacker’s and Pierson’s book may not be enough to save them this time.

by EDM Staff
Ezra Klein has a post in TAPPED on the recent NRCC memo to the House GOP conference, trumpeting unbridled bravado about their ability to retain their congressional majorities in next year’s elections. Natch, the memo lists all of the Republicans assets, such as cash, incumbency and limited playing field. The memo was undoubtedly a response to recent comments by twitchy Republicans expressing concern about Bush’s approval ratings, the Iraq quagmire and the strong possibility of perp walks by GOP leaders in the months ahead. For a more realistic assessment, check out Charles Babington and Chris Cillizza’s piece in today’s WaPo, “For GOP, Election Anxiety Mounts.” Among other factors, the authors cite:

…Republican operatives, including some who work closely with the White House, privately point to what they regard as a lackluster performance by Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the group that heads fundraising and candidate recruitment for GOP senators.
But some strategists more sympathetic to Dole point the finger right back. With an unpopular war in Iraq, ethical controversies shadowing top Republicans in the House and Senate, and President Bush suffering the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, the waters look less inviting to politicians deciding whether to plunge into an election bid. Additionally, some Capitol Hill operatives complain that preoccupied senior White House officials have been less engaged in candidate recruitment than they were for the 2002 and 2004 elections

Cillizza and Babington provide some interesting thumbnail sketches of GOP candidate recruitment problems in various states. They could have also cited recent polls asking respondents which party they would vote for in their congressional districts if the election were held today. Polling Report has the results of polls taken during the last month that show Dem leads on this question at 5,8,9, 8 and 12 percent in polls by Newsweek, Fox News, Democracy Corps, The Winston Group and Pew Research Center respectively.

By Alan Abramowitz
According to the new Gallup Poll, in the past 10 days, George Bush’s approval rating rose from 40 percent to 45 percent while his disapproval rating fell from 58 percent to 50 percent. That’s a shift from a net approval rating of -18 percent to a net approval rating of -5 percent, a pretty big change. Gallup attributes Bush’s improved poll numbers to favorable public reaction to his response to Hurricane Rita. Perhaps.
But a simpler explanation might be that the new Gallup sample is more Republican and less Democratic than the previous one. Between the Sept. 16-18 Gallup Poll and the Sept. 26-28 Gallup Poll, the proportion of Republican identifiers (including leaners) increased from 38 percent to 43 percent while the proportion of Democratic identifiers decreased from 53 percent to 47 percent. So in just 10 days a net Democratic advantage of 15 points shrank to a net Democratic advantage of just 4 points.
Given the strong relationship between party identification and presidential approval, it is likely that the entire difference between President Bush’s approval rating in these two polls was due to the difference in the partisan composition of the two samples.

Decembrist Mark Schmitt has a post scolding the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for its “monumentally stupid” unearthing of the long-dead ‘Contract with America.’ Schmitt says:

Eleven years is a long time. Yes, to Washington Dems the Contract with America is still a living, breathing monster. Many of us lost our jobs because of it. (I didn’t, but I would have been in line for a very cool job if Democrats had retained the Senate.) But does the Contract have any meaning for ordinary people after 11 years, three presidential elections, an impeachment, Sept. 11, a war, etc.? I’m open to hearing about poll numbers that indicate otherwise, but I suspect the answer is no.

Schmitt takes the DCCC to task for embracing a custom-tailored GOP “frame” and notes further:

The whole breach-of-contract argument is internal and process-oriented. It’s an insiders’ argument to insiders. What does it have to do with war, economic security, global challenges, hurricanes and floods, etc. Yes, reform is a key theme and Democrats must embrace it, but not in a bloodless good-government way. It’s got to be integrally connected to the things people care about in life, and in the non-political aspects of their life.

And then, the nut graph:

If Democrats expect to capitalize on the emerging scandals, indictments, chaos, and the President’s unpopularity to nationalize a congressional election for the first time since 1994, they have to find one or two clear points, substantive points, that are our own and that would matter: universal health care, preparedness for future crises, economic security, bring the war in Iraq to an end — something serious that people can grab onto. Talking about someone else’s 11-year-old Contract is no substitute.

The bottom line is that the Republicans are doing a wonderful job of destroying themselves, and we don’t have to go back more than a decade to highlight their failures. What’s missing is a projection of the Democratic Party as the credible alternative. The sooner the DCCC meets that challenge head on and full-strength, the better our chances in November ’06.

by EDM staff
Nancy Vogel has a good wrap-up of several proposals to redistrict congressional elections around the country in the L.A. Times. Her article “Several States May Revisit Redistricting” also presents a summary of arguments for and against ‘bipartisan’ redistricting, focused primarilly on California, where voters will decide on Prop 77, which would put redistricting in the hands of three retired judges. The stakes are high, and Dems need to pay closer attention to these redistricting campaigns, any one of which could alter national politics in short order. Vogel quotes Nathaniel Persily, a redistricting expert who is a professor of law and political science at the University of Pennsylvania on the impact:

“To some extent, the power to draw lines is more important than the power of voting…The redistricting process is often more determinative of who wins elections than the voting in elections itself.”

While the Schwarzenegger-led California proposal is a fairly transparent political power grab, other equally-partisan initiatives have been more cleverly shrouded in bipartisan wrapping paper. At present Prop 77 is opposed by a 46 percent of voters, with 32 percent supporting it, according to a September Field poll cited by Vogel. Recent redistricting initiatives implemented in Texas and Georgia benefitted the GOP, as would Prop 77. But redistricting reforms proposed in Florida and Ohio are being supported by leading Democrats.
Pro-redistricting campaigns are underway in 12 states. At present 12 states prohibit lawmakers from drawing legislative boundaries and six states ban lawmakers from drawing congressional district boundaries.
Democrats should stay focused on winning hearts and minds in all congressional districts, but there is also a compelling need to defeat those redistricting proposals designed to undercut their strength in key states.

by EDM Staff
Superribbie has an interesting article “74 House Races to Target (ranked)”, cross posted at My DD and Daily Kos. The article crunches some numbers, plugs in some insider analysis and comes up with a credible list of 74 seats in the House of Representatives Democrats can be optimistic about winning in November, ’06. The 74 seats include both vulnerable Republicans and open seats Dems can win, with the House district and name of the incumbent. Even better, Superribbie has links to 7 regions, which include detailed discusssions of key races in individual states, a useful bookmark for Dems interested in following specific ’06 House races. Readers’ comments also include some perceptive insights on ’06 battles. It’s encouraging that Dems have a shot at 74 seats, since winning just 15 would enable them to regain control of the House. (For a discussion on expanding the playing field to 100 seats, see also Ruy Teixeira’s September 7 EDM post).