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July 21, 2010 04:00 PM UTC

Quinnipiac shows Gallup jump for Dems to be outlier.

  • 85 Comments
  • by: Laughing Boy

(Finally! – promoted by ClubTwitty)

Not just more bad news for the Dems in Congress, but Obama has fallen to his lowest approval rating ever. [Emphasis mine]

Anti-incumbent sentiment slams both parties as voters disapprove 59 – 31 percent of the job Democrats are doing, and disapprove 59 – 29 percent of Republicans in Congress. But voters say 43 – 38 percent they would vote for a Republican in a generic Congressional race.

And that’s some of the best news for Obama in the poll….but it might be great news for him, and bad news for the country in the end.

More Quinnipiac:

A year after President Barack Obama’s political honeymoon ended, his job approval rating has dropped to a negative 44 – 48 percent, his worst net score ever, and American voters say by a narrow 39 – 36 percent margin that they would vote for an unnamed Republican rather than President Obama in 2012, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

And the best …ahem… worst part of all:

“It was a year ago, during the summer of 2009 that America’s love affair with President Barack Obama began to wane. In July of 2009, the President had a 57 – 33 percent approval rating. Today, his support among Democrats remains strong, but the disillusionment among independent voters, who dropped from 52 – 37 percent approval to 52 – 38 percent disapproval in the last 12 months, is what leads to his weakness overall when voters start thinking about 2012,” said Peter A. Brown., assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

“In politics a month is a lifetime and we have 28 months until November of 2012. But politicians with re-elect numbers at 40 percent bear watching,” Brown added.

Now, that said, Charles Krauthammer had a thoroughly depressing and terrifying, but IMO accurate representation of why these numbers might not be bad for Obama at this point.

That’s why there’s so much tension between Obama and the congressional Democrats. For Obama, 2010 matters little. If 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 re-election 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 re-election.

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

Here’s the terrifying part…

But Obama’s most far-reaching accomplishment is his structural alteration of the U.S. budget. The stimulus, the vast expansion of domestic spending, the creation of ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see are not easily reversed.

These are not mere temporary countercyclical measures. They are structural deficits because, as everyone from Obama on down admits, the real money is in entitlements, most specifically Medicare and Medicaid. But Obama- care freezes these out as a source of debt reduction. Obamacare’s $500 billion in Medicare cuts and $600 billion in tax increases are siphoned away for a new entitlement – and no longer available for deficit reduction.

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. Just as President Reagan cut taxes to starve the federal government and prevent massive growth in spending, Obama’s wild spending 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, Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. 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.

We’ve now spent so much money on entitlements that we really have no way out, and that’s why it was such a brilliant move on Obama’s part. He passed a worthless stimulus and a health care bill that basically does nothing for many years (and then simply makes health care more expensive for those who pay for it currently and will intentionally lead to the end of private insurers), so that now Republicans look like bad guys for arguing over unemployment extensions simply because they don’t want to borrow money to pay for it, but at this point, there is no other option.

Unfortunately, what has been done is economically unsustainable.  We are already well on our way to becoming a big version of California.  We have eliminated our budgetary margin of error with entitlements – not even massive tax increases will get us back to where we need to be, but you can be sure they’re coming.

So…

Was it worth it to have committed what looks to be economic suicide in order to redistribute wealth and invoke some of these massive government takeovers of so much of the economy and huge new entitlements, and why?

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85 thoughts on “Quinnipiac shows Gallup jump for Dems to be outlier.”

  1. If I have time I’ll come back and tell you why I think you ask the wrong question:

    Was it worth it to have committed what looks to be economic suicide in order to redistribute wealth and invoke some of these massive government takeovers of so much of the economy and huge new entitlements, and why?

    But, yes you should be terrified that … Obama is … plotting his … re-election!!!

    1. But, but, bu … it’s not suicide you say?

      You support the Democratic/Obama redistribution of wealth programs and their mandates on the fabric of America to conform. It is benefitial in your mind for the government to engage much more strongly in the allocation of capital to acheive among other things social equity.

      The rest of America feels that Obama has diverted the next generation(s) of American leadership and dominance by committing this economic suicide. Oh we’ll pay for sure.

      What LB doesn’t cover is that American capitalism has a built-in defense, it’s called competition. So while you’ve failed to account for the 15-20% of un/underemployed and laid a foundation to damage the investor, we have competition here in America, including our politics.

      Know this my unfreindly redistributor, when you see an adult with a child quietly discussing something it could be me indoctrinating that child with thoughts of God, a history of America, her capital system and competition.

      1. reluctantly I must.

        1)President Obamas willingness to cave to the Right wing smear machine.

        2)The toothless “reforms” coming out of the dem congress.

        3) the perception things are the same as they ever were

        4) the ardent obstructionism of the republicans to keep America on it’s knees…

        5) all those who voted ONCE (for Obama) in the last 15 years. are disenfranchised yet again.

        All add up to a bloodbath for Dems come November.  

        2. Despite coming to grips wit the reality that Kucinich was not electable because he was too far left, the far left wing of the Democratic party none the less convinced themselves that by electing Obama with D majorities in the Senate and House he would be nearly as far left.

          Obama campaigned as a moderate. He has governed likewise.

          There is a perception that things are the same- fed by R opposition to weaken the D’s and fed by the far left because they are impatient for even further reaching reforms and faster changes.

          It’s not the one time voter that’s the problem- it’s the sit this one out pissed off left and the re-energized R party.

          Issues voters will still ask which candidate is a closer match to themselves and vote accordingly.   But if D/U turn out is low (for whatever reason) we’re going to lose House and Senate.

      3. While as you say we can’t erase 8 million job losses in the next few months, when people start to feel the pendulum swing for the better, I think they will reward Ds in November

  3. It’s healthcare costs. Those are killing the private sector too as it’s now 18% of our GDP and still growing at well over the inflation rate.

    Address healthcare costs and all of this is manageable. Healthcare costs keep growing and we’re all screwed.

    ps – This is what I really like about Senator Bennet on healthcare, during the discussion he spent most of his time discussing bringing down the costs and how key that was. Unfortunately, he never produced any legislation to go along with that focus.

    2. They had a great issue to bring to the table in the health care debate – and decided to dump that in favor of “NO!”

      I said it before- let’s Wal-Mart health care. After my bike crash experience, I’ll always go to an urgent care clinic for minor injuries. Fixed price, fast service, and I don’t have to wait 4 hours to be told Ive got a broken wrist.

      If the dumbasses in the GOP leadership had fixed on this, reducing regulation in the health care industry to encourage this kind of innovation, and maybe gone with Malpractice Court over tort reform, they would have something real to bring to the election is fall.

  4. Actually, I trust the Gallup poll a bit more than this one – Q-poll is great in its home region, but has been less accurate nationally.

    And, since I agreed with you (LB) that the Gallup poll wasn’t a trend, I hope you’ll now agree with me that the Q-poll could also be the outlier here.  It’s just one poll.

    1. It’s one more poll in an onslaught of polls showing the same downward trend for the Democrats with Independent voters.

      If anything, the Gallup was the anomaly, although I do think it reflected national feeling about dissatisfaction with Republicans holding up unemployment benefits.  

            1. Not until you earn some credibility here.

              LB can post the exact same things as you, and even say the same things as you, and I’ll take him seriously and ignore you because he has credibility and you don’t.

              That’s life, kid. Suck it up.

                    1. Recycling lines I already used against you doesn’t make you witty. If anything, it’s just one more demonstration of your muddled thinking.

  5. The dems should not start dancing yet.

    It is no coincidence that Obama’s numbers started to fall last July.  The August recess was targeted by the tea party backers as the time to go after Representatives and Senators in the so-called town meeting.  It was a brilliant strategy.  They destroyed any consensus on health care reform and scared the sh..t out of most congresspeople.  The dems had no effective response.

    The gift was the “beer party summit” in the White House….IMHO, police all over the country were outraged that the President could label one of their own “stupid” and then think that buying everyone a beer would make up for it. IMHO, that is what was behind the MA victory for Brown.

    the repubs have the microphone, the strategy and the money….the dems have none of that…..

    the repubs have framed the argument that the economy is Obama’s fault…brilliant…brilliant…brilliant….

      1. Obama inherited a situation where the economy was  in recession and looming toward a worldwide depression.  That was not of his administration’s making.  That collapse was simply not his fault.  We are still in the midst of that recession.  That recession was not caused by Obama’s administration.  But, the republican media, IMHO, have framed the argument that somehow Obama caused the recession.  That was my point.

        Now, it is legitimate for repubs to argue that Obama’s policies have not made a difference or made a difference fast enough.  

  6. You denounce one pro-Dem poll as an “outlier” but simply counter with an outlier of your own (“Obama has fallen to his lowest approval rating ever”) as if that’s more more “truthy.”

    The Real Clear Politics polling average on Obama shows basically a dead-even split, 46.9 approve to 46.8 disapprove. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html)

    But I fully expect you and your intellectual colleagues Libertad and BJ to keep gleefully “reporting” to us every outlier of a negative poll for the Dems that Fox News tells you is a Very Important Poll.

    1. Quinnipiac is certainly not a right-leaning poll.

      If you think these numbers are great, hey, more power to you.  I’d rather hear what you think about the entitlement spending and if you think it can possibly ever be paid for.

    2. Neil Stevens at RedState caught a little detail at Gallup that looks like it explains the reason for the phantom jump at Gallup: [Emphasis mine]

      Remember on June 2 when Republicans took a big lead in the Gallup generic ballot? I used it to project conservatively a 45 seat Republican gain in the House. This was a poll of registered voters, according to Gallup’s Survey Methods notes:

      “Results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 24-30, 2010, with a random sample of 1,594 registered voters, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using a random-digit-dial sampling technique.”

      But now on July 19 that Democrats are showing a big lead, despite the fact that Gallup’s pretty graph now is titled Candidate Preferences in 2010 Congressional Elections, Among Registered Voters, the sampling is different:

      “Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking July 12-18, 2010, with a random sample of 1,535 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.”

      Catch the difference? The Republicans lead with a sample of Registered Voters, but the Democrats lead with a sample of Adults. Someone who trusted Gallup’s pretty, but lying, picture would never have noticed. Real Clear Politics noticed, and actually recorded the polls differently. Friends noticed this and alerted me.

    3. Its not the polling, that’s just what is in the media.

      Its the discussions we are having as family and neighboors.

      It is the loss of income and the lack of American progress diverted by policies you uphold that is causing the conversations to occur. The GOP is organizing in church basements, even unaffiliated urban mothers are organizing in metro Denver homes.

      Yesterday my spouse was giddy as as the primary ballot had arrived. It’s practice for the November ballot, time to vote for change.

  7. And another data point that suggests that “Generic R vs. Generic D” polls are next to useless.

    The makeup of Congress will be determined on how people like their own Congresscritter, less vacancies.

    Polling how people feel about someone else’s Congresscritter is a fool’s errand.

    1. If anything, I think it shows voter interest in an upcoming election.

      It’s a remarkable anti-incumbent mentality, and the Dems are in power. That doesn’t bode well for them, that’s all I’m saying in the first part of the diary.

        1. to enjoy your upcoming demise.  

          Failure to enjoy it results in forfeiture of our Republican affiliation and banishes us to the Unaffiliated crowd.

        2. We were pilloried mercilessly in the 2008 election, when nobody would listen to us. While Bush did a few bad things, liberals took it over the top and squelched anything negative about Obama in the media (Jeremiah Wright, etc.). Pretty much everything we said about what would happen with Obama in the White House came true. It’s time for justice to be served.

          2. Only you can describe the weeks of ridiculous non stop coverage of Jeremiah Wright by EVERY news group during the ’08 campaign as “squelched”. This is why you have absolutely zero credibility. Any point you were trying to make is lost with that completely dishonest example of “squelching”.

            Your aren’t Sarah Palin and we aren’t her gullible followers. Stop trying to emulate her with made up versions of history.

            I’ll let others comment on your ridiculous assertion regarding “While Bush did a few bad things…” What an idiot.

      2. I’m still not that worried. Because the ‘pubs keep on presenting a harder and harder right stance, and enough of them appear to be crazy about it, that I think it will give many who are angry at the Dems pause before they decide to turn Congress over to the GOP.

        Ultimately, it’s about the jobs. It won’t be about the national debt or entitlements, because those are too abstract to most voters. If they weren’t, we would have fixed the budget decades ago.

        1. It’s all about income, not debt.

          Newsweek had an article, and Krugman recently commented on it, too. Overall, when income falls, incumbents lose. When income rises, incumbents win. Debt isn’t an issue that drives votes.

          Incomes have been falling. Dems will lose seats, regardless of the root cause.

          1. Imbalanced.

            And there is considerable disdain for the rhetoric of President Obama and his advisers regarding Germany’s export-orientated economic progress. Particular derision is reserved for the rhetoric of Nobel prize-winner Paul Krugman, who with his recent diatribes against an allegedly inflationary bias in German policies is widely regarded in Berlin as somewhat imbalanced.

            “Obama is becoming increasingly transparent,” says one satisfied German official. “With his arguments that we should become a bit less reliant on exports and allow the others to catch up, he’s just trying to weaken us. Well, we’re not going to take his advice.”

            1. Did you even read the column?

              Seriously, why bother quoting Krauthammer when you won’t bother to read the other side? And you like to accuse us liberals of living in an echo chamber? Pot, meet kettle.

              1. Krugman’s nuts, IMO.

                I don’t think you’re nuts, but I think Krugman is. Nothing personal.

                He was a great economist, but a terrible political economist, IMO, if that makes sense.

                1. …that he views things through a more partisan lens, but so do Krauthammer, Brooks, and others. I try to read them all. These guys usually have their facts right, so the partisan bias is usually easy to pick out. I think their worst offense is one of ignoring data that contradicts their conclusion. And that’s precisely why you should read them all.

                2. Actually, it doesn’t, and in a very salient way. “Economics” is from the Greek for “household management” (which is why it shares a root with “ecology,” the study of habitats). The term “political economy” emerged, I believe, in the early 19th century, to describe everything we now refer to as “economy.” In other words, the two terms you use, but distinguish between, are synonymous.

                  It could be, of course, that the meanings have shifted, and now actually do refer to two different things. I thought that at one time, but discovered it to be false, though there are some who act as if it is true. The more you study the discipline, the more you understand that all economics is “political economics,” because the two spheres are inherently, inextricably entwined (as the originators of the discipline understood, but as has become obfuscated by ideologues over time).

                  That’s why the pretense that there are truly “free markets” (free of government), and an economy that is (or can be, or should be) independent of politics is just that: a pretense. And that’s why Krugman isn’t “nuts”, but actually a brilliant economist (as you said) whose brilliance is partly based on the fact that he understands these relationships. And, finally, that’s why, in a coup of historical irony, the moderate left (which encompasses what American right-wingers now absurdly refer to as “socialism”) has become the last economically literate ideology standing.

          2. But we have never seen an election like this one coming up. We’ve never had an opposition party so completely in lockstep against the ruling party, and one that was willing to screw over ordinary Americans in order to shore up their base. If Obama and the Dems play it right, they can show voters that the alternative is worse.

            That’s a long shot, and I’m not foolish enough to believe that the Dems aren’t going to lose seats, but I think the ‘pubs are overconfident and will have a lot more to do than say “jobs jobs jobs” if they are gunning to take over the House and the Senate, along with a few state lege’s and governor’s mansions.

            1. When you’re out of work and Congress isn’t doing anything substantive on that key issue, replace the incumbents is actually a very logical decision – regardless of what they propose. Because you know business as usual won’t change anything.

              1. … if you can see that the minority party is using every trick in the book to hold up things like unemployment insurance, that doesn’t make them an attractive option. Especially if the Dems can use this to demonstrate that they haven’t been able to get legislation through the Senate.

                The fact is, the ‘pubs have offered no concrete counter proposals for addressing the economy. It’s all been denunciations of the Dems’ plan. Some people will respond to that. But other may notice that the pubs have no message of their own, outside of the same old same old.

                Voters may have short memories, but most will still recall that the economy crapped out while Bush was still in office, and I think a fair number are savvy enough to realize that the economy doesn’t react immediately to government pump priming. That may not be enough to help the Dems stay in power, but I think the ‘pubs are overconfident and they aren’t going to make all the gains they think they will.

                1. Soon, you’ll be the minority party again and we’ll switch roles.  I’ll be complaining about obstruction and you’ll be complaining about trickery and middle-of-the-night deals to sneak legislation through.

                  I’d actually think Obama might really be at his best working with a hostile congress.  It would be really interesting politics, for sure.

  8. When you’re right, you’re right:


    Unfortunately, what has been done is economically unsustainable.  We are already well on our way to becoming a big version of California.

    Dems have been saying for awhile that the off-the-book wars weren’t economically sustainable. I’m glad you’ve finally admitted it.

    I find it humorous that we could afford Bush’s huge new entitlements (Iraq war, Medicare Drug Plan, Bush Tax Cuts) without even a nod towards trying to pay for them. Apparently Obama’s new entitlements that actually were passed through the CBO (whether you dispute their finding or not) are going to be the end of America as we know it!

    And yet when it comes to cutting spending, which you didn’t even mention in your post, Republicans and conservatives like Sarah Palin and her horde of followers won’t even consider cutting the bloated Defense budget. We need 3 military bases in Japan because? We need two Air Force bases in Bulgaria? We have over 260 bases, camps, fields, or forts around the world and domestically. How about we cut some of them and save a lot of money that can be put to much better use.

  9. that the Gallup poll is a fraud. The latest poll uses all adults while earlier polls used registered voters. Hence the “jump” in support for a Democrat on the generic ballot.

        1. Why don’t you look up the definition?

          It’s simple. Hard partisan sites – from the left or the right – are not credible sources, in and of themselves.

          I’ll apologize IF YOU SWEAR THAT YOU’LL TAKE LEFT WING SITES LIKE MEDIA MATTERS as credible sources. If you can’t do that, then don’t bellyache when we refuse to take redstate seriously.

          1. to make it look like things were improving for Democrats. How is that not fraud? While I disagree with Media Matters on their opinions, I’m sure they get the facts right at least a few times.

        2. To me, it makes more sense that somebody changed the wording of the press release than that Gallup changed their methodology from week-to-week in a tracking poll.

          If I get some time, I’ll try to chase this down.

  10. What a giant pile of bullshit.

    Editor’s note: The original version of this story inadvertently referred to national adults rather than registered voters in the survey methods statement. The results reported here and in all Gallup generic ballot trends so far this year are based on registered voters; the survey methods statement now correctly reflects that.

    Riiiiight.  A poll that moves in an unexpected direction, significantly, initially shows a different sample group.

    QED, right?

    No!  It must have been a typo that explains the anomaly.

    Please give me a break.

    1. The one that says, “Candidate Preferences in 2010 Congressional Elections, Among Registered Voters”?

      If you want to see for yourself, go here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/141…

      And if you think Gallup just changed it today to try to fool us, look at the Colorado Pols entry from the other day, which reproduced the graph.  Surprise!  It has the same header.

      So yeah, I think there was a typo, just as Gallup said.

      1. After they get called out on a totally anomalous leap in support for dems when nearly every other poll shows the opposite, it’s at that time they realize they had a typo?

        1. If there is a reasonable, mundane explanation that doesn’t fit within your preferred conspiracy theory, it must be wrong.

          9/11! Birth certificate! Muslim! Global cooling! Socialist! Gallup typo!

            1. LB, you’re wrong.  If you keep flogging this dead horse, you’re going to have to change your name to BJ and spend endless hours every day arguing with Steve Harvey.  That’s too big a price to pay for leaping to a conclusion, so if I were you, I’d just drop it and move on to the next talking point.

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