Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Even David Brooks gets it:Brooks, writing today about Republican candidates for President, notes: The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years. Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy and Iraq by double-digit margins. Let that sink in. There is a great preference for Democrats and Democratic approaches to policy. The widest in a generation. And Republicans most unpopular in 40 years. So why is David Broder writing (and promoting, don't be fooled) about an independent third-party bid? As this blog has said before, Broder is a Republican, but since the Republicans can't win on their own this year, their only hope is for a third-party to disrupt the voting so a Republican can squeeze in via the Electoral College, or that a Republican-lite third-party candidate wins.
posted by Quiddity at 1/01/2008 02:50:00 PM
2 comments
Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage ...
Conveniently enough, Rasmussen released some new poll results today:
The number of Americans who consider themselves to be Republicans jumped nearly two percentage points in December to 34.2%. That’s the largest market share for the Republican brand in nearly two years, since January 2006 (see history from January 2004 to present).
At the same time, the number of Democrats fell to 36.3%. That’s down a point compared to a month ago. During 2007, the number of Democrats has ranged from a low of 35.9% in July to a high of 37.8% in February.
50%? What? Where did David Brooks get his numbers? Surely they came from one of the ultra-left wing shills he lists; the Pew Research Center, The Washington Post, Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University. Would it hurt to, you know, give an actual source for such an outlandish claim?
Source, please.
Republicans most unpopular in 40 years.
How about Democrats? I'll remind you that the Congressional Democrats approval rating hit 14% earlier this year, the lowest approval rating in United States history, and I've heard a distinct lack of any stories about a rebound. The MSM seems to have stopped polling Democratic approval ratings now, or for some reason they aren't publishing them.
Just to shoot another fish in Brooks' barrel:
Romney has tied himself to the old brand.
Isn't Hillary Clinton the most "old brand" of all candidates in the history of old-brand candidates? Given that the Democrats are probably going to be stuck peddling her as their candidate, it's awfully blind to focus on a potential "old brand" problem on the part of the Republicans. Enron. Marc Rich and his fortunate friends. Monica. These are Clinton's branding problems.
The Republicans, on the other hand, are at risk of being "branded" as Reagan Republicans.
Oh, the horror.
Brooks creates a completely misleading image. But that's what the NYT is all about these days.
The fact that anom considers places like Harvard and The Washington Post left, much less "ultra-left wing", really does render his comment laughable. Beyond that, he's riding the rest of the rightwing talking points hard. The advantage Brooks mentions, the leaned part ID (which asks not just do you consider yourself GOP or Democratic, but who do you lean toward) has indeed been those numbers according to several polls, among them the Pew as well as a similar number from Gallup.
Of course facts have a well-known liberal bias in anom's world.
The claim about the 14% "Democratic Congress" approval was an MSNBC Live claim that didn't match the facts. It referred to a Reuters/Zogby poll where it is unclear (since Zogby doesn't release its questions) whether they asked about "Congress" or "Democratic Congress". It seems likely they asked about "Congress" (which anom may be surprised to learn has more than one party in it) because in poll after poll when respondents are asked seperately about "GOPers in Congress" and "Democrats in Congress" the Democrats get a far higher approval. It certainly is true that many people are unhappy about the anemic degree of reaction and oversight against the GOP's actions both domestic and foreign and this has lowered approval ratings for Congress. This of course wouldn't fit anom's worldview either, so out the window with that fact.
As for "old brands", what could be older than Reagan, the racist, debt-building, run from terrorists, sell arms to our enemies, overthrow democratically-elected governments, dictator-supporter -- and premier Saddam-lover, to use a fave from the wingnuts; after all he's the guy who handed Saddam more weapons after Saddam gassed the Kurds, who supported Saddam before and after that event. Funny how the anoms of this world has disappeared that fact too. So Reagan is their brand and GW Bush never happened? That's the slogan they're running on? This should be fun.
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