I am seriously not trying to jab anyone with a sharp stick here. But CNN/Time has a new set of Presidential polling numbers out, taken after passage of the tax deal. A few of them actually surprised the heck out of me.
More over the fold.
All results can be found here (PDF).
Overall Approval:
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president? (Dec. 17-19 2010)
Approve 48%
Disapprove 48%
4% No opinion
The approval rating is unchanged from November of 2010. The disapproval rating went down just a bit from 50% to 48% from November 2010. But it's the internals of that poll that really caught my attention. They broke it out by Democrat, Independent, Republican, Liberal, Moderate and Conservative. I'll take it for each descriptor by choice (approve, disapprove, etc.):
Approve
Democrat 82%
Independent 41%
Republican 12%
Liberal 72%
Moderate 60%
Conservative 22%
Disapprove
Democrat 15%
Independent 54%
Republican 85%
Liberal 27%
Moderate 36%
Conservative 72%
No Opinion
Democrat 3%
Independent 5%
Republican 2%
Liberal 1%
Moderate 4%
Conservative 5%
Frigging fascinating. I figured that the "Liberal" approval ratings would be pretty abysmal - but 72%? The one thing the poll can't tell me is how a person was qualified as "liberal", although my suspicion would be that they self-identify as such.
Next, the "right direction/wrong direction" question:
Do you think the policies being proposed by Barack Obama will move the country in the right direction or the wrong direction? (Dec. 17-19 2010)
Right direction 55%
Wrong direction 42%
No opnion 3%
Compare this to same question from January of 2010
Right direction 49%
Wrong direction 49%
No opinion 2%
The internals on that question were interesting also - 86% of Democrats and 85% of liberals characterize the country as moving in the "right direction". Even 53% of independents felt we were moving in the right direction.
On to the tax cut package - this is a whopper:
Congress has passed and President Obama has signed into law a bill that would extend tax cuts for all Americans, reduce the estate tax, extend unemployment benefits, and reduce the Social Security tax that workers pay. Taking into account all of those provisions, do you favor or oppose that bill? (Dec 17-19 2010)
Favor 75%
Oppose 23%
No opinion 2%
Wow. I honestly didn't think the approval rating would be so high. On the internals, 78% of Democrats chose "Favor", and 64% of liberals chose "favor". Independents were overwhelmingly for it at 74%. And then this, which points to the cognitive dissonance of the Average American:
Do you think that bill does too much for wealthy Americans, does about the right amount, or does not do enough for wealthy Americans? (Dec 17-19 2010)
Too much 56%
About right 35%
Not enough 9%
No opinion 1%
A majority of Americans definitely believe that the rich are being coddled too much in this economy. As you would expect, 74% of Democrats and 68% of liberals feel that the rich are given too much of a break in the tax bill that just passed. Unsurprisingly, only 38% of Republicans feel that the rich got too much in he tax package. The question will be, politically, did the Democrats do a good enough job of hanging that inequity on Republicans? I'm not neutral enough to judge.
The whole document is interesting for those who like to analyze polls.
What I'm hearing uniformly on the political side of the equation (I'm not speaking about the advisability of the policy here - only on the politics of it) is that December is a "big win" for Barack Obama and for Democrats, that he's somehow magically "turned it around" after his "shellacking".
So the question I would post to each of you is as follows, and I'm not putting my own personal opinion on it whatsoever. My goal is to see if we can possibly discuss this without hurling insults (she said hopefully) and at least arrive at a point where we understand someone even though we might still disagree.
Can Barack Obama be re-elected with only his base as his key support? Does he require independents and moderates to get elected? If so, what are the implications of having to defy his base in order to get re-elected? Can he get re-elected if one believes that it's the base that gets any candidate over the finish line?
Have at it.
Update [2010-12-20 18:24:7 by RenaRF]: NICE discussion in the comments. Really excellent - uniformly respectful yet still a diversity of viewpoints. Love it!