The same tactic? Getting a majority of the votes in both houses and getting the President to sign the bill? Yeah got hate those Democrats for being all, um, democratic about it.
David K.
I’m also amused that you seem to think that the thoughts of a libertarian leaning blogger is somehow enlightening on this issue. Of COURSE she is going to find fault with the bill, its a non-libertarian solution.
Alasdair
The money graf from gahrie’s cite …
“We’re not a parliamentary democracy, and we don’t have the mechanisms, like votes of no confidence, that parliamentary democracies use to provide a check on their politicians. The check that we have is that politicians care what the voters think. If that slips away, America’s already quite toxic politics will become poisonous.”
Those are the thougts of a sensible and thoughtful observer – and would have been just as accurate if they had shown up on the DailyKos …
So when the Republicans win control of both houses of Congress and the presidency in 2012, and immediately repeal Obamacare, and institute Republican reforms of Welfare, Social Security and Medicare without Democratic input, you’ll be fine with that right?
David K.
gahrie,
First, the Republicans were GIVEN the chance to participate, stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted “la la la la can’t hear you” because they weren’t getting their way on everything. So don’t give me this bullshit about them not having input. They took a “Just say No” approach from day one.
Second, if somehow they manage to sweep all the elections enough to gain complete control of congress and the Presidency (they won’t, but whatever), then that means the American people want them to enact their policies. If they can get the votes, i won’t be HAPPY about it, i’ll try and convince my represenatives not to support it, but I won’t be making ridiculous claims about how they are somehow acting in a nefarious manner, by OMG getting the majority of the votes.
I also won’t be using the same lies and bullshit scare tactics that the majority of Republicans have relied upon. Its one thing to believe that a given approach is not the right one to take, its an altogether different thing to resort to fear mongering, ignoring evidence, and outright hypocrisy like the GOP has on health care.
gahrie
First, the Republicans were GIVEN the chance to participate
Oh you mean in all the backroom meeting they weren’t allowed to participate in, all the amendments they weren’t allowed to propose and the rules designed specifically to exclude their participation?
Hell most Democrats didn’t even know what they were voting on more than 3 days before the votes.
We still don’t know all of the details of this travesty and won’t for weeks.
Well I’m sure we can agree on one thing…the Democrats own this lock, stock and barrel ….
As a practical matter, I wonder to what extent the Republicans will really run on a “repeal” platform this fall. Among the things that go into effect immediately in the health care plan are the elimination of the Medicare “donut hole”, children up to age 26 can remain as dependants on parents’ policies, no pre-existing condition exlusions for children up to age 18, no more lifetime or annual caps on coverage. If the Republicans focus on repeal this fall, I’m thinking the Democrats will focus on these immediate changes that become effective within 6 months of the President’s signature (i.e….before the November elections) and I wonder how people will feel about the Republican’s campaign to roll back these gains even if they say they will work for an “improved” bill if they get into power. I think I would rather be a Democrat pointing out how the Republicans are going to take away all these things rather than a Republican trying to explain that they just want to make it better.
Joe Mama
Actually, I think the money quotes from McArdle preceded what Alasdair cited:
One cannot help but admire Nancy Pelosi’s skill as a legislator. But it’s also pretty worrying. Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority? Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill. And that mattered basically not at all. If you don’t find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not yet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar circumstances. Farewell, social security! Au revoir, Medicare! The reason entitlements are hard to repeal is that the Republicans care about getting re-elected. If they didn’t–if they were willing to undertake this sort of suicide mission–then the legislative lock-in you’re counting on wouldn’t exist.
Oh, wait–suddenly it doesn’t seem quite fair that Republicans could just ignore the will of their constituents that way, does it? Yet I guarantee you that there are a lot of GOP members out there tonight who think that they should get at least one free “Screw You” vote to balance out what the Democrats just did.
If the GOP takes the legislative innovations of the Democrats and decides to use them, please don’t complain that it’s not fair. Someone could get seriously hurt, laughing that hard.
But I hope they don’t. What I hope is that the Democrats take a beating at the ballot box and rethink their contempt for those mouth-breathing illiterates in the electorate. I hope Obama gets his wish to be a one-term president who passed health care. Not because I think I will like his opponent–I very much doubt that I will support much of anything Obama’s opponent says. But because politicians shouldn’t feel that the best route to electoral success is to lie to the voters, and then ignore them.
Sandy Underpants
I love the “We’ll get the Dems back” attitude by the anti-american republicans on this board. Guess what guys, you already screwed the country when you had a majority in every branch last decade.
With a majority in both houses and the presidency for 6 years Republicans gutted our counter-terror programs to grant a massive tax cut only to see the country attacked 8 months later on 9/11 while the president was in the last week of a 4 week vacation, they started 2 wars we had no reason to fight, de-regulated Wall Street, de-regulated lending and banking practices, and had an emergency midnight meeting to force Terry Shiavo to remain on life support. And that’s the good part.
Jazz
Kenneth Stern @10 makes some pretty good points about the likely electoral consequences of this vote. I’d additionally add that Americans have recognized the flaws in the free market for health care consumption since Nixon’s attempt at overhaul in the early 70s, and probably even long before that.
While I personally disagree with Obamacare’s approach to solving these universally-acknowledged problems, it seems to me that yesterday’s vote won’t terribly harm the Democrats. They could be hurt by harsh marketplace realities. On ideological grounds, they’re probably pretty safe.
Joe Mama
On ideological grounds, they’re probably pretty safe.
Maybe, but if I were Bart Stupak I wouldn’t be too complacent about a Republican opponent whose Facebook page jumped from around 300 members to over 13,000 since yesterday.
The idea that Democrats were ignoring a will clearly expressed by constituents is just FUD. Individual components were popular, which leads a sober analyst to conclude that it’s not clear that people don’t like the bill.
Further, anyone who attempts to use that as a measure should be scolding Republicans and Blue Dogs for killing the public option, which according to Nate Silver’s calculations polls at a +22.
So you believe we should now enact a public option, Joe Mama?
Alasdair
pthread – which “public option” ?
The campaign panacea for free which will also reduce the deficit one ?
Or the one which covers everyone for everything regardless of any status, who cares what happens to the deficit one ?
Of course you can find polls at +22 for the campaign version … the problem is that the current Democrat leaders are rushing to implement the “regardless of any status” one … and as people realise it, as they realise that if such a scheme was car insurance, you would be able to take out insurance immediately *after* an accident and still have to be covered, and they *know* that model is not actuarially sound … why do you think so many people in the voting public are against Obamacare, pthread ?
Joe Mama
Assuming* that a majority of voters did prefer a public option at some point in time, taking up that individual component of health care reform would at least make more fiscal sense than the comprehensive approach that is way too expensive. I would probably still oppose a public option because it would either (1) not serve its intended purpose if the gov’t actually kept its word about maintaining a level playing field with private insurers, or (2) mean the gov’t would get unfair advantages, such as the ability to operate at a loss or change the rules of the game. But incrementalism — the approach advocated by the GOP — has met with success (see, e.g., what Mitch Daniels has done in Indiana).
Anyway, the idea that Democrats weren’t ignoring a will clearly expressed by voters is completely absurd and contrary to every poll out there, including the most recent one conducted Fri-Sun which said that 59% of Americans oppose the bill, 43% of whom oppose it because it is too liberal. Those are simply the facts. It is absolutely crystal clear that most people don’t like the bill. This is just not a debatable point.
* I don’t know what “calculations” you’re referring to, or what the underlying poll data is, or how the question was structured, or even when it was asked. Did the question make clear that the public option meant a gov’t-run or gov’t-administered plan? Was it a stand alone question or within a list? Did it refer to the public option as “similar to Medicare?” Was it clear and unambiguous about asking about support for the public option rather than, say, how important respondents think it is? There are too many unknowns for me to accept your premise at face value.
Couple the fact that polling is essentially at a statistical dead heat with the fact that there’s clearly an information gap in polling, and it’s impossible to make the argument that you attempt to make.
Did the question make clear that the public option meant a gov’t-run or gov’t-administered plan?
It’s the fivethirtyeight.com link I posted in response to Alasdair, as just one example. It’s been pretty consistent, however, that people want a public option.
gahrie
pthread:
That’s why the Democrats were doing absolutely everything they could to avoid actually having to vote on the bill right? Because it was so popular?
That’s why Brown won in Mass., because Obamacare was so popular right?
I mean if the people who actually have a system in place that is virtually identical to the system you are trying to impose don’t support you…who will? Why the people who are willing to believe your lies and deceptions, that’s who. (and of course all those you manage to bribe with jobs and payoffs)
Joe Mama
Except they aren’t the facts. Even if we accept generic polling of the matter, the poll you cite is an outlier
An outlier compared to what…trend estimates from last week showing a nominal increase in support for health care reform among Democrats? Pollster.com’s own trend estimate shows support for health care reform at 44%, while over 51% still oppose it. So like I said, a majority of Americans are opposed to Obamacare.
Couple the fact that polling is essentially at a statistical dead heat with the fact that there’s clearly an information gap in polling, and it’s impossible to make the argument that you attempt to make.
I guess that depends on what you consider “a statistical dead heat.” According to your link, since last fall roughly 10% more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. It’s pretty impossible to wish away those facts. Moreover, you have to wonder why Pelosi and Obama were pleading to their fellow Dems in the House to essentially fall on their swords and take one for the team by voting for Obamacare if the bill polled as well as you suggest.
this is pthread, just to be clear. somehow I automatically got logged in with facebook here at home and I’m just going to go with it
That’s why the Democrats were doing absolutely everything they could to avoid actually having to vote on the bill right? Because it was so popular?
Uh, the Democrats just had a vote, and they won. And It seems to me the only party refusing to have an up or down vote here is the Republicans. Not that I begrudge them their right to do that, but I think you need to get your facts straight.
As far as why Brown won in Massachusetts, it certainly isn’t an aversion to government run healthcare, as their program is extremely popular. Unless it was a, “we already have ours” mentality, which doesn’t quite support your narrative.
An outlier compared to what…trend estimates from last week showing a nominal increase in support for health care reform among Democrats? Pollster.com’s own trend estimate shows support for health care reform at 44%, while over 51% still oppose it. So like I said, a majority of Americans are opposed to Obamacare.
Yes, trend estimates amongst a number of pollsters. Listen, I’m not going to say it’s impossible the CNN poll is right, but it’s both outside the norm and outside the trend. As far as the “majority” opposing it, the margin of error for these polls simply doesn’t allow you to make that statement.
since last fall roughly 10% more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. It’s pretty impossible to wish away those facts.
Except it’s not last fall. It’s now. And besides this huge outlier of a poll, we’re sitting on a difference that is not far off from the margin of error.
Again, any sober analysis points to the fact that it’s a FUD campaign that’s driving poorer pool numbers. From Silver’s piece I linked to above:
” An NBC poll in August also found that support went from a -6 net to a +10 when people were actually provided with a description of the bill.”
You cannot explain *that* away. Think whatever you like about the actual merits of the bill, but to pretend that you clearly have the will of the American people behind you is ridiculous.
gahrie
As far as why Brown won in Massachusetts, it certainly isn’t an aversion to government run healthcare, as their program is extremely popular. Unless it was a, “we already have ours” mentality, which doesn’t quite support your narrative.
The main plank of Brown’s campaign was his promise to be the 41st vote against Obamacare. Every analysis of his victory, even by the MSM, considered it to be a refutation of Obamacare. At the time it was considered to be the death of Obamacare’s chances of passing. All of the scheming in the House was made necessary by his victory.
It seems to me the only party refusing to have an up or down vote here is the Republicans. Not that I begrudge them their right to do that, but I think you need to get your facts straight.
Yeah, it was the Republicans who brought up reconciliation, and “Deem and pass” so the Democrats couldn’t vote on the bill right?
Note: The only thing bi-partisan about this bill were the Democrats who joined the Republicans voting against it.
gahrie
You cannot explain *that* away. Think whatever you like about the actual merits of the bill, but to pretend that you clearly have the will of the American people behind you is ridiculous.
Again that is why the Democrats were trying so hard to avoid voting on this bill, and the loss of one of the safest Senate seats possible to the Republicans. That’s why Stupak’s opponent just gained a massive amount of support overnight.
Every analysis of his victory, even by the MSM, considered it to be a refutation of Obamacare.
Dude. Do you read what I wrote? Don’t be all DavidK on me. Repeating it doesn’t make it more true.
Yeah, it was the Republicans who brought up reconciliation, and “Deem and pass” so the Democrats couldn’t vote on the bill right?
You do understand how reconciliation works, right? Reonciliation still requires a vote. And while I’m not here to defend Deem and Pass, it still has the effect that you are voting on the bill (as in, if you don’t vote for the bill that contains the deem and pass language, the original bill will not pass). It’s just a childish parliamentarian trick so that politicians can say shit that isn’t true. It shouldn’t be done not because it allows bills to pass without being voted on, but because it’s incredibly unbecoming.
And yes, we’ll see in November. To be honest I think the economy is going to be the issue that makes or breaks democrats in November. That’s what started the slide in Democratic popularity, that’s what will reverse it.
Joe Mama
The CNN poll is outside the trend maybe (an overall increase of 3% since January isn’t much of a trend, especially considering the margin of error for these polls). But it’s a bit of an overstatement to claim that 59% opposition is a “huge outlier” that is outside the norm when other polls have opposition at over 50% as of last week. Moreover, unlike the other polls, the CNN poll was conducted over the 3 days just prior to the crucial House vote, which is when accepted wisdom says that the public is most engaged in the debate. Public opinion being fluid, a true apples-to-apples comparison requires looking at other polls conducted over the same time period, not snapshots from a week before. As you point out, it’s “now” that matters most. In any event, regardless of the margin of error for these polls, the fact remains that every one consistently shows more people in opposition than in favor. Whether it’s a majority or plurality, no “sober analysis” can deny that more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. If that’s just an “FUD campaign,” then it’s a campaign that somehow managed to dupe both Republicans and Democrats, including POTUS and the Speaker.
As far as why Brown won in Massachusetts, it certainly isn’t an aversion to government run healthcare, as their program is extremely popular. Unless it was a, “we already have ours” mentality, which doesn’t quite support your narrative.
gahrie is absolutely 100% correct that the main plank of Brown’s campaign was his promise to be the 41st vote against Obamacare. This is yet another non-debatable point. Massachusetts voters may not be averse to gov’t-run health care per se, but they were clearly averse to Obamacare.
Joe Mama
More on Scott Brown and gov’t-run health care in Mass.
The CNN poll is outside the trend maybe (an overall increase of 3% since January isn’t much of a trend, especially considering the margin of error for these polls). But it’s a bit of an overstatement to claim that 59% opposition is a “huge outlier” that is outside the norm when other polls have opposition at over 50% as of last week.
But the politico aggregate was at 48% before this one. That’s a pretty huge jump. Again, I’m not claiming it’s impossible, just that it should be treated with skepticism. How about this, simply agree that while a hopeful sign for your position, declaring it to be representative will require a couple more polls showing similar numbers before we simply accept it outright (which is what I’m objecting to here). Agreed? Please come back here (and I’m not saying this as a joke) in a week or two and discuss where the polls are at then. You’ll either be proven right, or wrong.
Moreover, unlike the other polls, the CNN poll was conducted over the 3 days just prior to the crucial House vote, which is when accepted wisdom says that the public is most engaged in the debate. Public opinion being fluid, a true apples-to-apples comparison requires looking at other polls conducted over the same time period, not snapshots from a week before
But it’s not a snapshot, it’s a running average of all polls, and it had a clear trend towards increased support.
As you point out, it’s “now” that matters most. In any event, regardless of the margin of error for these polls, the fact remains that every one consistently shows more people in opposition than in favor. Whether it’s a majority or plurality, no “sober analysis” can deny that more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. If that’s just an “FUD campaign,” then it’s a campaign that somehow managed to dupe both Republicans and Democrats, including POTUS and the Speaker.
Except I disagree. Again, it’s been demonstrated that when the bill was described to respondents, support grew by double digits. That means that it’s simply impossible to make the claim with a straight face that people were against it. You HAVE to know you are being disingenuous here.
Listen, I’m not claiming people overwhelmingly support it, and you could certainly make the case that since it’s so close they should have scaled things back. I wouldn’t necessarily agree, but I don’t think it’s an entirely illegitimate position.
But again, in no universe is it clear that more people oppose than support the bill
And if you are going to argue against that, I want you to specifically refute the fact that the bill polls better by double digits when it is explained to the respondent.
Joe Mama
How about this, simply agree that while a hopeful sign for your position, declaring it to be representative will require a couple more polls showing similar numbers before we simply accept it outright (which is what I’m objecting to here). Agreed? Please come back here (and I’m not saying this as a joke) in a week or two and discuss where the polls are at then. You’ll either be proven right, or wrong.
I agree that more polls taken concurrently with the CNN poll would shed more light on the extent of opposition to the bill, but polls taken after it has been signed into law won’t really reflect whether passage of the bill was or wasn’t contrary to a clearly expressed will of the voters at the time. For example, it’s conceivable that some respondents a week or two from now would just say f*ck it, it’s the law now, the sun still came up this morning, so whatever.
But it’s not a snapshot, it’s a running average of all polls, and it had a clear trend towards increased support.
Don’t be pedantic. My point is exactly the same if you delete the word “snapshot” from the sentence.
Again, it’s been demonstrated that when the bill was described to respondents, support grew by double digits. That means that it’s simply impossible to make the claim with a straight face that people were against it. You HAVE to know you are being disingenuous here.
Nonsense. Just because one poll from last summer shows that support went from a -6 to +10 when aspects of the bill were described separately hardly proves that opposition to the bill is based on misinformation. There can be dozens of reform proposals that garner support separately, but if the one thing that makes it not worthwhile is the cost, then that obviously outweighs everything else. That’s the whole point of a cost-benefit analysis. Moreover, I can tell a pollster that I favor extending coverage to the uninsured (which I do), but if that’s the end of the question, then that pollster has no way of knowing that I oppose how the bill accomplishes this. Much of the opposition to Obamacare is based on the unintended consequences (actual cost) of the new law, which by definition isn’t reflected in that poll. Put differently, people just don’t believe the Democrats when they say they can expand coverage while bending the cost curve down. That is not the result of an information gap. It’s the result of a credibility gap (which is not to say that the GOP would be any more credible in this regard….either party saying what the Democrats are saying about the law that was passed would have the same credibility problem).
But again, in no universe is it clear that more people oppose than support the bill
False, for the foregoing reasons.
Joe Mama
Oh, and if we’re barking orders at each other, then I want you to specifically refute the fact that not one single poll shows more respondents in favor of Obamacare than against it.
Hrm. Somehow I missed this, but I came back to talk about a new poll, so I found it! 🙂
I agree that more polls taken concurrently with the CNN poll would shed more light on the extent of opposition to the bill, but polls taken after it has been signed into law won’t really reflect whether passage of the bill was or wasn’t contrary to a clearly expressed will of the voters at the time. For example, it’s conceivable that some respondents a week or two from now would just say f*ck it, it’s the law now, the sun still came up this morning, so whatever.
Beyond shedding light, it would tell us essentially whether the poll you cite was valid or not. On it’s own, it’s clearly not. It measured opposition 11 points higher than the running average. That’s not impossible, but it simply can’t be taken by itself. I’ll apply that own standard to myself below.
won’t really reflect whether passage of the bill was or wasn’t contrary to a clearly expressed will of the voters at the time. For example, it’s conceivable that some respondents a week or two from now would just say f*ck it, it’s the law now, the sun still came up this morning, so whatever.
Except that will was not clearly expressed. Here is a list of the facts, as we knew them:
1.) Just days before the vote, the tracker I linked to above *clearly* showed an increase in how favored the bill was, with a decrease in opposition, to the point which we approached (although admittedly not quite to) the margin of error. At that point, you simply can not claim that the clear will of the people is that the bill not be passed. Not only was it too close to infer a clear opposition from the American people, but the trend was upward. If anything you’d expect opposition to decrease, not increase.
2.) The poll you point to was not released until the day after the vote. Ignoring the fact that it is clearly an outlier, as I’ve said before, and in no way should have been taken at face value, but it was unknown information.
3.) As I’ve said before, and you seem to reject, there’s clearly an information gap. I think you misunderstand what I referenced, this wasn’t the instance where things were described seperately, this was when things were described together. Meaning a more specific description of the bill (in its entirety) was provided, and approval for the bill went up by double digits. The link for that, I believe, is in the fivethirtyeight article. This clearly indicates that there was an information gap at that time. You may argue that doesn’t apply anymore because it’s old, but I’m not sure why it doesn’t simply because it’s older, I saw nothing occur that would lead me to believe this was no longer true. In fact, the other item I mentioned supports this picture, although you are correct, it’s *possible* that people don’t like or want the whole package, but do want individual pieces.
But that’s not the limit of what the fivethirtyeight piece outlines. One of the more important findings is how many people believe false information about the bill. And this supports the findings of the earlier poll. Respondents simply do not know a lot about the bill they are being asked about. This also jives with my personal experience. Talk to people about the bill. They have no clue what the major provisions of it are. That isn’t because it’s too long, it’s because people just don’t pay attention.
Does the above mean that I’m claiming that the bill is overwhelmingly popular? No. I have absolutely no idea, simply because there is very little good polling. But I do know one thing, it is impossible to claim the public is clearly against the bill. Heck, I even put it in bold, it has to be true. 🙂 The polls, as taken in the days leading up the vote, were simply too close and the reliability of the results too ambiguous to make that claim.
Don’t be pedantic.
I wasn’t trying to be, actually. It seemed you were trying to make a point with the word “snapshot” (which point that is I’m not sure). Even without it, I’m not sure what you are trying to point out. If you were upset it didn’t include the latest poll, as I said, oh well, it came out after the fact.
False, for the foregoing reasons.
True! For the foregoing reasons. 🙂
Oh, and if we’re barking orders at each other, then I want you to specifically refute the fact that not one single poll shows more respondents in favor of Obamacare than against it.
This, I’m sure you recognize, is a completely different argument than the one I made. I’m happy to have it with you though, if you’d like. I argued that you couldn’t with confidence say that the American public was clearly against the bill.
This clearly is not the same as saying that they might be clearly for it. I actually don’t necessarily think that to be the case, nor do I care. We do not live in a direct democracy, and even if we did, polls are not elections.
I somehow doubt you were chastising Congress for not cutting funding for the Iraq war back when (and perhaps still now, who knows) polls overwhelmingly showed that people favored cutting spending on the war. A quick google shows a poll from 2005 shows that after Katrina people, by a 2-1 margin, wanted to cut spending in Iraq to pay for Gulf Coast reconstruction.
Now, you may argue, and I’m sympathetic to it although I don’t agree, that such large changes should poll better than basically breaking even. That’s a legitimate point of view. But the fact of the matter is, Obama was elected on a platform which had as one of its major planks healthcare reform. Nearly every major component of the bill (ahem, law) was part of that, which the exception being that they went with a mandate system instead of the public option. But that’s not for lack of Democrats wanting it.
As to the after vote response, it seems to be positive:
But, as I said, I’m willing to apply the same standard to evidence that supports what I believe. This poll is but one, and while it is in line with the upward trend we saw on the link I provided above it is still essentially an outlier, if nothing else because it sees such a sharp reversal. But again, we’ll watch and see.
Joe Mama
1.) Just days before the vote, the tracker I linked to above *clearly* showed an increase in how favored the bill was, with a decrease in opposition, to the point which we approached (although admittedly not quite to) the margin of error. At that point, you simply can not claim that the clear will of the people is that the bill not be passed.
Look, I’m not denying that there was an upward trend in support, but let’s be clear that we’re talking about a “modest” and “nominal” 2-3% since January. Let’s also be clear that roughly 10%</strong more people opposed the bill than supported it since the fall. Thus, given that spread, I can absolutely say that more people opposed this bill than favored it at the time of Sunday’s vote despite the upward trend.
Not only was it too close to infer a clear opposition from the American people, but the trend was upward. If anything you’d expect opposition to decrease, not increase.
Not only can I infer a clear opposition to the bill, but I might also expect opposition to increase just prior to the vote, as it did before the December vote. And of course, depending on how far back we choose to go with our start date, there might not even be a 2-3% upward trend in support.
2.) The poll you point to was not released until the day after the vote. Ignoring the fact that it is clearly an outlier, as I’ve said before, and in no way should have been taken at face value, but it was unknown information.
First of all, whether an observation is or is not an outlier is an inherently subjective determination. I don’t think the CNN poll — the only poll I’m aware of so far that was conducted 2 days prior to and the day of the vote — was “clearly an outlier” at all given the distribution of the other polls. Secondly, so what if the CNN poll wasn’t released until the day after the vote? That is completely irrelevant.
3.) As I’ve said before, and you seem to reject, there’s clearly an information gap. I think you misunderstand what I referenced, this wasn’t the instance where things were described seperately, this was when things were described together. Meaning a more specific description of the bill (in its entirety) was provided, and approval for the bill went up by double digits.
I do reject that there is an information gap. This piece of legislation managed to be debated more thoroughly over the last year than any other legislation in my lifetime despite how opaque the process was throughout. And perhaps I wasn’t clear about the problem with drawing conclusions about misinformation using that NBC poll — the “more specific description of the bill” simply listed covering people with pre-existing conditions, employers helping to fund coverage for the uninsured, tax credits for lower- and middle-income families, and taxing the rich. Of course respondents are going to nod their heads at those things…I might as well (with much discussion to follow). But that is hardly the whole story, and certainly doesn’t reflect the reasons that most people opposed the bill. You can ask me if I want sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms on my pizza and whether I want Bill Gates to help pay for it, and my answer would be sure, but if that also means the pizza joint is going to go bankrupt in a few weeks, then my answer will be different.
it’s *possible* that people don’t like or want the whole package, but do want individual pieces.
If only Obama had offered HCR that way.
Respondents simply do not know a lot about the bill they are being asked about. This also jives with my personal experience. Talk to people about the bill. They have no clue what the major provisions of it are. That isn’t because it’s too long, it’s because people just don’t pay attention.
My personal experience is somewhat different than yours, but it doesn’t matter and it’s beside the point. In any event, there is no reason why this purported ignorance wouldn’t pertain to supporters of the bill as well as opponents.
It seemed you were trying to make a point with the word “snapshot” (which point that is I’m not sure). Even without it, I’m not sure what you are trying to point out. If you were upset it didn’t include the latest poll, as I said, oh well, it came out after the fact.
I’m not upset about anything. My point, obviously, was that it’s not a proper apple-to-apples comparison to compare a poll taken just prior to the vote to polls taken a week before, trend or no trend. As I said, it is conventional wisdom that public awareness peaks in the days just prior to a vote (at least for elections, but there is no reason why the same wouldn’t hold true here), and support can break drastically one way or another regardless of trend lines. Thus, if you really want to know whether the CNN poll is an outlier, you need to compare it to other polls taken contemporaneously (Fri-Sun), not to polls from the previous week.
This, I’m sure you recognize, is a completely different argument than the one I made. I’m happy to have it with you though, if you’d like.
Thank you. I’m sure you also recognized that my argument was that it was clear that more people opposed the bill than supported it, which didn’t require refuting that the bill polls better when it is “explained” to the respondent 🙂
I somehow doubt you were chastising Congress for not cutting funding for the Iraq war back when (and perhaps still now, who knows) polls overwhelmingly showed that people favored cutting spending on the war.
You are correct, although I’m sure you recognize that the wisdom of acting against the clear will of the public is a separate issue from whether or not you are in fact acting against the clear will of the public, which is what we’re talking about here.
Joe Mama
As to the after vote response, it seems to be positive
but let’s be clear that we’re talking about a “modest” and “nominal” 2-3% since January. Let’s also be clear that roughly 10%</strong more people opposed the bill than supported it since the fall. Thus, given that spread, I can absolutely say that more people opposed this bill than favored it at the time of Sunday’s vote despite the upward trend.
No, we aren’t clear on that. The polling I showed a link to showed that the difference was roughly 5%. You are claiming a number twice that much. 5% is incredibly close to what the margin of error must be. I’ve said this multiple times and you seem to be ignoring it. Now, if I were a betting man, would I bet that, as those polls were taken, most people opposed the bill? Of course I would. But I wouldn’t make an assertion that it was clearly true in support of an argument. I might say, “it seems to be…” at most.
This is a fact that cannot be refuted. If you wanted to cherry pick polls then perhaps you could support your 10% argument, but I know you know that a poll tracker like this is the only fair way to look at this. I’ll ask, only because you do seem like you aren’t just a blindly partisan idiot (most of the time 🙂 ) to take a moment to reflect on this. Like literally stop, take a deep breath, and think about it:
If I trotted out a poll that deviated from the known average by more than 10%, you’d ridicule me endlessly. We both know this to be true.
Not only can I infer a clear opposition to the bill, but I might also expect opposition to increase just prior to the vote, as it did before the December vote. And of course, depending on how far back we choose to go with our start date, there might not even be a 2-3% upward trend in support.
No, you can’t expect that. Heck, I’ll admit my sentence that I would expect *further* gains was reaching a little, but it’s not really relevant to my argument. We saw no events which we can point to which would reverse the trend. It is absolutely impossible for you to infer without evidence that the trend should have reversed. That opposition increased before the December vote has no bearing on whether or not it would now. The plural of December’s vote isn’t data.
First of all, whether an observation is or is not an outlier is an inherently subjective determination. I don’t think the CNN poll — the only poll I’m aware of so far that was conducted 2 days prior to and the day of the vote — was “clearly an outlier” at all given the distribution of the other polls. Secondly, so what if the CNN poll wasn’t released until the day after the vote? That is completely irrelevant.
It’s subjective only in the sense of where you consider an outlier to be. But I don’t know how any sober analyst could see a poll that deviates by over 10% on the negative response from the current known average *not* to be an outlier. Is this really what you are stating?
I do reject that there is an information gap.
Actually, I don’t know why I’m even putting up with this line of argumentation. Reread Silver’s piece. While I originally used it to show how popular individual components of the bill are, it also discusses precisely this question. And people *do not* know about the bill. There *is* an information gap.
Now, if you can show me *any* evidence to the contrary, perhaps I’d be more receptive, but so far I’ve been producing polls and you’ve been going on your gut feeling.
This piece of legislation managed to be debated more thoroughly over the last year than any other legislation in my lifetime despite how opaque the process was throughout.
Well, while I might not disagree that it has been “debated” more than any other legislation, I disagree with your implied premise that this has somehow led to a more informed population. People (as discussed above) demonstrably do not know shit about this bill. That, based on *all* available evidence, is simply an inarguable fact. Beyond that, how many people actually bother to listen to the debate? I’m the only person I know that actually listens to C-SPAN radio on a regular basis to hear actual debate, and I know a lot of poltiical junkies. You can learn a lot from media reports, but outside of political junkies, which represent a pretty small portion of the population, I don’t know many people that are informed on this. Of my “average Joe” friends that were upset about the bills passage, very few actually knew what was in it. Anecdote though, I know.
Beyond that, the quality of debate in Congress is pretty terrible, you have to admit that. I’ve learned a hell of a lot more here and elsewhere on the internet than I ever have from either side in a debate in Congress. And the media’s treatment isn’t much better.
Of course respondents are going to nod their heads at those things
I feel like the implication here is that people want these things until they’re told they have to pay for them. Well let me tell you this, if you think that it isn’t obvious that these things have to be paid for, then the information gap goes well beyond this healthcare bill (and in reality it probably does). How then, if you are concerned about people not considering such a simple fundamental fact, you expect them to be informed on the other issues, I do not know.
If only Obama had offered HCR that way.
Well listen, let’s not be naive here. There’s a lot of moving parts in healthcare, and there’s a simple fundamental truth here: if you institute the consumer protections you have to expand the base to include healthy people or it’s simply an untenable situation. An individual mandate was not my first choice (although I think you’d prefer it to my first choice 🙂 ) but it’s a requirement that we get healthy people in the pool or else the insurance companies would simply go under.
My personal experience is somewhat different than yours, but it doesn’t matter and it’s beside the point. In any event, there is no reason why this purported ignorance wouldn’t pertain to supporters of the bill as well as opponents.
You up in your ivory tower. 🙂
But thanks for making my point at the end there. I don’t disagree, I think many supporters don’t know shit about the bill either. But I’m not the one trying to use polling to support my case. I am both disagreeing that there the negative response was clearly above the positive one before the vote, and to the extent that it was, I call into question the validity of the polls themselves.
Thus, if you really want to know whether the CNN poll is an outlier, you need to compare it to other polls taken contemporaneously (Fri-Sun), not to polls from the previous week.
I simply disagree with your premise. First off, it violates what you said before that this has been debated thoroughly for so long. If that mattered, and if it had been informative, then we wouldn’t see sharp changes at the end. Secondly, unless there’s data to back up this assertion, I don’t much care for your “conventional wisdom.” Data or GTFO.
which didn’t require refuting that the bill polls better when it is “explained” to the respondent
Well, it only doesn’t require that if you aren’t interested in the truth of the matter. I mean, I guess if your position is, more people oppose the bill as they perceive it than support it, then yeah, it wouldn’t be required. But it’s a pretty fucked up worldview to have to say that you don’t care whether the opinion is informed as long as it is on your side. To my mind, uninformed opinion is simply invalid. And this is something I hold true universally. It’s not uncommon for me to argue against someone who is “on my side” simply because I believe the way they arrived at their conclusion is invalid. Process matters, right? 🙂
You are correct, although I’m sure you recognize that the wisdom of acting against the clear will of the public is a separate issue from whether or not you are in fact acting against the clear will of the public, which is what we’re talking about here.
Well, sure, that is what we are arguing about here (whether or not the public is (was) truly against the bill, but it’s in the context of the argument that because the public was against the bill it shouldn’t have been voted for.
Actually, the poll I just linked to was conducted three days before House the passed the bill, not afterward.
Well, the other problem with it is that we don’t live in the United States of Florida. Although Florida has had a rather unbalanced role multiple times in the past in our politics, I don’t believe they should here. 🙂
All that said, looking at the tracker, it looks like other polls have come out in the past couple days that shed a bit more light on public opinion. It appears that your gut feeling was right, that the upswing was temporary… there seems to be a 10% split now (50 neg/40 pos). And *that* is certainly enough to say that the public is more against it than for it. Unfortunately for your argument, however, this information simply wasn’t known at the time.
And I seem to remember you saying it didn’t matter that the CNN poll came out Monday, but of course it does. They can’t take into account information they didn’t have at the time.
These polls do, however, bear out my assertion that the CNN poll was an outlier.
1) “Reread Silver’s piece. “ – why not read some piece o the subject from Fox ? Equivalently biased, is it not ? (grin)
2) Before labeling anything “outlier”, on what sampling is each poll based ? Most polls by major media are in their own ways gerrymandered – usually by having more Dems included in the sample than GOP … I would very much like to see pollster.com build in that form of weighting to the tracking they do, since that ‘compensates’ for the ideological ’tilt’ of the poll …
I note that pollster does list the prime question for each poll – yet it doesn’t list the sample mix for each for whatever reason(s) …
And that makes me wonder why not …
If you poll Galileo during his trial, he says the Earth orbits the Sun … you poll the folk sitting in judgment over Galileo, they say the Sun orbits the Earth (settled science/scripture, that was!) … which one is the outlier ?
And an observation or two …
The high negatives for Obamacare are in spite of most of the MSM being a remarkably consistent PR arm mostly in favour of Obamacare …
There were also external indicators of the popularity of Obamacare, of which the Massachusetts Senator Race result was merely one of the more spectacular … and the http://www.firenancypelosi.com is one of the more entertaining ones – over $1.4 Million donated in how few days ?
Remember, to answer a pollster’s questions merely takes a little time – the FireNancyPelosi donations are donations of actual tangible resources that folk are choosing actively to give to what they conisder to be a worthy cause …
(bigger grin) Perhaps this is what candidate-for-President Obama meant when he said he was going to be post-partisan, a uniter … he has certainly united bipartisan opposition to the current ObamaCare Healthcare bills/laws …
Joe Mama
No, we aren’t clear on that. The polling I showed a link to showed that the difference was roughly 5%. You are claiming a number twice that much. 5% is incredibly close to what the margin of error must be. I’ve said this multiple times and you seem to be ignoring it.
You’re kidding, right? From mid-November on, the favorability trend line remained between about 40-43% (mostly closer to 40%) and the opposition trend line never dipped below 50%. Since you likewise seem like you’re not a blindly partisan idiot most of the time, I’m not sure why you can’t see and understand that.
Now, if I were a betting man, would I bet that, as those polls were taken, most people opposed the bill? Of course I would.
I can’t imagine why.
But I wouldn’t make an assertion that it was clearly true in support of an argument. I might say, “it seems to be…” at most.
Jesus, is THAT really the hair you’re splitting with me?! Then I’ll go ahead and delete the remainder of this post and just say that most people seem to be against Obamacare.
Now I can stop looking at those f*cking trend lines.
CNN Breaking News — House passes health care reform, the most sweeping social legislation in more than four decades.
This will prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the Democratic Party.
Remember this day when a future Republican Congress uses the same tactics to get its way.
Yet another case where the ends doesn’t nearly justify the means.
Great minds think alike:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/the-future-after-health-care/37799/
The same tactic? Getting a majority of the votes in both houses and getting the President to sign the bill? Yeah got hate those Democrats for being all, um, democratic about it.
I’m also amused that you seem to think that the thoughts of a libertarian leaning blogger is somehow enlightening on this issue. Of COURSE she is going to find fault with the bill, its a non-libertarian solution.
The money graf from gahrie’s cite …
“We’re not a parliamentary democracy, and we don’t have the mechanisms, like votes of no confidence, that parliamentary democracies use to provide a check on their politicians. The check that we have is that politicians care what the voters think. If that slips away, America’s already quite toxic politics will become poisonous.”
Those are the thougts of a sensible and thoughtful observer – and would have been just as accurate if they had shown up on the DailyKos …
What’s next?
http://gahrie.blogspot.com/2010/03/whats-next.html
David K:
So when the Republicans win control of both houses of Congress and the presidency in 2012, and immediately repeal Obamacare, and institute Republican reforms of Welfare, Social Security and Medicare without Democratic input, you’ll be fine with that right?
gahrie,
First, the Republicans were GIVEN the chance to participate, stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted “la la la la can’t hear you” because they weren’t getting their way on everything. So don’t give me this bullshit about them not having input. They took a “Just say No” approach from day one.
Second, if somehow they manage to sweep all the elections enough to gain complete control of congress and the Presidency (they won’t, but whatever), then that means the American people want them to enact their policies. If they can get the votes, i won’t be HAPPY about it, i’ll try and convince my represenatives not to support it, but I won’t be making ridiculous claims about how they are somehow acting in a nefarious manner, by OMG getting the majority of the votes.
I also won’t be using the same lies and bullshit scare tactics that the majority of Republicans have relied upon. Its one thing to believe that a given approach is not the right one to take, its an altogether different thing to resort to fear mongering, ignoring evidence, and outright hypocrisy like the GOP has on health care.
First, the Republicans were GIVEN the chance to participate
Oh you mean in all the backroom meeting they weren’t allowed to participate in, all the amendments they weren’t allowed to propose and the rules designed specifically to exclude their participation?
Hell most Democrats didn’t even know what they were voting on more than 3 days before the votes.
We still don’t know all of the details of this travesty and won’t for weeks.
Well I’m sure we can agree on one thing…the Democrats own this lock, stock and barrel ….
As a practical matter, I wonder to what extent the Republicans will really run on a “repeal” platform this fall. Among the things that go into effect immediately in the health care plan are the elimination of the Medicare “donut hole”, children up to age 26 can remain as dependants on parents’ policies, no pre-existing condition exlusions for children up to age 18, no more lifetime or annual caps on coverage. If the Republicans focus on repeal this fall, I’m thinking the Democrats will focus on these immediate changes that become effective within 6 months of the President’s signature (i.e….before the November elections) and I wonder how people will feel about the Republican’s campaign to roll back these gains even if they say they will work for an “improved” bill if they get into power. I think I would rather be a Democrat pointing out how the Republicans are going to take away all these things rather than a Republican trying to explain that they just want to make it better.
Actually, I think the money quotes from McArdle preceded what Alasdair cited:
One cannot help but admire Nancy Pelosi’s skill as a legislator. But it’s also pretty worrying. Are we now in a world where there is absolutely no recourse to the tyranny of the majority? Republicans and other opponents of the bill did their job on this; they persuaded the country that they didn’t want this bill. And that mattered basically not at all. If you don’t find that terrifying, let me suggest that you are a Democrat who has not yet contemplated what Republicans might do under similar circumstances. Farewell, social security! Au revoir, Medicare! The reason entitlements are hard to repeal is that the Republicans care about getting re-elected. If they didn’t–if they were willing to undertake this sort of suicide mission–then the legislative lock-in you’re counting on wouldn’t exist.
Oh, wait–suddenly it doesn’t seem quite fair that Republicans could just ignore the will of their constituents that way, does it? Yet I guarantee you that there are a lot of GOP members out there tonight who think that they should get at least one free “Screw You” vote to balance out what the Democrats just did.
If the GOP takes the legislative innovations of the Democrats and decides to use them, please don’t complain that it’s not fair. Someone could get seriously hurt, laughing that hard.
But I hope they don’t. What I hope is that the Democrats take a beating at the ballot box and rethink their contempt for those mouth-breathing illiterates in the electorate. I hope Obama gets his wish to be a one-term president who passed health care. Not because I think I will like his opponent–I very much doubt that I will support much of anything Obama’s opponent says. But because politicians shouldn’t feel that the best route to electoral success is to lie to the voters, and then ignore them.
I love the “We’ll get the Dems back” attitude by the anti-american republicans on this board. Guess what guys, you already screwed the country when you had a majority in every branch last decade.
With a majority in both houses and the presidency for 6 years Republicans gutted our counter-terror programs to grant a massive tax cut only to see the country attacked 8 months later on 9/11 while the president was in the last week of a 4 week vacation, they started 2 wars we had no reason to fight, de-regulated Wall Street, de-regulated lending and banking practices, and had an emergency midnight meeting to force Terry Shiavo to remain on life support. And that’s the good part.
Kenneth Stern @10 makes some pretty good points about the likely electoral consequences of this vote. I’d additionally add that Americans have recognized the flaws in the free market for health care consumption since Nixon’s attempt at overhaul in the early 70s, and probably even long before that.
While I personally disagree with Obamacare’s approach to solving these universally-acknowledged problems, it seems to me that yesterday’s vote won’t terribly harm the Democrats. They could be hurt by harsh marketplace realities. On ideological grounds, they’re probably pretty safe.
On ideological grounds, they’re probably pretty safe.
Maybe, but if I were Bart Stupak I wouldn’t be too complacent about a Republican opponent whose Facebook page jumped from around 300 members to over 13,000 since yesterday.
ignore the will of their constituents
The idea that Democrats were ignoring a will clearly expressed by constituents is just FUD. Individual components were popular, which leads a sober analyst to conclude that it’s not clear that people don’t like the bill.
Further, anyone who attempts to use that as a measure should be scolding Republicans and Blue Dogs for killing the public option, which according to Nate Silver’s calculations polls at a +22.
So you believe we should now enact a public option, Joe Mama?
pthread – which “public option” ?
The campaign panacea for free which will also reduce the deficit one ?
Or the one which covers everyone for everything regardless of any status, who cares what happens to the deficit one ?
Of course you can find polls at +22 for the campaign version … the problem is that the current Democrat leaders are rushing to implement the “regardless of any status” one … and as people realise it, as they realise that if such a scheme was car insurance, you would be able to take out insurance immediately *after* an accident and still have to be covered, and they *know* that model is not actuarially sound … why do you think so many people in the voting public are against Obamacare, pthread ?
Assuming* that a majority of voters did prefer a public option at some point in time, taking up that individual component of health care reform would at least make more fiscal sense than the comprehensive approach that is way too expensive. I would probably still oppose a public option because it would either (1) not serve its intended purpose if the gov’t actually kept its word about maintaining a level playing field with private insurers, or (2) mean the gov’t would get unfair advantages, such as the ability to operate at a loss or change the rules of the game. But incrementalism — the approach advocated by the GOP — has met with success (see, e.g., what Mitch Daniels has done in Indiana).
Anyway, the idea that Democrats weren’t ignoring a will clearly expressed by voters is completely absurd and contrary to every poll out there, including the most recent one conducted Fri-Sun which said that 59% of Americans oppose the bill, 43% of whom oppose it because it is too liberal. Those are simply the facts. It is absolutely crystal clear that most people don’t like the bill. This is just not a debatable point.
* I don’t know what “calculations” you’re referring to, or what the underlying poll data is, or how the question was structured, or even when it was asked. Did the question make clear that the public option meant a gov’t-run or gov’t-administered plan? Was it a stand alone question or within a list? Did it refer to the public option as “similar to Medicare?” Was it clear and unambiguous about asking about support for the public option rather than, say, how important respondents think it is? There are too many unknowns for me to accept your premise at face value.
Alasdair: It was the CBO that said that the public option would reduce the deficit, not any campaign.
As far as “finding polls” do you have reason to believe that’s not accurate?
Also, I don’t think people are against “Obamacare.”
“An NBC poll in August also found that support went from a -6 net to a +10 when people were actually provided with a description of the bill.”
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/health-care-polls-opinion-gap-or.html
That’s been a consistent theme. When asked specific questions, people like what they hear.
Those are simply the facts. It is absolutely crystal clear that most people don’t like the bill. This is just not a debatable point.
Except they aren’t the facts. Even if we accept generic polling of the matter, the poll you cite is an outlier:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/rising_tide_for_hcr_especially.php
Couple the fact that polling is essentially at a statistical dead heat with the fact that there’s clearly an information gap in polling, and it’s impossible to make the argument that you attempt to make.
Did the question make clear that the public option meant a gov’t-run or gov’t-administered plan?
It’s the fivethirtyeight.com link I posted in response to Alasdair, as just one example. It’s been pretty consistent, however, that people want a public option.
pthread:
That’s why the Democrats were doing absolutely everything they could to avoid actually having to vote on the bill right? Because it was so popular?
That’s why Brown won in Mass., because Obamacare was so popular right?
I mean if the people who actually have a system in place that is virtually identical to the system you are trying to impose don’t support you…who will? Why the people who are willing to believe your lies and deceptions, that’s who. (and of course all those you manage to bribe with jobs and payoffs)
Except they aren’t the facts. Even if we accept generic polling of the matter, the poll you cite is an outlier
An outlier compared to what…trend estimates from last week showing a nominal increase in support for health care reform among Democrats? Pollster.com’s own trend estimate shows support for health care reform at 44%, while over 51% still oppose it. So like I said, a majority of Americans are opposed to Obamacare.
Couple the fact that polling is essentially at a statistical dead heat with the fact that there’s clearly an information gap in polling, and it’s impossible to make the argument that you attempt to make.
I guess that depends on what you consider “a statistical dead heat.” According to your link, since last fall roughly 10% more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. It’s pretty impossible to wish away those facts. Moreover, you have to wonder why Pelosi and Obama were pleading to their fellow Dems in the House to essentially fall on their swords and take one for the team by voting for Obamacare if the bill polled as well as you suggest.
this is pthread, just to be clear. somehow I automatically got logged in with facebook here at home and I’m just going to go with it
That’s why the Democrats were doing absolutely everything they could to avoid actually having to vote on the bill right? Because it was so popular?
Uh, the Democrats just had a vote, and they won. And It seems to me the only party refusing to have an up or down vote here is the Republicans. Not that I begrudge them their right to do that, but I think you need to get your facts straight.
As far as why Brown won in Massachusetts, it certainly isn’t an aversion to government run healthcare, as their program is extremely popular. Unless it was a, “we already have ours” mentality, which doesn’t quite support your narrative.
An outlier compared to what…trend estimates from last week showing a nominal increase in support for health care reform among Democrats? Pollster.com’s own trend estimate shows support for health care reform at 44%, while over 51% still oppose it. So like I said, a majority of Americans are opposed to Obamacare.
Yes, trend estimates amongst a number of pollsters. Listen, I’m not going to say it’s impossible the CNN poll is right, but it’s both outside the norm and outside the trend. As far as the “majority” opposing it, the margin of error for these polls simply doesn’t allow you to make that statement.
since last fall roughly 10% more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. It’s pretty impossible to wish away those facts.
Except it’s not last fall. It’s now. And besides this huge outlier of a poll, we’re sitting on a difference that is not far off from the margin of error.
Again, any sober analysis points to the fact that it’s a FUD campaign that’s driving poorer pool numbers. From Silver’s piece I linked to above:
” An NBC poll in August also found that support went from a -6 net to a +10 when people were actually provided with a description of the bill.”
You cannot explain *that* away. Think whatever you like about the actual merits of the bill, but to pretend that you clearly have the will of the American people behind you is ridiculous.
As far as why Brown won in Massachusetts, it certainly isn’t an aversion to government run healthcare, as their program is extremely popular. Unless it was a, “we already have ours” mentality, which doesn’t quite support your narrative.
The main plank of Brown’s campaign was his promise to be the 41st vote against Obamacare. Every analysis of his victory, even by the MSM, considered it to be a refutation of Obamacare. At the time it was considered to be the death of Obamacare’s chances of passing. All of the scheming in the House was made necessary by his victory.
It seems to me the only party refusing to have an up or down vote here is the Republicans. Not that I begrudge them their right to do that, but I think you need to get your facts straight.
Yeah, it was the Republicans who brought up reconciliation, and “Deem and pass” so the Democrats couldn’t vote on the bill right?
Note: The only thing bi-partisan about this bill were the Democrats who joined the Republicans voting against it.
You cannot explain *that* away. Think whatever you like about the actual merits of the bill, but to pretend that you clearly have the will of the American people behind you is ridiculous.
Again that is why the Democrats were trying so hard to avoid voting on this bill, and the loss of one of the safest Senate seats possible to the Republicans. That’s why Stupak’s opponent just gained a massive amount of support overnight.
We shall see in November just who is right.
Every analysis of his victory, even by the MSM, considered it to be a refutation of Obamacare.
Dude. Do you read what I wrote? Don’t be all DavidK on me. Repeating it doesn’t make it more true.
Yeah, it was the Republicans who brought up reconciliation, and “Deem and pass” so the Democrats couldn’t vote on the bill right?
You do understand how reconciliation works, right? Reonciliation still requires a vote. And while I’m not here to defend Deem and Pass, it still has the effect that you are voting on the bill (as in, if you don’t vote for the bill that contains the deem and pass language, the original bill will not pass). It’s just a childish parliamentarian trick so that politicians can say shit that isn’t true. It shouldn’t be done not because it allows bills to pass without being voted on, but because it’s incredibly unbecoming.
And yes, we’ll see in November. To be honest I think the economy is going to be the issue that makes or breaks democrats in November. That’s what started the slide in Democratic popularity, that’s what will reverse it.
The CNN poll is outside the trend maybe (an overall increase of 3% since January isn’t much of a trend, especially considering the margin of error for these polls). But it’s a bit of an overstatement to claim that 59% opposition is a “huge outlier” that is outside the norm when other polls have opposition at over 50% as of last week. Moreover, unlike the other polls, the CNN poll was conducted over the 3 days just prior to the crucial House vote, which is when accepted wisdom says that the public is most engaged in the debate. Public opinion being fluid, a true apples-to-apples comparison requires looking at other polls conducted over the same time period, not snapshots from a week before. As you point out, it’s “now” that matters most. In any event, regardless of the margin of error for these polls, the fact remains that every one consistently shows more people in opposition than in favor. Whether it’s a majority or plurality, no “sober analysis” can deny that more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. If that’s just an “FUD campaign,” then it’s a campaign that somehow managed to dupe both Republicans and Democrats, including POTUS and the Speaker.
As far as why Brown won in Massachusetts, it certainly isn’t an aversion to government run healthcare, as their program is extremely popular. Unless it was a, “we already have ours” mentality, which doesn’t quite support your narrative.
gahrie is absolutely 100% correct that the main plank of Brown’s campaign was his promise to be the 41st vote against Obamacare. This is yet another non-debatable point. Massachusetts voters may not be averse to gov’t-run health care per se, but they were clearly averse to Obamacare.
More on Scott Brown and gov’t-run health care in Mass.
The CNN poll is outside the trend maybe (an overall increase of 3% since January isn’t much of a trend, especially considering the margin of error for these polls). But it’s a bit of an overstatement to claim that 59% opposition is a “huge outlier” that is outside the norm when other polls have opposition at over 50% as of last week.
But the politico aggregate was at 48% before this one. That’s a pretty huge jump. Again, I’m not claiming it’s impossible, just that it should be treated with skepticism. How about this, simply agree that while a hopeful sign for your position, declaring it to be representative will require a couple more polls showing similar numbers before we simply accept it outright (which is what I’m objecting to here). Agreed? Please come back here (and I’m not saying this as a joke) in a week or two and discuss where the polls are at then. You’ll either be proven right, or wrong.
Moreover, unlike the other polls, the CNN poll was conducted over the 3 days just prior to the crucial House vote, which is when accepted wisdom says that the public is most engaged in the debate. Public opinion being fluid, a true apples-to-apples comparison requires looking at other polls conducted over the same time period, not snapshots from a week before
But it’s not a snapshot, it’s a running average of all polls, and it had a clear trend towards increased support.
As you point out, it’s “now” that matters most. In any event, regardless of the margin of error for these polls, the fact remains that every one consistently shows more people in opposition than in favor. Whether it’s a majority or plurality, no “sober analysis” can deny that more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. If that’s just an “FUD campaign,” then it’s a campaign that somehow managed to dupe both Republicans and Democrats, including POTUS and the Speaker.
Except I disagree. Again, it’s been demonstrated that when the bill was described to respondents, support grew by double digits. That means that it’s simply impossible to make the claim with a straight face that people were against it. You HAVE to know you are being disingenuous here.
Listen, I’m not claiming people overwhelmingly support it, and you could certainly make the case that since it’s so close they should have scaled things back. I wouldn’t necessarily agree, but I don’t think it’s an entirely illegitimate position.
But again, in no universe is it clear that more people oppose than support the bill
And if you are going to argue against that, I want you to specifically refute the fact that the bill polls better by double digits when it is explained to the respondent.
How about this, simply agree that while a hopeful sign for your position, declaring it to be representative will require a couple more polls showing similar numbers before we simply accept it outright (which is what I’m objecting to here). Agreed? Please come back here (and I’m not saying this as a joke) in a week or two and discuss where the polls are at then. You’ll either be proven right, or wrong.
I agree that more polls taken concurrently with the CNN poll would shed more light on the extent of opposition to the bill, but polls taken after it has been signed into law won’t really reflect whether passage of the bill was or wasn’t contrary to a clearly expressed will of the voters at the time. For example, it’s conceivable that some respondents a week or two from now would just say f*ck it, it’s the law now, the sun still came up this morning, so whatever.
But it’s not a snapshot, it’s a running average of all polls, and it had a clear trend towards increased support.
Don’t be pedantic. My point is exactly the same if you delete the word “snapshot” from the sentence.
Again, it’s been demonstrated that when the bill was described to respondents, support grew by double digits. That means that it’s simply impossible to make the claim with a straight face that people were against it. You HAVE to know you are being disingenuous here.
Nonsense. Just because one poll from last summer shows that support went from a -6 to +10 when aspects of the bill were described separately hardly proves that opposition to the bill is based on misinformation. There can be dozens of reform proposals that garner support separately, but if the one thing that makes it not worthwhile is the cost, then that obviously outweighs everything else. That’s the whole point of a cost-benefit analysis. Moreover, I can tell a pollster that I favor extending coverage to the uninsured (which I do), but if that’s the end of the question, then that pollster has no way of knowing that I oppose how the bill accomplishes this. Much of the opposition to Obamacare is based on the unintended consequences (actual cost) of the new law, which by definition isn’t reflected in that poll. Put differently, people just don’t believe the Democrats when they say they can expand coverage while bending the cost curve down. That is not the result of an information gap. It’s the result of a credibility gap (which is not to say that the GOP would be any more credible in this regard….either party saying what the Democrats are saying about the law that was passed would have the same credibility problem).
But again, in no universe is it clear that more people oppose than support the bill
False, for the foregoing reasons.
Oh, and if we’re barking orders at each other, then I want you to specifically refute the fact that not one single poll shows more respondents in favor of Obamacare than against it.
Hrm. Somehow I missed this, but I came back to talk about a new poll, so I found it! 🙂
I agree that more polls taken concurrently with the CNN poll would shed more light on the extent of opposition to the bill, but polls taken after it has been signed into law won’t really reflect whether passage of the bill was or wasn’t contrary to a clearly expressed will of the voters at the time. For example, it’s conceivable that some respondents a week or two from now would just say f*ck it, it’s the law now, the sun still came up this morning, so whatever.
Beyond shedding light, it would tell us essentially whether the poll you cite was valid or not. On it’s own, it’s clearly not. It measured opposition 11 points higher than the running average. That’s not impossible, but it simply can’t be taken by itself. I’ll apply that own standard to myself below.
won’t really reflect whether passage of the bill was or wasn’t contrary to a clearly expressed will of the voters at the time. For example, it’s conceivable that some respondents a week or two from now would just say f*ck it, it’s the law now, the sun still came up this morning, so whatever.
Except that will was not clearly expressed. Here is a list of the facts, as we knew them:
1.) Just days before the vote, the tracker I linked to above *clearly* showed an increase in how favored the bill was, with a decrease in opposition, to the point which we approached (although admittedly not quite to) the margin of error. At that point, you simply can not claim that the clear will of the people is that the bill not be passed. Not only was it too close to infer a clear opposition from the American people, but the trend was upward. If anything you’d expect opposition to decrease, not increase.
2.) The poll you point to was not released until the day after the vote. Ignoring the fact that it is clearly an outlier, as I’ve said before, and in no way should have been taken at face value, but it was unknown information.
3.) As I’ve said before, and you seem to reject, there’s clearly an information gap. I think you misunderstand what I referenced, this wasn’t the instance where things were described seperately, this was when things were described together. Meaning a more specific description of the bill (in its entirety) was provided, and approval for the bill went up by double digits. The link for that, I believe, is in the fivethirtyeight article. This clearly indicates that there was an information gap at that time. You may argue that doesn’t apply anymore because it’s old, but I’m not sure why it doesn’t simply because it’s older, I saw nothing occur that would lead me to believe this was no longer true. In fact, the other item I mentioned supports this picture, although you are correct, it’s *possible* that people don’t like or want the whole package, but do want individual pieces.
But that’s not the limit of what the fivethirtyeight piece outlines. One of the more important findings is how many people believe false information about the bill. And this supports the findings of the earlier poll. Respondents simply do not know a lot about the bill they are being asked about. This also jives with my personal experience. Talk to people about the bill. They have no clue what the major provisions of it are. That isn’t because it’s too long, it’s because people just don’t pay attention.
Does the above mean that I’m claiming that the bill is overwhelmingly popular? No. I have absolutely no idea, simply because there is very little good polling. But I do know one thing, it is impossible to claim the public is clearly against the bill. Heck, I even put it in bold, it has to be true. 🙂 The polls, as taken in the days leading up the vote, were simply too close and the reliability of the results too ambiguous to make that claim.
Don’t be pedantic.
I wasn’t trying to be, actually. It seemed you were trying to make a point with the word “snapshot” (which point that is I’m not sure). Even without it, I’m not sure what you are trying to point out. If you were upset it didn’t include the latest poll, as I said, oh well, it came out after the fact.
False, for the foregoing reasons.
True! For the foregoing reasons. 🙂
Oh, and if we’re barking orders at each other, then I want you to specifically refute the fact that not one single poll shows more respondents in favor of Obamacare than against it.
This, I’m sure you recognize, is a completely different argument than the one I made. I’m happy to have it with you though, if you’d like. I argued that you couldn’t with confidence say that the American public was clearly against the bill.
This clearly is not the same as saying that they might be clearly for it. I actually don’t necessarily think that to be the case, nor do I care. We do not live in a direct democracy, and even if we did, polls are not elections.
I somehow doubt you were chastising Congress for not cutting funding for the Iraq war back when (and perhaps still now, who knows) polls overwhelmingly showed that people favored cutting spending on the war. A quick google shows a poll from 2005 shows that after Katrina people, by a 2-1 margin, wanted to cut spending in Iraq to pay for Gulf Coast reconstruction.
Now, you may argue, and I’m sympathetic to it although I don’t agree, that such large changes should poll better than basically breaking even. That’s a legitimate point of view. But the fact of the matter is, Obama was elected on a platform which had as one of its major planks healthcare reform. Nearly every major component of the bill (ahem, law) was part of that, which the exception being that they went with a mandate system instead of the public option. But that’s not for lack of Democrats wanting it.
As to the after vote response, it seems to be positive:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126929/Slim-Margin-Americans-Support-Healthcare-Bill-Passage.aspx
But, as I said, I’m willing to apply the same standard to evidence that supports what I believe. This poll is but one, and while it is in line with the upward trend we saw on the link I provided above it is still essentially an outlier, if nothing else because it sees such a sharp reversal. But again, we’ll watch and see.
1.) Just days before the vote, the tracker I linked to above *clearly* showed an increase in how favored the bill was, with a decrease in opposition, to the point which we approached (although admittedly not quite to) the margin of error. At that point, you simply can not claim that the clear will of the people is that the bill not be passed.
Look, I’m not denying that there was an upward trend in support, but let’s be clear that we’re talking about a “modest” and “nominal” 2-3% since January. Let’s also be clear that roughly 10%</strong more people opposed the bill than supported it since the fall. Thus, given that spread, I can absolutely say that more people opposed this bill than favored it at the time of Sunday’s vote despite the upward trend.
Not only was it too close to infer a clear opposition from the American people, but the trend was upward. If anything you’d expect opposition to decrease, not increase.
Not only can I infer a clear opposition to the bill, but I might also expect opposition to increase just prior to the vote, as it did before the December vote. And of course, depending on how far back we choose to go with our start date, there might not even be a 2-3% upward trend in support.
2.) The poll you point to was not released until the day after the vote. Ignoring the fact that it is clearly an outlier, as I’ve said before, and in no way should have been taken at face value, but it was unknown information.
First of all, whether an observation is or is not an outlier is an inherently subjective determination. I don’t think the CNN poll — the only poll I’m aware of so far that was conducted 2 days prior to and the day of the vote — was “clearly an outlier” at all given the distribution of the other polls. Secondly, so what if the CNN poll wasn’t released until the day after the vote? That is completely irrelevant.
3.) As I’ve said before, and you seem to reject, there’s clearly an information gap. I think you misunderstand what I referenced, this wasn’t the instance where things were described seperately, this was when things were described together. Meaning a more specific description of the bill (in its entirety) was provided, and approval for the bill went up by double digits.
I do reject that there is an information gap. This piece of legislation managed to be debated more thoroughly over the last year than any other legislation in my lifetime despite how opaque the process was throughout. And perhaps I wasn’t clear about the problem with drawing conclusions about misinformation using that NBC poll — the “more specific description of the bill” simply listed covering people with pre-existing conditions, employers helping to fund coverage for the uninsured, tax credits for lower- and middle-income families, and taxing the rich. Of course respondents are going to nod their heads at those things…I might as well (with much discussion to follow). But that is hardly the whole story, and certainly doesn’t reflect the reasons that most people opposed the bill. You can ask me if I want sausage, pepperoni and mushrooms on my pizza and whether I want Bill Gates to help pay for it, and my answer would be sure, but if that also means the pizza joint is going to go bankrupt in a few weeks, then my answer will be different.
it’s *possible* that people don’t like or want the whole package, but do want individual pieces.
If only Obama had offered HCR that way.
Respondents simply do not know a lot about the bill they are being asked about. This also jives with my personal experience. Talk to people about the bill. They have no clue what the major provisions of it are. That isn’t because it’s too long, it’s because people just don’t pay attention.
My personal experience is somewhat different than yours, but it doesn’t matter and it’s beside the point. In any event, there is no reason why this purported ignorance wouldn’t pertain to supporters of the bill as well as opponents.
It seemed you were trying to make a point with the word “snapshot” (which point that is I’m not sure). Even without it, I’m not sure what you are trying to point out. If you were upset it didn’t include the latest poll, as I said, oh well, it came out after the fact.
I’m not upset about anything. My point, obviously, was that it’s not a proper apple-to-apples comparison to compare a poll taken just prior to the vote to polls taken a week before, trend or no trend. As I said, it is conventional wisdom that public awareness peaks in the days just prior to a vote (at least for elections, but there is no reason why the same wouldn’t hold true here), and support can break drastically one way or another regardless of trend lines. Thus, if you really want to know whether the CNN poll is an outlier, you need to compare it to other polls taken contemporaneously (Fri-Sun), not to polls from the previous week.
This, I’m sure you recognize, is a completely different argument than the one I made. I’m happy to have it with you though, if you’d like.
Thank you. I’m sure you also recognized that my argument was that it was clear that more people opposed the bill than supported it, which didn’t require refuting that the bill polls better when it is “explained” to the respondent 🙂
I somehow doubt you were chastising Congress for not cutting funding for the Iraq war back when (and perhaps still now, who knows) polls overwhelmingly showed that people favored cutting spending on the war.
You are correct, although I’m sure you recognize that the wisdom of acting against the clear will of the public is a separate issue from whether or not you are in fact acting against the clear will of the public, which is what we’re talking about here.
As to the after vote response, it seems to be positive
Or not.
Actually, the poll I just linked to was conducted three days before House the passed the bill, not afterward.
but let’s be clear that we’re talking about a “modest” and “nominal” 2-3% since January. Let’s also be clear that roughly 10%</strong more people opposed the bill than supported it since the fall. Thus, given that spread, I can absolutely say that more people opposed this bill than favored it at the time of Sunday’s vote despite the upward trend.
No, we aren’t clear on that. The polling I showed a link to showed that the difference was roughly 5%. You are claiming a number twice that much. 5% is incredibly close to what the margin of error must be. I’ve said this multiple times and you seem to be ignoring it. Now, if I were a betting man, would I bet that, as those polls were taken, most people opposed the bill? Of course I would. But I wouldn’t make an assertion that it was clearly true in support of an argument. I might say, “it seems to be…” at most.
This is a fact that cannot be refuted. If you wanted to cherry pick polls then perhaps you could support your 10% argument, but I know you know that a poll tracker like this is the only fair way to look at this. I’ll ask, only because you do seem like you aren’t just a blindly partisan idiot (most of the time 🙂 ) to take a moment to reflect on this. Like literally stop, take a deep breath, and think about it:
If I trotted out a poll that deviated from the known average by more than 10%, you’d ridicule me endlessly. We both know this to be true.
Not only can I infer a clear opposition to the bill, but I might also expect opposition to increase just prior to the vote, as it did before the December vote. And of course, depending on how far back we choose to go with our start date, there might not even be a 2-3% upward trend in support.
No, you can’t expect that. Heck, I’ll admit my sentence that I would expect *further* gains was reaching a little, but it’s not really relevant to my argument. We saw no events which we can point to which would reverse the trend. It is absolutely impossible for you to infer without evidence that the trend should have reversed. That opposition increased before the December vote has no bearing on whether or not it would now. The plural of December’s vote isn’t data.
First of all, whether an observation is or is not an outlier is an inherently subjective determination. I don’t think the CNN poll — the only poll I’m aware of so far that was conducted 2 days prior to and the day of the vote — was “clearly an outlier” at all given the distribution of the other polls. Secondly, so what if the CNN poll wasn’t released until the day after the vote? That is completely irrelevant.
It’s subjective only in the sense of where you consider an outlier to be. But I don’t know how any sober analyst could see a poll that deviates by over 10% on the negative response from the current known average *not* to be an outlier. Is this really what you are stating?
I do reject that there is an information gap.
Actually, I don’t know why I’m even putting up with this line of argumentation. Reread Silver’s piece. While I originally used it to show how popular individual components of the bill are, it also discusses precisely this question. And people *do not* know about the bill. There *is* an information gap.
Now, if you can show me *any* evidence to the contrary, perhaps I’d be more receptive, but so far I’ve been producing polls and you’ve been going on your gut feeling.
This piece of legislation managed to be debated more thoroughly over the last year than any other legislation in my lifetime despite how opaque the process was throughout.
Well, while I might not disagree that it has been “debated” more than any other legislation, I disagree with your implied premise that this has somehow led to a more informed population. People (as discussed above) demonstrably do not know shit about this bill. That, based on *all* available evidence, is simply an inarguable fact. Beyond that, how many people actually bother to listen to the debate? I’m the only person I know that actually listens to C-SPAN radio on a regular basis to hear actual debate, and I know a lot of poltiical junkies. You can learn a lot from media reports, but outside of political junkies, which represent a pretty small portion of the population, I don’t know many people that are informed on this. Of my “average Joe” friends that were upset about the bills passage, very few actually knew what was in it. Anecdote though, I know.
Beyond that, the quality of debate in Congress is pretty terrible, you have to admit that. I’ve learned a hell of a lot more here and elsewhere on the internet than I ever have from either side in a debate in Congress. And the media’s treatment isn’t much better.
Of course respondents are going to nod their heads at those things
I feel like the implication here is that people want these things until they’re told they have to pay for them. Well let me tell you this, if you think that it isn’t obvious that these things have to be paid for, then the information gap goes well beyond this healthcare bill (and in reality it probably does). How then, if you are concerned about people not considering such a simple fundamental fact, you expect them to be informed on the other issues, I do not know.
If only Obama had offered HCR that way.
Well listen, let’s not be naive here. There’s a lot of moving parts in healthcare, and there’s a simple fundamental truth here: if you institute the consumer protections you have to expand the base to include healthy people or it’s simply an untenable situation. An individual mandate was not my first choice (although I think you’d prefer it to my first choice 🙂 ) but it’s a requirement that we get healthy people in the pool or else the insurance companies would simply go under.
My personal experience is somewhat different than yours, but it doesn’t matter and it’s beside the point. In any event, there is no reason why this purported ignorance wouldn’t pertain to supporters of the bill as well as opponents.
You up in your ivory tower. 🙂
But thanks for making my point at the end there. I don’t disagree, I think many supporters don’t know shit about the bill either. But I’m not the one trying to use polling to support my case. I am both disagreeing that there the negative response was clearly above the positive one before the vote, and to the extent that it was, I call into question the validity of the polls themselves.
Thus, if you really want to know whether the CNN poll is an outlier, you need to compare it to other polls taken contemporaneously (Fri-Sun), not to polls from the previous week.
I simply disagree with your premise. First off, it violates what you said before that this has been debated thoroughly for so long. If that mattered, and if it had been informative, then we wouldn’t see sharp changes at the end. Secondly, unless there’s data to back up this assertion, I don’t much care for your “conventional wisdom.” Data or GTFO.
which didn’t require refuting that the bill polls better when it is “explained” to the respondent
Well, it only doesn’t require that if you aren’t interested in the truth of the matter. I mean, I guess if your position is, more people oppose the bill as they perceive it than support it, then yeah, it wouldn’t be required. But it’s a pretty fucked up worldview to have to say that you don’t care whether the opinion is informed as long as it is on your side. To my mind, uninformed opinion is simply invalid. And this is something I hold true universally. It’s not uncommon for me to argue against someone who is “on my side” simply because I believe the way they arrived at their conclusion is invalid. Process matters, right? 🙂
You are correct, although I’m sure you recognize that the wisdom of acting against the clear will of the public is a separate issue from whether or not you are in fact acting against the clear will of the public, which is what we’re talking about here.
Well, sure, that is what we are arguing about here (whether or not the public is (was) truly against the bill, but it’s in the context of the argument that because the public was against the bill it shouldn’t have been voted for.
Actually, the poll I just linked to was conducted three days before House the passed the bill, not afterward.
Well, the other problem with it is that we don’t live in the United States of Florida. Although Florida has had a rather unbalanced role multiple times in the past in our politics, I don’t believe they should here. 🙂
All that said, looking at the tracker, it looks like other polls have come out in the past couple days that shed a bit more light on public opinion. It appears that your gut feeling was right, that the upswing was temporary… there seems to be a 10% split now (50 neg/40 pos). And *that* is certainly enough to say that the public is more against it than for it. Unfortunately for your argument, however, this information simply wasn’t known at the time.
And I seem to remember you saying it didn’t matter that the CNN poll came out Monday, but of course it does. They can’t take into account information they didn’t have at the time.
These polls do, however, bear out my assertion that the CNN poll was an outlier.
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/healthplan.php
pthread – two comments …
1) “Reread Silver’s piece. “ – why not read some piece o the subject from Fox ? Equivalently biased, is it not ? (grin)
2) Before labeling anything “outlier”, on what sampling is each poll based ? Most polls by major media are in their own ways gerrymandered – usually by having more Dems included in the sample than GOP … I would very much like to see pollster.com build in that form of weighting to the tracking they do, since that ‘compensates’ for the ideological ’tilt’ of the poll …
I note that pollster does list the prime question for each poll – yet it doesn’t list the sample mix for each for whatever reason(s) …
And that makes me wonder why not …
If you poll Galileo during his trial, he says the Earth orbits the Sun … you poll the folk sitting in judgment over Galileo, they say the Sun orbits the Earth (settled science/scripture, that was!) … which one is the outlier ?
And an observation or two …
The high negatives for Obamacare are in spite of most of the MSM being a remarkably consistent PR arm mostly in favour of Obamacare …
There were also external indicators of the popularity of Obamacare, of which the Massachusetts Senator Race result was merely one of the more spectacular … and the http://www.firenancypelosi.com is one of the more entertaining ones – over $1.4 Million donated in how few days ?
Remember, to answer a pollster’s questions merely takes a little time – the FireNancyPelosi donations are donations of actual tangible resources that folk are choosing actively to give to what they conisder to be a worthy cause …
(bigger grin) Perhaps this is what candidate-for-President Obama meant when he said he was going to be post-partisan, a uniter … he has certainly united bipartisan opposition to the current ObamaCare Healthcare bills/laws …
No, we aren’t clear on that. The polling I showed a link to showed that the difference was roughly 5%. You are claiming a number twice that much. 5% is incredibly close to what the margin of error must be. I’ve said this multiple times and you seem to be ignoring it.
You’re kidding, right? From mid-November on, the favorability trend line remained between about 40-43% (mostly closer to 40%) and the opposition trend line never dipped below 50%. Since you likewise seem like you’re not a blindly partisan idiot most of the time, I’m not sure why you can’t see and understand that.
Now, if I were a betting man, would I bet that, as those polls were taken, most people opposed the bill? Of course I would.
I can’t imagine why.
But I wouldn’t make an assertion that it was clearly true in support of an argument. I might say, “it seems to be…” at most.
Jesus, is THAT really the hair you’re splitting with me?! Then I’ll go ahead and delete the remainder of this post and just say that most people seem to be against Obamacare.
Now I can stop looking at those f*cking trend lines.