A new poll by Pew Research Center, one of the best, on how the attitudes of the public are divided on the issues of the budget impasse. It’s interesting. We find that the public is almost, if not exactly, split down the middle on this silly thing that should never have happened.
All the negative press about the Republicans causing this has done a real propaganda job on a lot of the respondents here who don’t know any better. So this has to be considered.
The sample size — the number of people interviewed — means there is a margin of error of almost 4 percent, so with the Republicans at 44% and the Obama-ites at 42%, there is no statistical difference.
The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted Oct. 3-6 among 1,000 adults, finds 44% say Republican leaders should give ground on their demand that any budget deal include cuts or delays to the 2010 health care law. Nearly as many (42%) say it is Obama who should give ground, by agreeing to changes in the health care law.
With polling done by Pew, I feel confident — the people interviewed were chosen by computerized equation methodology called “random sampling.” So the respondents’ attitudes and responses are as close as possible to the general population. Theoretically, the general findings here can be projected into the general population with a margin of error of plus or minus 4% at a 97% level of confidence.
The chart below shows the breakdown of pertinent sub-groups within the general group. Since they are smaller groups, the margins of error are greater — up to 9.2% for Republicans leaning toward the “tea party” attitudes — the conservatives in the party.
What burns me up is when I think of how much better the Republicans could be doing in public opinion if they only knew how to articulate their message to the public, or to just a hand full of Democrats in the Senate to attain a majority. And also that the conservatives are being stabbed in the back by the establishment status quo Republicans, RINOs and weenies like McConnell and McCain.
Frankly, I’m so sick of this idiocy that I think I’m a very very conservative independent who would never vote for a Democrat. I don’t know what that means, but that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
A Republican cannot win a national election without significant support from Independents. As you can see by the chart, they are more numerous than those who claim party affiliation, and they swing elections — think 2010 election. It’s crucial that Republicans make an effort to be inclusive of independents’ attitudes and beliefs without compromising core principles. It can be done quite easily if only the Elephants would actually talk as if they understood the problems of the average people. The Dems have always been good at this; at retail politics. But on the other hand, they don’t mind lying, so that puts good Republican candidates at a distinct disadvantage.
Pew Research: Partisans Dug in on Budget, Health Care Impasse
Is Debt Ceiling Fix Essential? 47% Yes, 39% No
Caution: a fair cross section of the public means there are a lot of respondents that have no clue, but still give their opinion. That’s the “beauty” of an elected democracy. Even idiots you would not allow your children to be around get to vote.
For perspective on the budget numbers Pew offers this article (which may or may not actually inform poll respondents). 5 facts about the national debt: What you should know
Doug Kelly
Hmmmmm — wondering about how to interpret the poll after viewing the Pew chart of the unweighted sample size and from reading the PEW Web page about the methodology. It appears that Republicans are underrepresented or, is that about where the registration numbers are now nationwide, or do they do other statistical manipulations to bring it inline to registration numbers (if that is really even relevant)? The methodology does not explicitly refer to that sort of sample adjustment. Also I note that the sample is purposely skewed to younger members of the household. Given that they are more likely to be low information voters, and not vote as readily, I wonder if Republicans are not faring better than implied (which all things considered is not bad anyway considering the overt scare mongering employed by Obama). Given what has been revealed (including in these pages) that the government cannot default unless Obama orders it, the question about hiking the debt limit being “absolutely essential” reveals that Republicans are better informed, and among the Republicans, the TEA Party folks in particular.
You make some good points. However, it is not the habit, nor the methodology, of Pew Research to manipulate or adjust the numbers of sub-groups, such as Republican or Democrat, to align with an attempt to balance the numbers. Such manipulations would render any study negligible and worthless.
However, the study was indeed skewed to the younger age group by the interviewers’ asking to speak to the youngest person in the household over age 18. This may have created an under-represented number of respondents who said they were Republicans. On the other hand, there is value to this qualification since the voters under 35 were more influential in the past election than they have been previously.
One should not accept poll findings at face value, and the fact that Pew Research discloses its methodologies gives us good reason to place more value in their findings than those pollsters who do not do so. Albeit, every poll has short-comings.
Two prevalent short-comings of all polls are; 1) the wording of questions can introduce subjective error or bias by the respondent into the findings; 2) a seemingly psychological need to answer a question in the way the respondent believes the interviewer wants is a strange but proven phenomenon in every poll. Respondents trying to please the interviewer is a demonstration of a facet of human nature that is inexplicable. Which is the reason biased study findings can be easily managed by those having a desired outcome in mind for the study, however incorrect it may be.
The most important part of understanding poll findings is that poll findings should always be read and digested in their entirety. Plucking one or two questions and answers from a poll, as the news media constantly does, is very likely to be misleading if not meaningless. Therefore, if the entirety of poll findings, including methodology and cross tabulation of respondents’ answers are viewed by an objective and unbiased analyst, then it is somewhat likely an underlying idea or attitude will reveal itself.
Now, allow me to move out of the empirical evidence and into the area of my own opinions based on anecdotal evidence and many years in marketing trying to separate reality from perception.
Objectively analyzing the study findings here, one may wonder if the Republicans have an edge over the Obama-ites, because such a statistical tie skewed toward younger respondents who are, as you said, lower information voters, is not necessarily representative of the Republican party and most assuredly not the Tea Party faction. In fact, given their well-known negative reactions to the last few Republican Presidential candidates, it would not be surprising to find that many younger voters would not classify themselves as Republicans, but rather as Independents (yet simultaneously holding conservative attitudes and beliefs). Said another way, many younger voters — those who are primarily responsible for electing Obama — were not so much favoring Obama as they were disfavoring the Republican candidate — a choice between the “least of two evils”. Think about it. When our Millennials and other young people (as well as many older age groups) sympathize with the growing anti-Wall Street attitudes in the nation, and the Republican candidate is a super rich fund manager, what else might one expect?
So, I reiterate my earlier remark. Think how much better Republicans could be doing if the Republicans could actually articulate a conservative message to the average person. And if the Republican party was truly the conservative alternative in politics. Sadly, it is not.