Freedom Line Blog

As a nation founded on the principle of limited government, we can head into this July 4 weekend grateful that principle remains in favor.  According to a Rasmussen poll released today, Americans prefer a government that is too limited to one that is too powerful by an overwhelming 3-to-1 margin:

More Americans than ever (63%) think a government that is too powerful is a bigger danger in the world today than one that is not powerful enough. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 21% disagree and think a government that is not powerful enough is a bigger danger. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure.”

There is still hope in the world’s last, best hope.  Happy birthday, America.

A new Gallup poll provides more proof that the liberal fixation on gun control and immigration reform isn’t even on the Top Ten list of the most important issues for Americans:

This suggests to me that one way to inject issues 1-10 into the deliberations about gun control and immigration is for Republicans in Congress to ask rhetorically, “Why are we discussing restricting guns and legalizing illegal immigrants when 1) 86 percent of Americans want us help create jobs and help the economy grow, 2) 81 percent want us to make the government work more efficiently and fix our schools, and 3) 77 percent want us to address the financial problems with Social Security and Medicare?”

Rather than letting Democrats pick the two issues that most divide Republicans, GOP members of Congress should be picking issues that divide the opposition. Any of Gallup’s Top Ten are natural strong points for Republicans, and especially conservatives. All they need to do is pick one and start reframing the debate.

Now.

Well, this will come as unwelcome news in the Obama White House.  Their “Blame Bush” raison detre never held merit intellectually.  Even if it did, however, someone willing to blame Bush for Obama’s failures at this point would by logic have to blame Clinton for Bush’s failures.  Now, a new poll from The Washington Post and ABC News suggests that it’s no longer a workable political strategy regardless of logic.  Specifically, almost as many people now approve of Bush’s performance as disapprove, and he now equals Obama:

The new poll found 47 percent saying they approve and 50 percent saying they disapprove. Among registered voters, his approval rating today is equal to President Obama’s, at 47 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC surveys.”

So “Blame Bush” is running on fumes, and exploiting the Newtown victims’ parents as political props failed him.  To which ploy will Obama stoop next?

A very well-written report at the Huffington Post details how a few decisions by Gallup administrators caused the venerable polling company to miss key pockets of support for President Barack Obama in the run-up to last November’s presidential election.

Going into Election Day, Gallup had Mitt Romney leading Obama 49-48, but the actual result was 51-47. According to analysis by HuffPost, the reason for the bad call was because Gallup’s polling methods failed to keep up with how Americans are using their telephones.  This is potentially a huge problem because calling via telephone is the primary method for contacting people for public opinion polls.

Since the number of people screening calls by using unlisted landlines and/or cell phones has risen dramatically over the last few years, polling firms who fail to find a way around the barriers run the risk of missing large segments of voters who are avoiding unsolicited calls.

It just so happens that people using unlisted numbers only (i.e. not cell phones as well) planned to vote for Obama last year by a margin of 58 to 36 percent.  But because Gallup’s methodology didn’t correctly measure this subpopulation, the company never got a chance to put this data in their polls.  Consequently, Gallup’s opinion polls did not accurately reflect the intentions of the voting public which ultimately influenced who won the presidency.

Gallup is no stranger to embarrassing poll predictions.  The famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline from 1948 was based on polling data that stopped being collected two weeks before Election Day.  The thought was why keep polling if the predictions haven’t changed?  Of course, that decision didn’t account for the voters who broke late for Truman and made the false headline iconic.

Gallup rebounded from the fiasco to become arguably the world’s most reliable polling agency.  As the process of regaining that crown unfolds, this new breakdown is a good reminder to heed the words of the Gipper – “Trust, but verify” when it comes to public opinion polls.

If you’re someone who thinks that democracy works best when citizens and their representatives take time to deliberate (i.e. reason and think together), then a new Fox News/Bing collaboration will not excite you.

From Politico:

Bing is teaming up with Fox News to bring State of the Union viewers an interactive experience with real-time polling and social media aggregation.

The project is spearheaded by Microsoft’s Mark Penn, the Democratic strategist and pollster, and promises to meet the “growing need for up-to-the-minute political information and second-screen experiences that are a great companion to political broadcasts.”

Bing Pulse will allow anyone to vote every five seconds on their feelings about the address and the results will be shown live on the site and on Fox News Channel.

“We think this will be the largest live online poll in history,” Penn writes in an announcement of the project.

It’s also history’s most useless poll.  Allowing people “to vote every five seconds on their feelings” about a message as they’re hearing it would be great if we wanted to know people’s reactions to words instead of sentences.  It’s bad enough that most political dialogue has been reduced to competing sound bites.  But at least sound bites are designed to trigger reactions based on thoughts.  From Penn’s description, this new venture is tracking little more than raw emotion in five second intervals.

Here’s something that continually puzzles me.

Media figures, often suggesting hope as much as sober analysis, counter Barack Obama’s terrible standing in opinion polls by pointing out that Congressional Republicans are even less popular.  The first problem, of course, is that Obama’s opponent in November 2012 won’t be named “Congressional Republicans.”  Secondly, animosity toward Congress is typically uncentered, as illustrated by the fact that incumbents maintain phenomenal reelection records even in anti-incumbent years.  In other words, people walking into the voting booth seem to think, “Congress is full of bums, but my Representative is OK.”

But here’s another point nobody seems to highlight.  If Congressional Republicans are so unpopular, or constitute such a nice foil for Obama, why is it that they consistently outperform Congressional Democrats in public esteem?  Take a look at this accumulated record of Rasmussen polling on the matter.  Since January 2010, the earliest date Rasmussen lists, Congressional Republicans have not trailed Congressional Democrats in voter preference even once.  Obama can’t seek a job extension based upon his performance record, but the reality is that this particular strategy might not be any more promising.

According to a new Gallup poll, a majority of Americans now blame President Obama for the current state of the U.S. economy.  By a 53% to 47% margin, surveyed adults say that Obama shares a “great deal/moderate amount” of blame, while they also believe that George W. Bush continues to share blame by a 69% to 30% margin.  But notice something interesting.  For all the talk of hyper-partisanship from Republicans, the primary reason Bush’s numbers look worse is that Republican survey respondents split 50% to 50% on whether Bush shares some blame.  Democrats, in contrast, were far less willing to admit that their guy Obama shares blame, disagreeing by a 75% to 25% margin.  Independents by a 60% to 40% margin say that Obama shares some blame.

Here’s another noteworthy fact.  For all of Obama’s talk that he and his wasteful trillions of “stimulus” spending saved our economy from “the next Great Depression,” government economic figures show that we actually began our cyclical recovery before Bush had left office.  That’s a point that must be highlighted to voters as we approach a pivotal 2012 election in which Americans must choose between two governmental philosophies.  But in the meantime, at least most of us now recognize Obama’s role in our continuing economic struggles.

Rasmussen Reports says that 40% of Americans are still undecided on whether to support the “Path to Prosperity” budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).  CFIF strongly endorses the House Budget Committee Chairman’s attempt to rein in federal spending, while giving Medicare beneficiaries more choices in their health care decisions.

According to the poll, 26% of likely voters support Ryan’s plan, while 34% oppose it.  That leaves 40% who still don’t know enough about Ryan’s proposal to have an opinion.

The liberal media is already waging a misinformation campaign against Ryan and other sensible fiscal conservatives.  For a primer on the “Path to Prosperity” go here.

In order to change the culture in Washington, voters need to change the terms of the debate.  Educating yourself and others on Ryan’s plan gives fiscal conservatives the ammunition they need to win the hearts and minds of the 40% still undecided.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters finds that less than half of Democrats favor an immigration policy that prohibits national security threats, criminals and welfare seekers from entering America.  By contrast, Republicans support this kind of welcoming policy toward every other kind of immigrant by a 3-to-1 margin.  Here’s the data:

But, while Americans want the border secure and a reduction in illegal immigration, most continue to support a welcoming policy of legal immigration.

Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters now agree with an immigration policy that keeps out only national security threats, criminals and those who would come here to live off America’s welfare system. This is down slightly from 58% last April but is generally consistent with findings for several years. Twenty-seven percent (27%) disagree with a policy like that, while another 19% are not sure about it.

It is interesting to note that Democrats are less supportive of a welcoming immigration policy than Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Republicans support such a policy by a 3-to-1 margin and unaffiliated voters by a 2-to-1 margin. Among Democrats, 47% favor a welcoming immigration policy and 36% are opposed.

This is just another example of where Democrats think their interests lie in the immigration debate: lawbreakers and tax-takers.  Heckuva way to build a party.

How great a law could ObamaCare be if companies like McDonald’s need a compliance waiver?  The surge in waivers granted by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is fast-approaching 800, or a little more than two a day since the law went into effect.  At some point, exceptional cases swallow the rule.  This seems to be the thinking behind today’s Rasmussen Reports poll:

Sixty-one percent (61%), in fact, think that if selected companies receive an exemption from certain aspects of the health care law, all companies should be treated the same way. Twenty percent (20%) now disagree and say all companies should not be given that exemption, but 19% more are undecided. These findings are comparable to the previous survey.

Where’s the fairness in granting waivers only to a few?  Aren’t we all in this socialized health care pool together?  Or are some companies too big to comply?  If liberals had the courage of their convictions, they’d implement their health care takeover immediately so people would know exactly what it does.  Since the law and its proponents would go down in flames in that scenario, instead we’ll continue to see HHS boil the economy slowly, hoping “only” 61% of the people notice.

We’re now exactly two weeks from the long-awaited 2010 Congressional midterm election and report card for President Obama.  By now, the question is simply how high the expletive decibel level will ascend on election night inside the White House.

On that front, a Gallup poll brings news every bit as chilly and cloudy for Democrats as today’s Washington, D.C. weather.  In fact, the poll shows a high for Republicans that even 1994 didn’t bring.  According to polling completed this past weekend, Republicans now possess a 5-point lead in voter preference, 48% to 43%.  And here’s the really bad news for Democrats:  that’s not among likely voters, but among registered voters.  (Among likely voters, the GOP lead expands to 11% or 17%, depending on whether the “high turnout” or “low turnout” polling model is applied.)

Let’s put that historic lead in perspective.  In 2002, the party holding the White House hadn’t added both House and Senate seats in its first mid-term since 1934, but the supposedly failed President Bush broke almost 70 years of precedent by adding 8 House and 2 Senate seats.  Even that year, however, Democrats held a 9-point polling lead in mid-October among registered voters.  And during the famous 1994 election season that rejected two years of Clintonian rule alongside a Democratic House and Senate, Republicans only held a 3-point lead on October 18-19, which switched back to a 3-point Democrat lead by October 22-25.  If this is any indication, Democrats aren’t going to need seat belts this year, they’re going to need airbags.

Miss him yet?  President George W. Bush, that is?

Well, t-shirts with the image of Bush above the words “Miss Me Yet?” are outselling Obama gear even in Massachusetts these days.  Now, an opinion poll reveals that Ohio voters would prefer Bush over Obama in the White House right now by a 50% to 42% margin.

Calling Rahm Emanuel:  you’ve got a crisis here to not let go to waste.

William F. Buckley, Jr. famously said that he’d rather be governed by the first 400 names in the Boston phonebook than by the Harvard faculty.

Every so often, however, the phone book and the faculty actually agree.  According to a new Bloomberg poll, a remarkable 73% of respondents oppose our supposed philosopher-king Barack Obama’s drilling moratorium.  What makes this remarkable is that approximately three-quarters of the American public, which very rarely seems to find consensus on anything these days, just doesn’t buy Obama’s constant drumbeat of scapegoating the oil industry, “deregulation” or the previous administration.  What makes this even more remarkable, however, is that Obama’s own appointed “experts” agree with everyday citizens.  As noted in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, the hyper-partisan investigatory panel selected by Obama himself expresses skepticism toward his moratorium.

Add the fact that two separate courts have rejected the Obama Administration’s ill-advised moratorium, which is jeopardizing even more jobs in that hard-hit region, and we’re approaching unanimity against the self-professed “bridge-builder” Obama.

“Americans are not very satisfied with most prominent institutions.”  That’s the opening comment of a scientific poll released today by the Pew Research Center.

A striking exception?  Technology companies.

By an enormous 68% to 18% margin, Americans state that technology companies have a positive “effect on the way things are going in the country.”  This stands among the highest of thirteen institutions rated, including such entities as Congress, the federal government, religious institutions and the entertainment industry.  Small businesses also scored high in public esteem, by a 71% to 19% margin.

Yet Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and pro-regulation activists push “Net Neutrality” Internet regulation under the myth that we’re facing some alleged broadband or technological crisis?  This vivid poll result should open their eyes, especially following our observation yesterday that 91% are happy with their home broadband speed.

In contrast, the public rates the very federal government that would impose “Net Neutrality” negatively by a 65% to 25% margin.  Congress is also rated negatively by a 65% to 24% margin, and labor unions disfavored by a 49% to 32% margin.

The crisis isn’t in broadband or the state of our technology sector, Chairman Genachowski.  The crisis lies in public confidence in over-regulatory federal bureaucracies like yours.

According to a recently released Fox News poll, nearly four out of every five voters (79%) feel the U.S. economy could collapse and that Washington has no credible plan to fix it.

That pessimism is not held by voters identifying with just one political party either.  72% of Democrats, 84% of Republicans and 80% of Independents share the pessimism about the economy, while just 18% of all voters surveyed think it’s “so big and strong it could never collapse.”

Before you go blaming those greedy Wall Street suits for the nation’s gloom, read this little nugget from FoxNews.com’s report on the poll:

78 percent of voters believe the federal government is ‘larger and more costly’ than it has ever been before, and by nearly three-to-one more voters think the national debt (65 percent) is a greater potential threat to the country’s future than terrorism (23 percent). …

“Three in 10 American voters (30 percent) say they are comfortable with the size and role of the federal government right now, while 65 percent say the government has become too big and ‘is restricting American freedoms.’”