Currently viewing the tag: “prefer”
Yeargh.
Earlier in the week, Howard Dean told an audience that Democrats should be rooting for a government shutdown rather than agree to budget cuts, because voter anger would punish Republicans. That may have been true in 1995, but as Rasmussen discovered it its latest polling, the political and fiscal environment in 2011 is far different. […]
If this new poll isn’t the death knell to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin being a likely candidate on the 2012 Presidential ticket, then it certainly means GOP conservatives who are opposed to her are going have some great sound byte ammunition to use against her: a new poll finds independent voters would prefer to have Charlie Sheen as President over Palin:
We’ve found a lot of brutal poll numbers for Sarah Palin so far in 2011: down in South Dakota, down in South Carolina, down in Arizona, only up by 1 point in Texas, only up by 1 point in Nebraska to name a few. But this has to be the worst- independent voters say they would support Charlie Sheen over Palin for President by a 41/36 margin. Seriously.
So among independents it’s Sheen WINNING! DUH!
Despite her deficit with independents Palin does lead Sheen 49-29 overall. We also tested Barack Obama against Sheen and the President leads 57-24.
And among general voters, it’s Palin over Sheen. It’s Palin WINNING! DUH!
Karl Rove and others (including me) have repeatedly stressed how if the Republicans want to have any hope of winning independent voters, Palin will be a big political anchor around the party’s neck. She is a candidate of the base, by the base, and for the base and has shown little inclination (as some of her Republican critics have also pointed out) to go beyond her base. If Republicans can hold onto their Tea Party component, rope in traditional conservative Republicans and saw off a good chunk of independents they have a shot at the White House. It’s increasingly evident Palin is not the candidate for that.
What’s unsurprising is that partisans of both parties would prefer Sheen over someone of their party as President. SO:
Sheen is one of the most unpopular figures we’ve ever polled on. 10% of Americans rate him favorably to 67% with a negative opinion of him. The only people we’ve ever found worse numbers for are Rod Blagojevich in Illinois (an 8/83 favorability spread), Jesse Jackson Jr. in Illinois (a 10/73 favorability), and Levi Johnston in Alaska (a 6/72 favorability). Sheen’s -57 spread ties what we found for John Edwards in North Carolina the last time we polled him (15/72).
Sheen’s unpopularity is pretty universal across party lines so it says something about the level of polarization in the country right now that Democrats would support him by a 44-24 margin for President over Palin and that Republicans would support him 37-28 over Obama. People may not have any respect for Sheen but they still think he’d be a better alternative than their opposing party’s leading figure.
Polization..America LOSING! DUH!
A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Sarah Palin trails Charlie Sheen by five points among independent voters in a highly unlikely match up for president, 41% to 36%.
Despite her deficit with independents Palin does lead Sheen 49% to 29% among all voters.
In a somewhat related piece, John Avlon analyzes the Palin implosion.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
John quotes Jason Sorens as writing:
Even when you control for overall state ideology (Democratic states have higher taxes, and really Democratic states have much higher taxes), union density increases tax rates. Increasing union density from 10% of the workforce, as in Nebraska, to 25%, as in Hawaii and New York, increases the tax burden by about one and a quarter percentage points of state personal income.
I’m bothered by the causal language here, the jump from a statistically significant regression coefficient to the claim that “union density increases tax rates.” What’s particularly scary here is that the causal leap is implicit. Sorens doesn’t write: Here’s a correlation, and one possible interpretation is causal. Rather, he reports the regression result as if it is direct evidence of causation.
John does it right. His headline is “Do unionized states have higher taxes?”, not “Does union density increase tax rates?”
You might say I’m being picky here-everyone knows that a regression does not in general directly answer a causal question (especially when you control for an intermediate outcome such as voting patterns). But . . . here’s what Sorens writes: “the evidence suggests that policies discouraging collective bargaining help a state reduce its tax burden in the long run . . .” He’s definitely giving a causal interpretation.
I agree that observational data are relevant to causal questions-much of my career would be a sham if I didn’t believe this-but I also think we’d do best, as social scientists, to clearly distinguish between evidence and speculation. In this case, the data show that states with higher taxes have higher rates of unionized workers. The speculation is that a state policy that changes the rate of unionization would have a certain expected effect on taxation. That’s the part I don’t see the evidence for.
I’m not trying to pick on Jason Sorens here. Gathering data, making graphs, and running regressions of historical data-telling us what’s happened in the past-is a contribution in itself. And then if you want to make some claims from there, go for it-but please separate these claims speculations from the hard data.
Sometime in March the House GOP and the Democrats in the Senate and of course President Obama are going to have to find a way to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. And in a poll released today, Rasmussen Reports finds that 58 percent of likely voters favor a government shutdown unless spending cuts are agreed upon.
That’s bad news for the spendthrift Democrats.
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Democrats politics Obama Barack Obama deficit democrat
Happy Presidents Day! If you’re a Republican, the good news is, nearly one in five Americans think Ronald Reagan was our greatest president. The bad news: George W. Bush is still scraping the bottom of the barrel. If you’re a Democrat: FDR, Bill Clinton, JFK and Barack Obama are good news for you (sorry, Jimmy […]
The Reid Report
Ezra Klein asks progressives to consider the alternative to addressing the deficit now:
I think the question is whether we want to deal with that debt now or later. At the moment, the White House is occupied by Barack Obama, and the Senate is led by Harry Reid. It's possible that the composition of the government will be friendlier than that to progressives in six or eight years, but I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it. Democrats look likely to face a rough couple of election cycles in the Senate, and even assuming Obama gets reelected, it's fairly rare for the same party to hold the presidency for more than eight years.
Which is all to say that if you think a deal on deficit reduction has to happen at some point, this might be a better moment than most.
A new Deseret News/KSL poll finds more than twice as many Utahns would vote for Mitt Romney over Jon Huntsman in a GOP presidential primary, 56% to 26%.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
Given the choice between a candidate who agrees with them on the issues or a candidate who can defeat President Obama in 2012, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll finds Republicans overwhelming want a winner.
Key findings: 68% of Republicans say they would prefer a GOP presidential nominee who can top Obama in the next election, with 29% saying a nominee who agrees with them on every issue that matters the most is more important.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
Huge, HUGE tissue alert. Boxes of them. Trust me on this one.
If you can watch this and keep it together, you are a beast. The father of the 9-yr old murdered on Saturday in Arizona talks of her, and how he doesn’t want anything to happen to our liberties as a result of this tragedy.
This man, is one hell of a father. God bless him…
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
h/t M.Malkin’s site….
Interesting breakdown politically.
American Thinker Blog
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| “We buy Israeli products. They are much better than the others.” |
Israel’s Channel Two has a story about how Gazans prefer Israeli goods to the Egyptian or Jordanian items they can get through the Rafah smuggling tunnels.
The interviewees universally say that Israeli goods are of much higher quality – and the impoverished Gazans are more than happy to pay the higher prices that some Israeli products cost.
Apparently, Palestinian Arabs from Gaza are not interested in boycotting Israeli goods. That is strictly the domain of clueless Western haters of Israel.
(h/t Ruchie)
Wednesday’s news that Sen. John Ensign (R) is no longer under investigation by the Department of Justice for possible ethics violations was undoubtedly good news if Ensign decides to run for re-election in 2012.
But — judging from numerous conversations with Republicans in Washington and Nevada — don’t expect the courtship of Republican Rep. Dean Heller (Nev.) to challenge Ensign for the seat to let up any time soon.
Ensign is still viewed among Nevada Republicans as highly vulnerable to a credible Democratic challenger in 2012 because of the salacious allegations that he tried to cover up an affair with the wife of his former advisor. And after flubbing their attempt to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) this year, Nevada Republicans are on high alert that they need to hold on to Ensign’s seat. Ensign is also still under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee, which could result in sanctions or even expulsion from the chamber.
“I think Heller badly wants to run and I don’t think this development will dissuade him,” said Nevada politics guru Jon Ralston. “The bigger issue for Ensign is the national GOP. These guys are not dummies. They know he is more vulnerable to a Democratic challenge than Heller.”
National Republicans are well aware of Ensign’s political problems and several said on background that they would prefer Heller, a former Nevada Secretary of State, to be their nominee.
Heller is a very cautious politician, though, as evidenced by his staying out of the Senate race this year after being recruited to take on Reid. He is expected to make a decision on when he’ll run in early July.
The main reasons why Heller may pass on the race is his relatively safe House seat and position on the Ways and Means Committee — a plum post.
Neither Heller nor Ensign’s staff responded to a request for comment.
Despite his public proclamations that he is seeking re-election, local Republicans aren’t convinced Ensign will give it a go — even if he is also cleared by the Ethics Committee.
“An indictment would have been fatal for Ensign,” said Nevada Republican consultant Robert Uithoven. “But at the same time it’s not like the political challenges just went away. They are still very real and hard to overcome.”
More, a source close to Ensign who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, said Ensign’s mind isn’t made up.
“I think he will say he is running up to the last minute but I don’t know that he will run,” the source said. “Why be a lame duck senator when you don’t have to be?”
More news is coming out of this interview of the former President George HW Bush and Barbara Bush.
Jeb Bush claimed he has no interest in running for president in 2012, President HW Bush endorsed Mitt Romney because he is more of a “middle of the road” guy.
I don’t mind the former president giving his opinions, however, I am not a fan of the dismissive and disrespectful comments about Sarah Palin from Barbara Bush.
