The Helena I-R is running an online poll that asks "Is the cap-and-trade legislation being discussed in Congress the best way to incentivize clean, renewable energy production?" I got sent this link because a friend of mine works for a clean energy group and I assume this individual wanted me to click "Yes" to indicate that Montanans support cap-and-trade.
Here's the thing, though, the fact that "stuffing" of these polls occurs indicates just what a waste of time they are.
Beyond that, I'm left frustrated because even though I do support cap-and-trade, I don't think it is the "best way" to incentivize clean, renewable energy production. That would be a carbon tax. The next best is probably something like cap-and-dividend (although it may be equivalent to cap-and-trade in terms of promoting clean energy).
But American policy debates, thanks in part to news organizations that spend resources running online polls instead of explaining the substance of policy (this is probably a bit of an unfair swipe at the I-R, but I'm feeling mean today), rarely allow us to get into a serious conversation about best policy options because we're too busy debating ridiculous shit like whether global warming is even occurring (science says yes*).
In short: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
* It says "yes" in science speak, of course, which sounds more like "with a high degree of certainty."
A Rasmussen poll was released today about the popularity of single-payer health care. According to the poll, only 32 percent favor single-payer health care, while 57 percent are opposed to it.
What to make of this? Without seeing the question, it's hard to make much of a conclusion. That's because the public's support of single-payer health care varies wildly depending how the question is asked. (Here's a link to previous polls for an illustration.) In fact, this Rasmussen poll is the first that found single-payer backers in the minority. Is it an outlier - or the result of months of Republican fear-mongering? Certainly those polled aren't overly familiar with the details of single-payer health care: only 24 percent thought that a single-payer system would lower costs.
In another, related poll, Rasmussen found that 51 percent "fear" the government more than private insurance companies. Which is kind of astounding, given that insurance companies have neither arms nor prisons. This poll, of course, is being used to explain why single-payer health insurance is unpopular; but those results belie the polls on Medicare users, who rate their insurance and care consistently higher than those who have private insurance. And we've seen how people react to the idea that Medicare benefits might be threatened. Yet a number of people don't realize that Medicare is a government program.
...public opinion polling is mostly useful under two basic conditions: when there is a clear choice regarding the issue being polled and when public information in the target population is high. Neither of those factor exist in regards to this poll. As such, it really isn't especially useful.
The astonishing ignorance around health care reform is reflected in the right-wing blog reaction to the Rasmussen poll.
Gaius of Blue Crab Boulevard writes, "Rasmussen's latest poll shows ObamaCare dropping like a rock," while Howie from the Jawa Report exults in the poll, chirping "Go ahead congress [sic], make the voters [sic] day, I double dog dare you." Of course, that single-payer health care has anything to do with any of the reforms being batted around in Congress has to come as a complete shock to single-payer advocates. We've discussed the details of the various plans ad naseum on this blog, so you know single-payer health care ain't in the equation.
Gateway Pundit ratchets up the ignorance: "Only 32% of Americans favor Obama's plan for a single-payer system," GP writes. "This video shows how ordinary Americans feel about getting socialized health care rammed down their throats by this Congress." Likewise, PowerLine's John confuses single-payer health care with socialized medicine:
Today's Rasmussen survey has data that shed considerable light on the health care debate. The question posed to likely voters was whether they favor a single-payer health care system. ("Single payer" is a euphemism for socialized medicine.) Americans overwhelmingly reject government medicine, 57-32 percent.
Of course, we've been over this before. "Socialized medicine" means that the government owns and runs all of the health care facilities and employs the health care workers. (Think VA.) "Single-payer health care" is a system where there's essentially one insurance provider. (It doesn't even have to be a government insurance provider.) Health care facilities and workers remain as they are.
Other little tidbits of ignorance abound in the reactions, too. Take this:
Obama says you can keep your plan if you like it (interestingly, he keeps saying that the entire system is broken and sucks, yet, you can keep the same health insurance that is broken and sucks?), and, he is correct. You can. Until you decide you want to make a change, even a tiny one. Then you must move into a government approved one. If you work for certain really big companies, you have a 5 year grace period before any change forces you into a government approved plan.
I have no idea what William Teach is talking about. "Government approved" plan? All insurance plans are already "government approved," in that they have to conform to the regulation and laws governing insurance in the various states. Or does he mean, a "government run" public option? Which is also false. I assume he's unclear on the concept of the Health Insurance Exchange, where people meeting certain criteria (right now in the written House proposal, those working in very small companies, the uninsured, and the unemployed) have the right to essentially shop around for the best plan, which might include a public option. But no one will be compelled to take any particular plan - although there's likely to be a mandate to take some kind of plan.
All-in-all, the profound ignorance seeping from these blogs is astonishing. And these are supposed to be the people who are, you know, actually interested in politics and policy. No wonder Tea Baggers are running around interrupting public meetings with slogans about "socialized medicine" and other delusional claims. They have no friggin' idea what they're actually protesting, do they?
To put this into context, the last time Bush broke 80% was January of 2002. Only one American soldier had been killed "smoking evildoers" out of their caves in Afghanistan; a position so un-controversial comedian David Cross points out "Nader would have bombed Afghanistan."
The again, it's probably easy to get out of touch with regular folks if you're the 26th richest member of one of the world's most exclusive and powerful clubs.
PPP's numbers don't just look good for Dems in the Presidential race in Montana. Here's the rest of the races:
Bullock 49%
Fox 44%
Undecided 7%
Lindeen 50%
Grimes 42%
Undecided 9%
McCulloch 47%
Johnson 46%
Undecided 7%
Juneau 49%
Herman 40%
That's not all. Schweitzer is polling above 60%. Baucus is polling above 70% (!) (!!!!). Those numbers are huge.
One big cautionary note -- these races are close with large numbers of undecideds. And the partisan breakdown is far more favorable to Dems than exit polls have shown in recent years.
So this poll may be D biased. I'm not saying that it definitely is -- the fundamental partisan numbers of Montana could very well be shifting. Just don't take one poll as a sign from the heavens.
Final point -- that secretary of state's race is damn close. If Linda McCulloch pulls this one off, my guess is it will have a lot to do with the Secretary of State Project, which has put a lot of resources into that race, backed by polling from Celinda Lake. If McCulloch pulls off what may be the closest race in the state, it will probably be in large part due to SOS Project's work.
Among their efforts -- a radio ad featuring Sue Furey, Kevin's mother, talking about the voter challenges.
Here's a little treat for your morning coffee: Obama 48, McCain 47, Paul 4. I like this poll, and not just for the obvious reasons, but because Paul's included in the sampling (and pulls equally from Democrats and Republicans in the poll), and because the poll shows Obama leading young voters, 54-41. (Pretty close to Matt's guestimate in the GFT piece on young voters.)
Like me, you were probably scratching your head when Matt wrote about a "Rasmussen" poll showing McCain +4. What Rasmussen poll? Why, this one!
It has McCain with 50 percent and Obama with 46. Again, Ron Paul not part of the sampling, although the pollster did say, "Six percent (6%) of McCain voters might vote for a third-party candidate while Obama faces no such threat."
The last gubernatorial debate was held last night in Great Falls, and there was all kinds of sparring between Schweitzer and Brown. Ho hum.
Ho hum? Yup, ho hum, what with the MSU-B poll showing Schweitzer with a 33-point lead and less than two weeks before the election.
All right, you know the drill, let's crunch those numbers! First, the trends among the latest polls:
10/24 - MSU-B: Schweitzer 60, Brown 27
10/19 - Research 2000: Schweitzer 57 (62/33), Brown 40 (41/51)
10/2 - Rasmussen: Schweitzer 56 (65/35), Brown 41 (45/48)
9/22 - Mellman Group: Schweitzer 63, Brown 24
7/31 - Rassmussen: Schweitzer 56 (64/27), Brown 32 (37/41)
Sadly, the MSU-B poll doesn't record favoribility ratings, but those polled did say Brown ran the "most negative" campaign, 30.1% to 12.8%.
And, really, there's not much to say about this poll, other than it feels like an outlier, especially when measuring Roy Brown's base of support. Still, it makes that Mellman report look a little better, doesn't it?
One note, the other day when I scrutinized the MSU-B poll for the presidential election, I wondered if they got the youth vote right, and that explained the positive results for Obama. Well, today I noticed this little line under "Statistically Significant Relationships":
Age was not related to vote intention.
Not sure what to make of that. Did the MSU-B poll get the youth vote wrong? Or are there too many polls showing the presidential candidates are in a dead heat among the young here in Montana? I'm betting the former, that polling in Montana has too stringent requirements for accurately counting young voters in the results.
Anyhow, outlier or not, it's apparent Schweitzer looks like a safe bet to win re-election, despite the best efforts of the GOP to manufacture controversey. In fact, so much so that Dan Testa is already speculating about how the current state budget surplus plays out politically in the next state legislature, a sort of tacit admittance that this election is over, and that the composition of the legislature is what we should be focusing on.
Which reminds me. I wrote up a "state of the elections" piece for the front page of the Daily Kos on Friday as part of a series called, "Listening Locally," in which state bloggers report on the important down-ballot doings in their respective states. Nothing new there, just an appeal to Kossaks to look over some of our local races.
With the election approaching, fast, it's time to remember what's at stake for the state in these legislative battles. The Capitol Blogger wrote up a couple of posts, one comparing the likely leadership teams of the two parties -- and if you love having middle-aged white guys calling all the shots, you'll love a Republican legislature -- and a peek into the Republican energy "policy."
Ugh. Double ugh.
So, are you ready for one last week of donating to candidates?
Good news for Montana Democrats in a new Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos:
McCain (R) 49 (52)
Obama (D) 45 (39)
Trendlines are from late September. So we're seeing a 9 point swing a month.
The crosstabs are both believable and, if anything, hint at a slight bias toward Democratic undersampling and a too pessimistic prediction of the youth vote for Obama (from my read).
I've probably been one of the more pessimistic voices in the state regarding Obama's chances. But with this poll coming on the heels of a similar ARG poll -- and with the strength of Obama's volunteer base -- this race is suddenly looking winnable to me in Montana.
Of course, as Markos notes, it is still unlikely to be a tipping point state. It's more like a victory lap state for Obama. But in play it is.
The more interesting news in the poll comes in with numbers in the U.S. House race:
Rehberg (R) 52%
Driscoll (D) 38%
Surprisingly low numbers for Rep. Rehberg given the lack of a race. A poll like this is likely to have a number of people taking a real close look at that race for 2010.
The poll also has Schweitzer with a solid 18 point lead.
One last note -- the R2K polling method doesn't name third party candidates during the questioning. I think this is sound, but someone trying to find another way to improve Obama's numbers might note that Ron Paul's name is on the ballot here. While I think Paul detracts a bit from both Obama and McCain, it seems likely he hurts McCain more than Obama.
This gap narrows a couple points on strength of Obama's field operation and a point or two because of Ron Paul and we have ourselves a nail-biter.
New numbers from Rasmussen still have McCain up, but by a narrower margin: 52-44.
That's still a bit wide of a margin for a normal field operation to be able to make up, but it wouldn't be impossible.
From the analysis:
McCain is now viewed favorably by 56% of Montana voters, down four points from a month ago. Obama earns positive reviews from 50% of Montana voters, unchanged since September.
McCain leads by 23 percentage points among men but trails by five among women.
As for the running mates, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is viewed favorably by 56% of Montana voters while 48% say the same of Delaware Senator Joseph Biden.
Strong numbers for national Dems in Montana. We'll see what happens to Palin's favorable numbers during tonight's debate. And Biden's, too, I imagine. I think he's sort of the card in the hole here (who knows if he's an ace). The media has paid Palin a lot more attention. We'll find out in the next few days what America thinks of Joe Biden.
There was another gubernatorial debate last night in Butte. The sparring was a little more intense, but over the usual issues and along the same old lines.
A couple of quick hits:
Brown claimed Schweitzer's tax relief didn't give anything substantial to Montanans. In reality, it's Brown's permanent property tax cuts that wouldn't give relief to everyday taxpayers; instead most tax breaks would go to big business and the wealthy.
Brown also claimed that cutting the business and industrial equipment tax would "pay for itself." By that, I assume he means the tax would spur enough new business to raise more tax revenue to offset the cuts. This is free-market fantasy. No data exists to support this claim.
First, Bennion claims a reduction in the equiptment tax would mean higher wages for employees. Er, the day a business owner gets a tax break and forks it over to the employees, give me a call. I've rarely, if ever, seen tax breaks turn into higher wages and lower prices. Also, eliminating the business equipment tax means shifting the tax burden onto homeowners. And the equipment tax exemption is $50K, not exactly a problem for small businesses.
Second, Bennion picks at Schweitzer's numbers for tax relief. Fair enough, I did the same thing with Tim Fox, although to be fair to the Good Guv, he's working with larger and more elusive numbers and not trying to scare the sh*t out of parents. But check out what really irks Bennion:
Next to nothing went to business to stimulate the economy.
Italics are Jon's.
Classic. I know it's Jon's job to promote on behalf of the business community, but hasn't the recent banking crisis clearly demonstrated that trickle-down economics just doesn't work? And forking over cash subsidies to business isn't popular? Give tax refunds to the people, not to businesses. We'll spend the money where we see fit, although it'll probably mostly go to medical bills and mortgage payments. The business community will just have to work a little harder to get some of it from us.
Chris Wilcox, Brown's campaign manager, said he wasn't trying to deceive voters when he released the internal poll numbers to the Tribune Capitol Bureau last week. He said he believed the Democrats' poll numbers were the results of an educated ballot poll and he was trying to make the point that campaigns are able to generate poll numbers that favor their candidate. He said he still doesn't believe the Democratic Party poll numbers are accurate.
Uh huh. Sure, Chris. Only you forgot to mention any of that in your initial statements.
Brown's poll results were from an "educated ballot" poll: a poll structured to test out the messaging strategies for campaigns, not technically a "push poll." Adams offered his opinion on the difference in the comments to a recent post on the poll. Wikipedia's definition is a little clearer:
A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze response data.
To be fair, the experience for the respondent of participating in an educated ballot poll is nearly identical to that of a push poll.
Update: In the comments, John Adams admits that he's solely responsible for giving the public the impression that Wilcox sought to deceive the public by quoting the results of Moore Information's "educated ballot" poll:
Wilcox and I did discuss the "educated ballot" theory prior to my first story on the poll. We had two conversations that day and in the first one he said he didn't buy Schweitzer's numbers and said they were probabaly based on "second or third ballot" results. He said he had numbers that showed Brown up four. I asked him to prove it. He contacted Roy Brown, and Brown permitted him to release those numbers. When he called me back and gave me the numbers, he didn't say they were the results of an educated ballot. I didn't think to ask because I didn't quite follow what he was saying in our earlier conversation about a "second or third ballot."
Thanks for the clarification, John, and apologies to Chris Wilcox. Looks like he was upfront about the nature of his poll.
Remember that John Adams piece recently on the results of a Democratic poll that showed a 39-point lead for Schweitzer? According to Brown spokeserson, Chris Wilcox, the GOP did their own poll, and that Moore Information poll showed a four-point lead for the Republican.
So what do you believe? A 39-point lead for Schweitzer? Or a 4-point lead for Brown? One of these pollsters was going to suffer embarrassment come November!
Wait! According to the Rothenberg Political Report, Moore Information has "clarified" their results:
"The Montana gubernatorial poll numbers quoted from the Brown Campaign reflect the 'educated' ballot numbers after a series of statements about the candidates. The poll numbers quoted do not reflect sentiment before before respondents heard statements," according to a statement by Moore Information to the Hotline.
Moore Information released the statement to protect its reputation.
You could call it a "push poll," or you could call it "testing the messaging," but the fact is the results came after "informing" respondents through a series of biased, perhaps even misleading, questions or statements that would make Schweitzer look bad and Brown good.
A couple of thoughts:
First, classy move by the Brown campaign, huh? I'm sure Moore Information wasn't thrilled that Wilcox released its results out of context.
Second, Brown's up by only four after biased messaging that doesn't allow Schweitzer to respond? That 39-point advantage is looking better, isn't it?
Political Wire reports that a new American Research Group poll shows McCain only up 2% in Montana.
Four notes:
I have some memory of ARG offering regular outlier numbers. Some commenters at Yglesias' site discussed this some time ago. Some agree, some disagree.
Even with a solid polling firm, outliers will occasionally appear simply due to statistics.
Is this the outlier or is Rasmussen's showing the race moving to McCain? I have no idea. I've long been a skeptic of Obama's chances to win Montana. But his campaign, which is smarter (and better informed) than me on this subject, is still here.
Does ARG include Paul and Barr in their survey? If so, it may artificially look bad for McCain. Alternately, if they're not included, it may appear to be artificially good for McCain.
Things were pretty abuzz last week with the release of a Rasmussen poll showing Obama leading McCain by 5% in Montana. The numbers were a bit shocking and may also be a bit inaccurate.
The crosstabs from the poll show the following breakdown by partisan ID:
GOP
Dem
Ind
McCain
85%
5%
42%
Obama
13%
89%
38%
There's a giant red flag in those numbers that McCain isn't actually losing the state. He's leading (narrowly) among Independents. And in Montana, when Republicans are winning Independents, they aren't losing the state, even if the Democrat has done a slightly better job of shoring up her or his base.
So I decided to take the partisan breakdown numbers and apply them to the party breakdown that exit polls showed for both 2004 and 2006. The electorate in both years was 39% GOP, 32% Dem, and 29% Independent. Applying those numbers, we get a 48%-45% McCain-Obama race.
In order to get the race that Rasmussen found, we'd need partisan ID to shift to a healthy Democrat advantage.
My best guess is that this result comes from a likely voter screen that ends up counting out some frustrated Republicans. But bottom-line is that most of those folks are probably still voting.
If Rasmussen's numbers are accurate for the fall, Democrats are going to sweep the state in a way that seems unimaginable today. More likely, though, Montana is a tight race, but is still leaning McCain.
Update -- I went back and checked out the Lee Newspapers poll from May that had John McCain up 48-37 over Obama and did some more number-crunching.
A few things:
Even the Lee numbers seem to have the partisan ID in Montana moving a bit towards the Dems, although not by as much as Rasmussen.
Most of the difference between the two polls can be attributed to Obama solidifying his standing among Democrats and making solid in-roads into McCain's base -- not to the partisan ID stuff I mention above.
Based on these two sets of numbers, I think what we're seeing is that the Lee numbers are pessimistic, representing a divided pre-primary Democratic electorate, and that the Rasmussen numbers are overly optimistic, representing the fact that Republicans are less likely to be considered likely voters this year.
So Obama probably isn't down by 7 or up by 5. Somewhere in between. That's my guess.
The heck with Congress' big stimulus bill. The way to get the country out of recession -- and most people think we're in one -- is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
Pulling out of the war ranked first among proposed remedies in the survey, followed by spending more on domestic programs, cutting taxes and, at the bottom end, giving rebates to poor people in hopes they'll spend the economy into recovery.
Another interesting aspect about this poll is that "cutting taxes" came in third among polled Americans as best solution to the current economic mess. First was pulling out of Iraq, at 48 percent; second was "increasing government spending on health care, education and housing programs," at 43 percent; third was "cutting taxes," at 36 percent.
Just a poll, folks, move along. Nothing to see here. I'm not listening, LA LA LA...
After learning that Montanans are basically content with their top elected officials, opposed to the war, and distasteful of the President, we learn today that we are nervous about global warming and we like our guns.
There's been a lot of flurry around what I can only imagine is a right-wing talking point regarding the fact that teh Congress is less popular than teh President, ergo Democrats are teh suxxor!
The weird thing about this talking point is that Congress, as an institution, is always unpopular. Last fall, Eric of What's Right in Montana made the argument that Sen. Burns was so much more popular than Congress as a whole, and no one was claiming that a majority of Congress would be defeated, and therefore Conrad would win -- or something like that.
Anyways, I only found Congressional approval ratings for the last two years, but here's a secret: no one likes Congress as a whole. For good reason. It's a slow, relatively unresponsive, faceless institution.
Congress will poll poorly. This isn't news. Sure, Congress's numbers have moved down since the start of the year, but that's most a resettling and frustration from Democrats than it is any kind of indication that the country is pissed at the Democratic Party.
Just recently an internal memo at Clinton HQ was released that advocated skipping the Iowa caucus, in favor of a stronger showing in NH and on Super Tuesday in Febuary. As that WaPo article notes, the campaign is not following this strategy, they called it just one persons opinion and unsolicited at that.
Regardless, this is not really what concerns me about this memo. The notion that a front runner stacked to the ceiling with DLC dough has staffers that think this way is a little off-putting. Moreover, the article said that this was conceived as a possible solution to Sen. Clinton's lame poll showing in Iowa.
I won't be supporting Hillary Clinton in the primary. Unlike many Americans, I don't hate her for being a weird, strong first lady, or for standing by her husband whose office shenanigans coupled with a ridiculous response from Congress cost this country a lot of clout, in the eyes of the American people. I think that her war on video games is an asanine waste of public time and money.
But this news really troubles me for two reasons: First, America is at a juncture right now, a low point, and what we really need is someone who will actually start to mend the fissures between us. This is particularly true of the Democratic party, thanks largely to Hillary, Bill, and their DLC cronies. That aside, Hillary does not strike me as the kind of leader who will unite us or who can bring us back from the brink where George W. Bush will surely leave us. This memo means that some of the people who surround the Clinton campaign think that poor performance in the polls is a good time for triage. It isn't. Now, I know that it is not fair to hold Clinton ultimately accountable for every little stupid thing that her staff does or thinks, but the folks you surround yourself with give a good indication of what kind of leader you will be.
This leads to the second troubling point: Hillary is a poll watcher and listener. I am not a huge fan of George W. Bush's personal link to God method of directing this country, but I do appreciate that he does not handcuff himself to whatever some moron with a phone tells him a majority believes. We already have a branch of government that is designed to reflect the people in a better way than the President possibly can. Surprise, surprise that branch is a check on the President's power. A truly great American President will set a course for the future and take the American people farther than they thought it was possible to go. That is good leadership. That Ari Berman piece I linked above is long but it is worth your time to check it out, specifically if you are having trouble deciding in this primary, like many of us.
I will probably write more on the Democratic primary in the coming weeks, hopefully with a more positive bent than these few thoughts. I wish that I didn't have to write about this so early, but what are you going to do?
I've written it before but the new Lee Poll confirms. A race between Max Baucus and Dennis Rehberg would be hard fought. The new Lee poll is the first in a while with both Baucus and Rehberg polling higher approval numbers than Schweitzer (Brian still polls at 65%; Max and Rehberg are at 68%). This, of course, could be statistical noise. Or it could be a minor hit from the gaming situation on the Flathead reservation.
It's possible, though, that the race between Schweitzer and Rehberg would be even more of a horse race in initial polling.
My gut, though, is that if Rehberg can hold Baucus to a four-point lead that no other Republican is worth a nickel up against either of our ticket-leaders in '08. And Rehberg would be rolling the dice big time to jump into that race.
