This one should be fairly easy, but I wanted to get the pulse of the community: what should Congress do on health care reform now that things are...shall we say, in flux?
You'll find the poll after the break -- hit it up, and discuss away. We'll keep the poll open through the weekend.
I'm reluctant to put too much predictive stock in the Fox9/Rasmussen poll that came out last night -- but it's numbers, which are blogger-catnip.
Preference for Democratic nomination for Minnesota governor
Jan. 11 survey of 331 likely Democratic voters
Rybak 25%
Kelliher 12%
Entenza 5%
Dayton 34%
Some other candidate 10%
Not sure 13%
Preference for Republican nomination for Minnesota governor
Jan. 11 survey of 301 likely GOP voters
Seifert 9%
Emmer 9%
Anderson 5%
Coleman 52%
Some other candidate 7%
Not sure 18%
Only problem is that Rasmussen's likely voter model is likely to be really screwy in this state. Why? Because when was the last time there was a competitive statewide primary among one of the major parties for a top-level office? If you said "ten years ago" you win the prize. Minnesota's endorsement/primary system is quite different from many states, so likely voter models this early in the game -- before the intraparty races have really heated up -- aren't going to mean much.
And that bears out on the Democratic side as well as the Republican -- Mark Dayton and R.T. Rybak are two of the highest-profile DFLers in the state, Dayton because of his status as a former statewide officeholder, Rybak for his work on the 2008 Obama campaign.
Now, if you treat this poll as a political play by someone in a smoky, wood-panelled back room to encourage Coleman to get in the race, citing positive poll numbers from Fox9 and Rasmussen...it might have the intended effect.
- Recently, notorious Republican pollster and 'framer' Frank Luntz was commissioned to poll gun owners and/or NRA members by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The results got some play in corporate media; for example, this New York Timeseditorial, which was reprinted in the Strib. Here is the actual poll.
And here are the results of some questions. Net agreement among NRA members is in parentheses.
10. "Irresponsible gun owners who break the law by knowingly selling guns to unqualified purchasers should be held accountable to the maximum extent of the law." (90%)
Beyond that headline, the utility of Rasmussen's latest approval poll on Minnesota's Senators and resident Insane Untruthteller is somewhat limited.
A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state shows that 58% of likely voters at least somewhat approve of the job Klobuchar is doing while 38% disapprove. But 36% strongly approve of her Senate performance, compared to 21% who strongly disapprove.
Fifty percent (50%) of the state's voters approve of the job performance of Franken who took office in July after months of legal wrangling over the election results with his Republican predecessor Norm Coleman. Twenty-four percent (24%) strongly approve of the job he is doing.
Forty-five percent (45%) disapprove of how Franken is doing, with 29% who strongly disapprove.
Minnesota voters give similar marks to Bachmann, who represents the 6th congressional district in the southeastern section of the state.
Wait a minute, what? We're polling all of Minnesota to get approval ratings for Michele Bachmann now? Since when do the other seven congressional districts have a say in rating how she's doing?
In mid-September, 56% of Minnesota voters said Klobuchar was doing a good or excellent job, and just 19% rated her performance as poor. Franken was seen as doing a good or excellent job by 41% of Minnesota voters, while 31% said he was performing poorly.
Since Klobuchar and Franken are Democrats and Bachmann is a Republican, the partisan divide among Minnesota voters is predictable.
So by Rasmussen's scale, this represents a marked improvement for Franken. Rasmussen uses a weird "intensity" scale -- comparing "strong approval" to "strong disapproval" -- and manages to give themselves some extra numbers to report. But one general takeaway from this is to remember how many poll respondents don't necessarily know anything about what these elected officials are actually doing. All we know is that the poll hit whatever Rasmussen considers "likely voters" -- that could mean the respondent said yes, I voted in the past three congressional elections. It doesn't necessarily mean they have any direct knowledge of what's going on in the Senate right now, so using likely voters as a polling sample for approval polls seems like a slightly apples-to-oranges comparison.
I'd like to think MPP is having a positive effect on Franken's numbers, detailing the positive and impactful initiatives on which he's worked so far...but I doubt Rasmussen is going to start adding a crosstab like "Do you regularly read MN Progressive Project?"
1. Would you rather have your health care premiums, deductibles, etc., pay for a) actual health care, or b) massive pay packages for executives, and funding the election campaigns of lunatic reactionaries?
2. Would you rather a) return to a pre-Ventura/Pawlenty state income tax structure, where the very wealthy paid roughly the same % as the rest of us, instead of less, or b) your property taxes continuing to skyrocket, in exchange for reduced government services?
3. Would you prefer a local legacy media that a) at least tries to tell it like it is, or b)continues to emphasize shameless, outlandish corporatist bias and 'TPaw for Prez' cheerleading?
There are many, many more...
Not the most profound or sophisticated post, I know. But it's a masterpiece of modern thought, if I do say so myself, compared to the drivel of those who would essentially argue for option 'b', in each of the above.
Ouch. The guy can't even get his own state onboard with his quixotic presidential ambitions. Maybe it's time to get back to work in Minnesota?
A majority of Minnesotans don't want to see Gov. Tim Pawlenty run for president in 2012, but nearly as many say they would give him a look if he were nominated, according to a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll.
The poll shows that only 30 percent of adults want to see the two-term governor make a try for the White House three years from now, while 55 percent do not.
But in a mixed message for Pawlenty, 25 percent of Minnesotans said there was a "good chance" they would vote for him if he became the GOP nominee, while another 25 percent said there was at least "some chance" they would vote for him. A solid 43 percent said there was no chance they would vote for a President Pawlenty.
I said it in yesterday's post: with the proper amount of hard work at voter ID and GOTV on the part of DFLers statewide, Minnesota is off the table in presidential races for the time being -- especially with Barack Obama at the head of the ticket. Amy Klobuchar will win too -- by a lot -- but there are plenty of ticket-splitters across the state, so that alone won't hurt a GOP presidential nominee. The statewide blue tilt in our most populous areas should be more than enough to do the trick.
Pollster Larry Hugick said the down economy may have hurt Pawlenty's approval ratings, but noted there is little comfort for Pawlenty in the rest of the poll numbers -- especially the 55 percent who don't want him to run for president.
I wonder how closely that 55% would sync up with agreeable answers to "I want a Governor who cares about what happens to the state that elected him" and "Tim Pawlenty isn't that guy." My guess is "pretty closely."
Update: Oh, I almost forgot -- before anyone from any Southern Regional Reactionary Party organization starts screaming about ZOMGZ STAR TRIBUNE STAR AND SICKLE SOCIALIST POLL ZOMGZZZZZZ!, let's remember that back in 2006, they took a lot of heat for predicting shortly before the election that Amy Klobuchar would get about 56% of the vote, more than any other poll predicted. Turns out they were just a tad low. Their methodology is pretty sound.
"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health insurance plans?"
Favor 65%
Oppose 26%
Interestingly, according to the poll, support for a public option has jumped 5 points since late August and opposition to it has dropped 8 points.
So who's in touch with the American public on health insurance reform? I'd lump the Blue Dog Dems in with the Roadblock Republicans in Congress in saying they're all way out of touch on the issue, but half of the Blue Dogs support the Public Option too. Instead, it really seems like the out-of-touch are restricted to the GOP in general and the three or four Senate Dems standing in the Public Option's way on the Finance Committee bill -- which, if Republican Olympia Snowe has her way, will also include a public option (albeit a triggered one).
The great thing about politics is that there's never a shortage of data to analyze, break down, distill, and use so we in the chattering class can talk shop.
Like this:
Despite all the slime that's been thrown at President Obama from the Southern Regional Conservative Party, his approval rating as President bottomed out around April 1st at a shade over 60%. If America is a "center-right nation" as the GOP's leaders' talking points put it after the Inauguration, we have a funny way of showing it.
It's curious, of course, that Rasmussen (they of the "Is it important that America keep the dollar as its currency?" push-polling idiocy) is the only pollster showing anything other than an extremely low disapproval rating. Their election-season polling is spot-on, but one has to wonder about their methodology here.
This too:
That's the NASDAQ stock market index, closing yesterday at its highest level since Election Day last year. Same story as the graph above: for all the whining from the right wing extremists in Congress over the myriad ways Barack Obama would be bad for the stock market, the leading indicators in the market are pointing upward again. I don't hold any illusions about the massive amounts of influence political leaders have over the economy -- it's overemphasized during the permanent campaign season. But what leaders can do is push policies that soften the rough spots and make sure the benefits of strong economic progress are felt by as many hardworking citizens as possible through job creation, innovation, and the advancement of modern technology.
If the stock market and President Obama's approval ratings are any indication, it would seem the American people agree.
Matt Entenza has officially announced, and Grace has posted video interviews with several candidates. There's been a little discussion here and there, but let's do a little straw poll action before another Power Ranking post next week (hint hint -- watch for it) -- who are you liking in the DFL gubernatorial field? Poll and comments are after the break.
Rasmussen has been one of the more stable pollsters this cycle, and with a pretty neutral set of results, partisanship-wise, but this one is a bit noisy. As Jeff correctly posits below, there's just no reason for this much movement among women this late in the game. Especially considering how stable Rasmussen's results have been in this race and how far out of whack it is with other recent results (including Rasmussen's), I have to chalk this one up to statistical noise.
Here's the current trend graph (click for the full-size version):
Dean Barkley may be beginning to tail off as we approach Election Day, but as SurveyUSA said of the Third district race earlier today, the Senate race is a jump-ball right now.
There's been a paucity of public polling on the Third district race, but I'm quite tempted to call this one out of whack.
Why? Check out the internals -- SurveyUSA is exercising a decided Republican tilt on this race, and while most of their splits feel okay, check this one out:
Party Affiliation
Republican
Democratic
Independent
Paulsen
87
9
39
Madia
8
79
43
Other
4
10
15
Undecided
1
2
3
Composition
32
34
30
That is, SurveyUSA seems to think that the electorate on Tuesday is likely to be 34% Democrats, 32% Republicans, and 30% independent-with-a-small-i. Call me skeptical. Barack Obama at the top of the ticket is carrying heavy coattails going into next week, and the electorate is more likely to be closer to 40% self-identified Democrats than it is to be 34%.
The other number I have a hard time believing in light of all the other polling we've seen this year is that just 79% of self-identified Democrats are behind Madia. In an environment in which the Republican brand has been so drastically damaged by corruption, greed, and George W. Bush, Erik Paulsen's "I'll be a moderate" message just doesn't ring true -- because it's not. Using SurveyUSA's composition numbers, if Madia consolidates about 9% of those 19% SurveyUSA thinks are behind Paulsen or "other", that would be a nice margin of victory for Madia.
Nonetheless, this is a close race like we knew it would be -- go to Madia for Congress to find out how you can help win the day for Ashwin Madia.
Update: As I expected, a lot of the 4-point net movement from SurveyUSA's previous poll came within Madia's Democratic support numbers -- I find it pretty hard to believe that in the past three weeks, Erik Paulsen's support among self-identified Democrats rose from 5 to 9 percent. Statistical noise can be a powerful thing. Work hard, leave it all on the road (as Kos has become fond of saying at Big Orange), and make sure you do your part to win this thing.
That yields the trendlines seen here (click for the full-size version:
First one to 42 wins this one, folks. Rasmussen's numbers have been surprisingly stable, both before and after IP candidate Dean Barkley's entrance into the race. Compared to their previous result, Franken is down two points and both Coleman and Barkley are stable at 37 and 17 respectively, but those two points are well within the range of statistical noise, especially when considering this result's place fit with other previous results. In the 5-poll running average, Coleman is down four tenths of a point and Barkley has dropped six tenths while Franken has remained steady at 40.
Not much to say about this one, other than that it fits right in with the recent trend. Here's the updated graph along with recent numbers:
My sentiments from a couple of days ago remain unchanged -- Dean Barkley has stalled at 18 percent, while Norm Coleman trails Al Franken by a little over two points. The Star Tribune noted today that Barkley's support may be shallow -- however, their support for that statement wasn't all that great, so your mileage may vary.
If these numbers hold, Franken needs to merely split the few remaining undecided voters with Norm Coleman -- a proposition that, given the current toxic environment for anyone with an (R) after their name, is not a difficult proposition to foresee -- to win a clear victory in two weeks.
With just 14 days to election day, and absentee ballots already being processed in the state of Minnesota, the race for Paul Wellstone's Senate seat is being closely watched - locally and nationally - and with good reason. Having been occupied by Norm Coleman (R) since Wellstone's untimely death two weeks before election day in 2002, the seat is well-positioned for a return to its Democratic - Wellstone - roots.
