A Spork in the Drawer

Backlash?

The separation of church and state gaining in popularity:

Social conservatives are growing more wary of church involvement in politics, joining moderates and liberals in their unease about blurring the lines between pulpit and ballot box, a new study found.

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That significant shift in conservative thought has brought the country to a tipping point on the question: a slim majority of Americans _ 52 percent _ now think churches should keep out of politics.

However:

"To my mind, that spells frustration," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. "But by the same token, we know these very same people are not interested in less religiosity in the political discourse. They almost universally want a religious person as president.

"It's not that they want to take religion out of politics, it's that their frustrations with the way things seem to be going are leading them to say, 'Well, maybe churches should back off on this.'"

So, really, who knows? But if this bears out over time it would be a welcome change.

Full poll results here.

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Shocking!

Regular viewers of Fox "News" prefer St. John!

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Fox News viewers say they are likely to vote for John McCain, while those who watch CNN and MSNBC plan to support Barack Obama in November by more than two to one.

It's worth remembering that Fox viewers are among the worst informed consumers of news.

[Via Chris Bowers.]

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Obvious Point Of The Day

No kidding:

Poll: Country's mood at historic low

I can't imagine why.

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Down Down Down

Meanwhile, on the Left Coast:

Less than a quarter of California voters – 24 percent – said they approve of Bush's job performance, compared with 71 percent who said they disapprove.

The latter mark is higher than Nixon's 70 percent disapproval rating in August 1974, the same month he resigned from office after his role in the Watergate scandal was revealed.

184 days.

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Can't Imagine Why

Congress:

[A] new Gallup poll now has Congress at its lowest approval rating ever in the firm's 34 years of tracking this stat: Approve 14%, Disapprove 75%.

Further:

And get this: The poll, like several others before it, also finds that the group now most likely to approve of the Democratically-controlled Congress is Republicans, at 19% approval. Only 11% of Democrats and 14% of independents approve.

And yet Nancy and Steny and Rahm and Harry and Chuck won't even notice.

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1% Of Americans Believe Obama Is Jewish

Oy gevalt!

The other numbers are more depressing than funny.

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Keep In Mind For November

In a new WaPo-ABCNews poll 30% of whites admit to being racists.

(34% of blacks admit the same but considering that they make up 12% or so of the population it won't make much of a difference in the election.)

Relatedly, Obama's candidacy has been a boon to the professional racists. Says one:

"I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president."

(What the hell does "overtly nonwhite" mean anyway? Can someone be nonwhite without being overt about it? Or is Mr. Roper simply dumb as a sack of hammers?)

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Props For Honesty

Alone among all the polling organizations Public Policy Polling predicted an Obama win in PA yesterday. Whoops. So what's PPP's reaction to the actual results? Shockingly, honesty:

The networks have called it for Hillary and I think after Florida in 2000 they're not going to make that mistake again, so obviously our polls were wrong.

First off, please do not call us or e-mail us and tell us we suck! We are well aware, and it does not feel good.

After an explanation of their methodology:

We will just move on and try to do better in North Carolina.

Would that all organizations - and individuals - show such humility.

[Via Taegan Goddard.]

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Better Copy Editors Please

Misleading (to say the least):

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

That makes it sound like FDR was an extraordinarily unpopular president. He wasn't. What they mean is that presidential popularity polls began since he was president.

That's the sort of thing a competent editor catches.

Now for the good bit:

President Bush has set a record he'd presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.

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The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.

Furthermore, ARG pegs George's approval rating at 22%.

272 days.

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Why Predicting And Cluelessness Don't Mix

By way of Pony Boy we see that Harris has found:

This pessimistic attitude is not just towards the country as a whole. Just one-quarter (26%) of Americans give President Bush positive ratings on his job while just under three-quarters (72%) give him negative ratings. This is down from February when 28 percent gave him positive marks and 69 percent have him negative ones. This current rating also ties his lowest ever positive rating which was first reached in July of 2007.

Whenever I see one of these presidential popularity poll I think back to this David Broder column published on 16 February, 2007 - well over a year ago:

It may seem perverse to suggest that, at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback. But don't be astonished if that is the case.

It should be noted that Broder still has his job.

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Hardly Surprising

The state of the Union...not so good:

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.

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A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.

On the good side (if there is one) it looks like people know who's at fault:

The poll found that Americans blame government officials for the crisis more than banks or home buyers and other borrowers. Forty percent of respondents said regulators were mostly to blame, while 28 percent named lenders and 14 percent named borrowers.

That's because Americans are smart enough to understand that regulatory agencies are supposed to, y'know, regulate rather than function as protectors of wealth and corporate power.

And:

Yet many say they are merely managing to stay in place, rather than get ahead. This view is consistent with the income statistics of the past five years, which suggest that median household income has still not returned to the inflation-adjusted peak it hit in 1999. Since the Census Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, there has never been an extended economic expansion that ended without setting a new record for household income.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

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ADDED: U.S. economy sheds 80,000 jobs in March

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Holy Cow!

19%

I smell a statistical glitch. We'll see.

[Via Political Wire.]

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The State Of Things

People just want it to be over:

It's almost as if people can barely stand the thought of President Bush and Congress anymore. Bush reached his lowest approval rating in The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on Friday as only 30 percent said they like the job he is doing, including an all-time low in his support by Republicans. Congress' approval fell to just 22 percent, equaling its poorest grade in the survey. Both marks dropped by 4 percentage points since early January.

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Yet Bush's acceptance by his own party is at bottom in the AP-Ipsos poll. Just 61 percent of Republicans gave Bush positive reviews; his previous low was 65 percent last month. Only 28 percent of them expressed strong approval.

About one in 10 Democrats and three in 10 independents gave Bush positive marks.

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Bush also hit a new low in this month's poll for his work on domestic issues like health care, energy and the environment, getting approval from 27 percent, a 7-point tumble since January. Thirty-three percent approved of his handling of the war in Iraq, virtually unchanged.

346 days.

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Zogby Update

Famed pollster John Zogby, whom I placed on a suicide watch this morning, explains how he got California so wrong:

About California: Some of you may have noticed our pre-election polling differed from the actual results. It appears that we underestimated Hispanic turnout and overestimated the importance of younger Hispanic voters. We also overestimated turnout among African-American voters. Those of you who have been following our work know that we have gotten 13 out of 17 races right this year, and so many others over the years. This does happen.

As Jane says, "Yes, Hispanic Voters Vote."

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John Zogby Suicide Watch

Zogby California poll: Obama by 13.

Actual result: Clinton by 29.

Whoops!

Overall, it's basically a dead heat between Obama (732 delegates) and Clinton (825 delegates).

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