Pew has just dropped
a motherload of polling data of their website. It covers just about everything going on in the political world right now. Bush is at 35-55%. Dems lead the generic ballot 51-41, thanks entirely to a whopping 20-point lead among Independents. There is a rising anti-incumbent mood, but still not at 1994 levels. Democrats lead on ethics reform, but the country is cynical on that matter. Bush fatigue is rising. Opinions on Iraq are stable, and Iraq remains the number one story for people. Democrats are also favored on immigration, but by a plurality, not a majority. Third-party opinions remain stable, and on and on and on.
I could look at a report like this all day, but I want to reproduce here three charts from
the report summary that I thought were particularly interesting.
Starting with the chart on the left, the negative charges against the two parties seem pretty clear. Republicans are greedy, rich, big business, crooks, corrupt, liars, etc. Basically, corrupt rich people. Democrats are weak, disorganized, confused, stupid, etc. Basically, people who don't know what they are doing.
Looking at the center chart, Hillary Clinton clearly receives the most votes for Democratic leader, but 16% still isn't a very high total. In fact, "no one" comes in at 30%, well above Hillary's total.
Finally, looking at the chart on the right, can we please have Bill Frist be the Republican nominee in 2008? Please, please, please! He has a significantly lower rating among Independents than any other potential candidate listed. This guy really looks like the ideal candidate for us to go up against in 2008. Also, these numbers indicate what an atrocious job we have done by allowing Republicans to have no many potential candidates with such broad appeal across partisan lines. While Republicans gleefully close the triangle during our internal battle over people like Clinton and Dean, Republicans like Giuliani, McCain and Rice continue to be generally unscathed.
On the Democratic side, it is no surprise to learn that John Edwards has the broadest national appeal. It is somewhat more surprising that Feingold and Warner do not score higher among Democrats (especially considering how well Feingold does among independents). I chalk both cases up to their still generally low name ID's (Feingold is at 38%, Warner is at 37%), although I admit it might not be a good sing for either one.
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Finally, I have to wonder how much the people who conduct the Pew poll read MyDD. First, I gave them
a Distorty award, and in their next survey
they changed their Iraq quesiton. A little later on, I said trial heats for 2008 were useless at this point, and that
I would rather see a favorables poll. So, they give us just that too. Spooky.
