Slippery pols relying on slippery polls (Democrats and the war)
One arena in which even Bush’s opponents would probably agree he stands out is that he’s the rare public figure who really doesn’t much care what the majority thinks when he sets his agenda; he does what he thinks is right. Of course, that’s either cause for celebration if you tend to agree with him (“resolute,” “integrity,” “courage of his convictions”) or anathema if you don’t (“stubborn,” “arrogant,” “demented,” “evil”).
There’s little doubt that most politicians aren’t nearly so good at ignoring the polls, although our republican (that’s a small “r,” not a typo) form of government dictates that a legislator vote his/her conscience rather than what’s popular.
Clinton, for example, was famous for setting his policy by the latest polls. And there’s no doubt whatsoever that the present Democratic push for a withdrawal from Iraq and a cutoff of funds for the campaign there is to a large extent poll-driven, although there are certainly ideological underpinnings. Here, for example, are some telling quotes:
“This legislation responds to the wishes of the American people to end the war,” Pelosi said, surrounded by American flags, seven TV cameras and dozens of reporters…The ceremony itself was “designed to send a signal to the president that if he decides to veto this bill, he stands alone and at odds with the American people,” said Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley.
The bill received a very theatrical presentation at its sendoff to the President, especially for one that was doomed to be vetoed, has little chance of an override, and therefore was about to die a quick death once it got to its destination. The spectacle was designed to appeal to what the Democrats assume is the disgust of a majority of Americans with the war, and their strong desire to end it quickly.
That’s certainly an understandable conclusion for the Democrats to draw; recent polls have indicated support for a withdrawal within the year. And the Democrats—rightly or wrongly—attribute their victory last November in Congress to their antiwar stance, and are trying to extend it and capitalize on it for 2008.
But beware polls and their vagaries. One of those quirks is that poll results can differ widely based on the way a question is asked. And it turns out that seems to be the case for Iraq and the pullout and the fund cut.
I first was alerted to this fact by a comment from reader “sergey,” calling my attention to National Review’s Cliff May’s report on a series of polls with some results that ought to give the Democrats pause if they feel certain their current strategy is a winner in the political sense.
Americans may have been against the surge when it was proposed, but according to recent polls they are also against Congress’s denying the money for additional troops (61% against, a hefty majority). If that seems contradictory, I can only say that human beings aren’t known for their consistency. In this case a further explanation could be that, although the majority of people wish Bush would give up on the war and the whole thing would just go away, once a course of action such as a surge has been proposed and is in operation, they do not support cutting it off in mid-stream and they especially don’t like what they see as Congress’s overreaching to tell the military what it should do.
This is borne out by the response to another poll question May reports: 69% of American voters (an even heftier majority) trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. Americans may not think much of Bush right now, but they think even less of Congress’s ability to set a military agenda.
President Bush, that non-poll watcher, may have read a few in preparation for a remark of his made as he vetoed the bill (only the second time in his Presidency that he’s exercised the veto power, by the way): it “substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders.” Pelosi countered with, “We had hoped that the president would have treated it with the respect that bipartisan legislation supported overwhelmingly by the American people deserved.”
I don’t think she’s done all her homework.
pbs.org***
Neo writes:
“One arena in which even Bush’s opponents would probably agree he stands out is that he’s the rare public figure who really doesn’t much care what the majority thinks when he sets his agenda; he does what he thinks is right.”
You make him sound so honorable and principled. Yet what he is actually doing is a sllippery pol move itself: appealing appeal to his base.
“As soon as the Supreme Court had decided that George W. Bush was to be the next president of the United States, Karl Rove focused on 4 million evangelicals who had not gone to the polls in 2000…My fear is at what cost to governance and what cost to the future of the party, because by hardening the base, by everything being aimed at that base of the evangelicals and the social fundamentalists, there was no effort to reach out to the middle. …
When you talk about the base, describe the base you are talking about.
Well, to me, the base was those 4 million evangelicals and the evangelicals who did vote for him, as well as the 4 million who had not voted for him…
… Can you govern from only a base strategy?
I don’t think so. And that’s what is very concern[ing] to me, because as an elected official, you’re not representing just the base; you’re representing all the people who elected you.
— Christine Todd Whitman
bloomberg.com***
I didn’t trust that article because he didn’t link to the poll results. Digging a bit, I find this:
May writes:
According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007).
But he fails to mention this:
A poll done by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed 59 percent of American said they want their representative to support withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by August 2008, while a third said their representative should oppose such a measure.
The poll was conducted April 18-22 among 1,508 adults. It has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
I’m telling you guys, stay away from those hack sites.
UB–Your so-called “hack sites” are far from the only sites that fail to quote the complex entirety of polls. That’s an equal-opportunity failure. And it’s part of my point about relying on polls–if the Democrats think they really understand what the American people think about this topic based on some polls, they’ve got another think coming. It seems to me, based on the entire poll picture, that it is likely that people don’t like the war but also don’t like what Congress has done recently and don’t trust that august legislative body. But if I were a member of Congress, I wouldn’t bet my legislative life on it—or base my vote on it. Then again, that’s one of the reasons I’m not a politician.
Remember Karl Rove and “The Math?”
http://newsbusters.org/node/8603
Misreading polls is a bi-partisan sport.
That’s an equal-opportunity failure.
I agree with you entirely on this point, that’s why I didn’t link to “motherjones.com” or something like that. So if you agree it is a failure why continue to rely on such sites to support your arguments?
“It seems to me, based on the entire poll picture…”
The “entire poll picture,” really? Or just the parts of the poll “elephant” Cliff May allowed you to see?
UB: I mean what I say. The entire poll picture, including the polls with antiwar results that I researched for a previous post on the subject.
Julius Caesar- Men willingly see what they wish.
Churchill- There is no public opinion. There is only published opinion.
Churhill- A nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders that have their ears to the ground.
UB:
“You make him (Bush), sound so honorable and principled. Yet what he is actually doing is a sllippery pol move itself: appealing appeal to his base.”
Why would he need to? He’s not running for anything.
He sounds honorable and principled because he is honorable and principled.
The Dhimmicrats are being incredibly stupid, painting themselves into a corner, if the war turns around they will be unelectable in ’08, if otherwise and they are elected, they will have to deal with a much worse situation in Iraq that they themselves have helped to create by their encouragement to the enemy. So they carry on the fight thereby letting down their supporters or withdraw the troops, setting off a monumental disaster that they will have to take responsibility for.
A majority of Iraqis believe Iraq will stabilize once our troops leave, tony.
And a majority of Iraqis do indeed want us to leave.
But those are just poll results, so who cares, eh?
UB, you left out this: Well, this is a blue-state mythology that we ran a base campaign. We did not win with the base. The base is always important. The base is important for both sides [but] you can’t win with the base. What this president won by, and significantly so in this election, were moderates. That’s what Kerry didn’t get. So you had to put moderates on top of something. But, there was no data that suggest any increase at any of the so-called base voters beyond the percentage of what they voted for in the last election. That is the fact.
It has become, even in the face of the repudiation of conventional wisdom, new conventional wisdom, that this was a base election. That’s just not the case. So if the blue staters continue to mis-analyze what happened in this election, they will continue along the path of not such a positive outcome. …
Just didn’t like that opinion?
I also find it bizarre that anyone believes any group of 4 million is ‘the’ base for a guy who earned more than 50 million votes. Wierd.
Americans may have been against the surge when it was proposed, but according to recent polls they are also against Congress’s denying the money for additional troops (61% against, a hefty majority). If that seems contradictory, I can only say that human beings aren’t known for their consistency.
It is not a contradiction.
What we’re seeing is the first beginning of the rejection, by American voters, of both Democratic and Republican parties. Both parties are losing the trust of the people.
This was bound to start happening sooner or later, because both parties are corrupt, and beholden to Big Money — on account of the scandalous role that money power plays in our elections.
The Internet is beginning — only just beginning — to change that. As people take over more and more control of the media — as they effectively become content makers rather than content consumers — the rejection of the Demopublicans and Republicrats will grow more and more.
I bet that third-party candidates will win more votes in 2008 than in any previous election. (I’m personally hoping that Ralph Nader will run again).
The blogosphere has contributed to this welcome development. Much as I disagree with Neo-neocon and her neoconservative politics, kudos to her and other bloggers — from both right and left — for widening the voice of the public in the public sphere.
Let us hope that the two-party system/circus soon meets its end where it belongs — in the dustbin of History.
UB:
“You make him (Bush), sound so honorable and principled. Yet what he is actually doing is a sllippery pol move itself: appealing appeal to his base.”
Why would he need to? He’s not running for anything.
True, Bush is personally not running for anything, but the movement that he and Cheney represent, the neoconservative movement, is still going to be there. As a loyal soldier of the movement, Bush will do what he perceives will keep the base of that movement happy.
The general picture, in my opinion, is loss of trust to political system as a whole. Bush administration was the first victim of this loss, but this does not mean that Congress and Senate took advantage of this development: they lost too. And media focus on scandals and political hacking every day aggravates this loss. This makes situation inherently unstable and unpredictable, and any strong personality with high degree of integrity and creditability can become a charismatic leader overthrowing the whole political landscape.
This makes situation inherently unstable and unpredictable, and any strong personality with high degree of integrity and creditability can become a charismatic leader overthrowing the whole political landscape.
I think that’s unlikely, because the Internet (which is driving many of the changes) is inherently a decentralized medium. Look at the example of the emergence of “NetRoots”, for example. Politics will increasingly become bottom-up and people-driven, rather than top-down and leader-driven/lobbyist-driven, from now on.
There is no contradiction. Charismatic leaders only benefit from decentralization of politics: they operate not through established political structures, but changing popular opinion by their ideas. This was phenomenon of Yeltzin. The more discredited establishment became, the more are their chances with new media – talk radios and blogosphere. This is not a coincidence that Soros tried to shut down talk radios by obsolete regulatory doctrines like “equal representation” of different opinions. Now this cat would not jump.
After collapse of Communism what left of the Left put their hopes on Gramshian stategy of winning propaganda war by monopolizing media and education. This strategy became undermined by rise of alternative media, that are inherently decentralized so no one can monopolize them. Battle of ideas became what it should be, that is of ideas, not parties propaganda machines. And, honestly, there is no single new idea to talk about in left part of the spectrum during last 20 years, while old ones are largely discredited and can not attract public any more. Indoctrination at campuses do not save situation, as Communist leaders in recent past had a chance to discover. You can not sell obsolete goods indefinitely, no matter how massive marketing campaign is.
And, honestly, there is no single new idea to talk about in left part of the spectrum during last 20 years, while old ones are largely discredited and can not attract public any more.
Funny, that. In the last few years, most of Latin America has shifted to the left: Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil. Even the Sandinistas are back in power in Nicaragua and Daniel Ortega just won the elections. In Mexico the left came very close to winning and will likely win in the next election, and the same is the case in Peru as well.
dqw: As an aside to pols and polls, referring to the traditional political left/right spectrum in any but the developed Western States demonstrates ignorance and/or advocacy. The reality, on the ground, is somewhat more complicated.
Turning back to the original post, the problem with polls is that sufficiently granular polls do not lend themselves to facile analysis. This leads to the cherry picking behavior beloved of politicians and media (The If/Then fallacy). A finely grained poll with well designed bias corrections is inherently a lagging indicator so “hot off the griddle” analysis is highly suspect, leading to the “All generalizations are wrong, including this one” conundrum.
And, since most Americans can’t count water in a bucket they, and their politicians, depend upon professional temple entrail readers of dubious honor and ability. The President is correct in ignoring “polling data” served up like golf clubs selected for the next shot.
Hi guy in pajamas. You asked me:
Just didn’t like that opinion?
Quite honestly I didn’t read it. You see, I’m not in my pajamas, I’m (supposedly) at work. 🙂
Matalin states:
But, there was no data that suggest any increase at any of the so-called base voters beyond the percentage of what they voted for in the last election. That is the fact.
May be true, but the question here is not whether or not he won the last election due to an increase in “base” turnout, is it? They just had to simply turn out, because, as she says:
…you had to put moderates on top of something.
I also find it bizarre that anyone believes any group of 4 million is ‘the’ base for a guy who earned more than 50 million votes. Wierd.
If you include “the 4 million who didn’t vote for him [in the previous election] it was actually 8 million, and as we all know very well, it’s not necessarily how many votes one gets, but rather where one gets them.
About appealing to the base, Harry asked:
Why would he need to? He’s not running for anything.
And thank God for that! 😉
If leftists ideas need for their electorial success the most benighted, mostly illiterate Latin America’s Indian population, this only underscores how hopelessly obsolete and weird they are. Chaves has not introduced anything new, he simply apes Castro, and his copy-cats ape him. But Cuba decades ago became economically basket case; the same fate waits Castro’s followers. This is not for long, anyway: when economics came to pieces, more wealthy and educated whites living in cities will rebel, and Chaves will share fate of Allende.
“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” G.K. Chestertone.
And business of neo-cons is to prevent mistakes from being repeated, and to correct those already done.
“Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion. This could be seen in the most casual contemporary fashions, if the fashionable mind had not fallen into the habit of seeing the very latest rebel as rebelling against all ages at once. The Modern Girl with the lipstick and the cocktail is as much a rebel against the Woman’s Rights Woman of the ’80’s, with her stiff stick-up collars and strict teetotalism, as the latter was a rebel against the Early Victorian lady of the languid waltz tunes and the album full of quotations from Byron: or as the last, again, was a rebel against a Puritan mother to whom the waltz was a wild orgy and Byron the Bolshevist of his age. Trace even the Puritan mother back through history and she represents a rebellion against the Cavalier laxity of the English Church, which was at first a rebel against the Catholic civilisation, which had been a rebel against the Pagan civilisation. Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that these things were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other.”
From “St. Thomas Aquinas” by G.K. Chesterton
If Bush were poll-driven, he would have invaded in 2004 instead of 2003, riding into the next election on the fairly automatic support a president has for the first year of a war. The drop in support after three years is also automatic. Neither should be overestimated for what it means long-term.
Meh. I’ve never understood the totemic hold that polls and approval ratings hold for the Democrats (“Bush’s approval rating is the lowest ever!” “The American people have spoken!”). It’s government by whim, which is fine if the country is economically and militarily secure enough to endure a period of dimwitted frivolity, but it’s going to paralyze any president confronted with a real crisis that calls for unpopular action – which is why I think, despite his lachrymose protestations to the contrary, Clinton could never have faced 9/11 and OIF with Bush’s resolution. The left might scream that Bush isn’t serious about the war because he won’t call for sacrifice – a disingenuous argument, in my opinion – but can anyone imagine Bubba bearing to face the wails of anguish from a fatted American public if he’d called for real wartime sacrifice?
And, continuing in a rather ignorant vein, why on earth do we insist on treating polls as the true sounding board of public opinion? Both the left and right know that the truly neutral poll – one that does not push its points, nor lead the respondent to one “correct” answer – is a rarer bird than the passenger pigeon.
The poll is corrupt by its nature, and corrupt because of its respondents. Are these “American people” Reid’s spokesman talks about really familiar with the Iraq situation? Do they read any milblogs? Have they followed Petraeus’ briefings? Or do they get their all of their information from a 2-minute morning drive radio report that says “another explosion in Baghdad” and the local paper’s hagiographic covering of the newest Code Pink rally?
William F. Buckley might have been more comfortable being governed by the first hundred names in the Cambridge telephone book than by the Harvard faculty, but I shudder to think what kinds of foreign and domestic disasters this country would face on a daily basis if the US were truly governed by polls touted by mendacious Rs and Ds as “the will of the American people.”
My understanding of the polls is that people want the troops to come home as soon as possible (I do too,) but they are not sure if it’s possible now. And, as Neo said, they aren’t very trusting of the politicians reasons for wanting them home now (as opposed to the military commanders who are not seen as having an agenda other than fulfilling the mission if possible.)
Considering, as Christopher indicated, that most Americans are not expert analysts of Iraq, this represents nothing more than a general overview of common sense: lets get the troops home as soon as we possibly can without making the situation worse.
When “as soon as we possibly can” actually is is something for the experts and military leaders to decide, and congress should be listening to THEM before coming up with timetables. Quoting polls to justify thoughtless (but politically expedient) decisions is just asinine.
If this is the kind of democracy we really want, lets just chuck the whole congress and decide everything by referendum. If they are not going to take the time (that we can’t take) to find the information they need to make good decisions, then why the hell do we need them? And if we are not willing to allow them to vote their conscience, but expect them to keep coming back to us for direction, we did we waste time voting for them in the first place?
“why” did we waste time…
not “we” did we waste time.
My apologies.
I’m curious as to how those who support Bush and our continued occupation of Iraq see it turning out successfully? Details, please, as to what you see happening, month by month, year by year. I’d like to see your budget, too. How many more supplemental bills, for how much money and for what in the way of equipment and troops. Keep in mind that we already have about 250,000 troops there now, when you include the private contracting security forces.
Jackie,
It’s pretty simple for me.
I consider success in Iraq to be the absence of terrorists actively trying to drop a building on my head in NYC today.
Call me old fashioned but I consider not having to leap out of the 100th floor to my death on the concrete below to be “a gift that keeps on giving”.
AQ is in Iraq, being shot up by U.S. troops, that is exactly where they belong IMHO.
False question, Jackie, though I’m sure it seems fair at first thought. In 1942 or even 44 we could not have mapped out what we expected to happen. No could we in any conflict.
I am uncertain how innocent your question is, though it is certainly put politely, for which I thank you. If you are actually asking, the answer is that we stay until the Iraqis can maintain relatively peaceful government on their own. I think that seems an evasive answer to some of the president’s critics. who want something more definite before they sign off. Such definition seems reasonable at first look. But when one considers that such things are never available in any war, the request for definition is revealed as a fundamental misunderstanding of all foreign affairs.
I will toss part of the question back to you for your contemplation. You are describing a line of persuasion which says “if conservatives can explain to us exactly what we are buying, progressives will consider the purchase.” That is an adversarial framing, rather than a discussion of what should we do together. That adversarial framing is exactly what the conservatives have accused the progressives of since about February 2002 – that the left envisions the struggle as being against Bush and the neocons rather than against the country’s enemies.
Rich wrote:
I consider success in Iraq to be the absence of terrorists actively trying to drop a building on my head in NYC today.
This type of success in Iraq will never happen. Based on a previous discussion, I am sure even Neo will agree with me on this point.
AQ is in Iraq, being shot up by U.S. troops, that is exactly where they belong IMHO.
This is not true either. “Al Qaeda in Iraq” is in Iraq. “Al Qaeda” is still…well, wherever they are.
AVI wrote:
False question, Jackie, though I’m sure it seems fair at first thought. In 1942 or even 44 we could not have mapped out what we expected to happen.
But we certainly had a picture of how it would look at the end, no? Nazi Germany out of Europe and Africa, certainly. Probably even the unconditional surrender of Germany was the goal from very early on.
I know there was some internal debate about how far to go with Japan in terms of unconditional surrender. But certainly there was a “beat them back out of the territories they have invaded” in mind as a concrete objective.
While I think Jackie may have overreached a bit in asking for a month-to-month budget and scenario, her main question was more along the lines of “how do supporters of the continued occupation define victory?”
Seems legitimate to me.
How did the supporters of the continued occupations in 1946 (and 1953) define victory?
***
AVI asked:
“How did the supporters of the continued occupations in 1946 (and 1953) define victory?”
Like this, and this.
UB, then, by your definition, the war was over Sept. 2, 1945. If victory was so obviously achieved, the question remains why the need for occupation at all? Let alone 60+ years later, and to this day. Same with Korea, why the continued occupation if victory was obviously achieved at Panmunjon? The argument today is Bush said “mission accomplished”, but somehow, the war continues because the occupation does not go as well as planned, therefore “victory” somehow cannot be defined.
So, the question remains: “How did the supporters of the continued occupations in 1946(and 1953) define victory?”.