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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (79443)	5/4/2010 12:28:28 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Republicans in Resurgence By: Ramesh Ponnuru National Review Online A new poll by Resurgent Republic, a conservative group, confirms the trends that other political observers have been seeing: This year’s electorate leans to the right, with most independents seeing eye to eye with Republicans on the major issues. But the survey also includes some warning signs for conservatives. Republican strategist Ed Gillespie and pollster Whit Ayres founded Resurgent Republic one year ago to do for the Right what James Carville, Stanley Greenberg, and Bob Shrum had done for the Left with Democracy Corps: provide opinion research helpful to the cause and available to the public. Its latest survey of 1,000 likely voters yielded a by-now-familiar picture of the current political scene. Voters are evenly split on President Obama’s job performance (48 percent to 48 percent), with his critics having stronger views on the matter. By a four-point margin, voters would prefer to elect Republicans to Congress. By a five-point margin, they think that the government is trying to do too many things. They are extremely concerned about federal spending. Asked whether the government should spend more to boost the economy or less to reduce the deficit, voters break 59-34 for less spending. By a slightly smaller margin, they think that the stimulus was a waste of money. In both cases, Democratic voters are out of step with a Republican-and-independent consensus. Fifty-three percent of independents join 89 percent of Republicans in opposing “the health care reform plan that Congress passed recently.” Much of that opposition is intense: 42 percent of independents and 81 percent of Republicans called themselves “strongly opposed.” Voters expect the legislation to raise taxes, premiums, and the deficit; a plurality also expects it to reduce the quality of care. Given three options -- leave the legislation in place, amend and modify it, or replace and repeal it -- voters split 22-37-35. On some emerging economic issues, however, a conservative consensus includes a plurality of Democrats. Asked whether they think it is good or bad that federal pay exceeds private-sector pay, 62 percent of voters said it was a bad thing and only 19 percent a good one. A new value-added tax was unpopular across the board: Voters panned it by a 67-21 percent margin, with only 31 percent of Democrats approving. Democrats revert to being out-of-step on some national-security issues. While voters, by a five-point margin, think that Obama has improved the country’s standing in the world, voters by large margins want to keep Guantanamo Bay open (60-32) and favor military tribunals for trying terrorists (56-36). The survey, in short, provides an enormous amount of good news for Republicans and conservatives. It even finds that Republicans in Congress, while still unpopular, are less disliked than Democrats in Congress. But the picture is not wholly sunny. A fair reading of the survey results suggests that conservatives would have to adjust their approach on some issues to bring the public on board. It is Republican voters who are out of step with independents, for example, on the question of whether human beings are causing climate change. Most voters are also open to creating “a path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants, while Republicans believe that would reward lawbreaking. The survey found that voters want to elect Republican congressmen as a counterweight to the Democrats -- but their receptivity to the check-and-balance argument depended on how it was made. An argument that suggested that the Democrats were being “arrogant” and “ignoring what most voters want” persuaded fewer voters than an argument about the danger of “too much power in one party’s hands.” Similarly, voters were more receptive to the argument that federal spending is being squandered in ways that “create few private sector jobs” than to the argument that “the Obama Administration is taking advantage of the recession to make massive increases in government spending” that would hurt the economy. Voters do not attribute malign intent to Obama or his party. Finally, the survey finds that voters do not blame the administration for the state of the economy. Republicans could read that finding as bad news. I prefer to take it as a tribute to the good sense of the public, which knows that there are limits to what laws or kings can cause or cure. Perhaps it is also a sign that economic recovery will not redound as much to the Democrats’ credit as they are hoping. -- Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor for National Review. .

To: Sully- who wrote (79443)	5/4/2010 1:17:44 PM
From: Brumar89	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

"The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office." Ludwig Von Mises Boy that is relevant for a guy who died in 1973.