Poll Position

by DemFromCT

Recent polls to add to your data base. CBS sez:

The president’s approval level remains below 50 percent, and Americans are still divided over the war in Iraq. They are paying attention to one of the summer’s major news stories – the possible 2003 leak to reporters of the identity of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame. In fact, the story has captured a level of attention from the public similar to the early stages of political scandals such as Whitewater, the Democrats' 1996 fundraising and Iran Contra.

THE PLAME INVESTIGATION

Americans are skeptical about the Bush administration’s behavior and public statements about the 2003 leak of the name of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters. Only 12 percent think the Bush administration is telling the entire truth about the matter; more than half –- 55 percent -- think the administration is mostly telling the truth but hiding something, and another 22 percent think it is lying.

REGARDING LEAK, BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS

Telling entire truth - All
12%
Hiding something - All
55%
Mostly lying - All
22%

Many Republicans doubt the administration is telling all it knows to the public. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans think the administration is hiding something or lying -- although 28 percent think it is telling the entire truth. Democrats are much more skeptical.

In previous polls, a majority of the public also felt the Bush administration was withholding information about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and the Enron collapse.

As for responsibility for the leak, just over half of Americans think it was someone in the Bush administration. Twenty-one percent think it was not someone in the administration. However, about a quarter don’t know.

Less than Watergate, more than a summer squall. But Fitzgerald's other shoe is yet to drop. Oh, and the war?

Views on other questions about the war in Iraq are unchanged since July. Americans remain divided over whether taking military action in Iraq was the right thing to do, and most, 64 percent, think it is likely that the United States will succeed in Iraq.

Match this with AP-Ipsos:

An AP-Ipsos poll showed public support of Bush's handling of the war had dropped to 38 percent, the lowest so far.

We're hitting the 30's in the polls on the war. Bush is still enjoying the 50-50 polarization he's created, but with weak support. He has a ceiling and a very tenuous floor. Most people don't want to think of politics at all over the summer, and we are going to have to wait until fall to sort it all out. Bottom line, Bush has been set up for a major erosion in trust from the Plame-Wilson leaks, and it's highly unlikely that the erosion will somehow be confined to one area, one topic.

There's much about Iraq and Bush's WoT® that the public just takes on faith, and when that faith is gone... pffft. Goodbye 40's, hello, 30's.

Comments

[emptywheel]

And they haven't even started polling the Franklin indictments, which could implicate several in this administration too.

[revere]

From your observations here, it would seem that the DNC should be mentioning Enron, Abu Ghraib and Plame rather more often than they do. Or am I just deluded by common sense?

[Kagro X]

As things heat up, I'd love to see some serious polling on the question of the various "exit strategies" that have been discussed for this administration.

I sometimes like to ponder the impact of a serious poll that actually asked questions about impeachment/resignation. Even if the numbers weren't particularly encouraging, imagine the impact of seeing it in the papers twice a week.

[Mimikatz]

Is the public following the various corruption stories? Probably not, but that is a sleeper theme to use against the GOP Congress. It won't take much to turn the people against that bunch. But I do agree that by the first of the year the Dems need to have a program to sell, such as US out of Iraq; Opportunity for all not just a few; fair taxes; reliable safety net (including health care) and respect for individual privacy.

[Plutonium Page]

Kagro X, wasn't there a poll about impeachment a month ago or so?

[DemFromCT]

revere, the DNC should... the media won't because they view all this as 'old news'. But if Dems do bring it up, the media will have to.

[Kagro X]

I dunno. I don't actually know anybody who follows polls who I can ask.

[DemFromCT]

Zogby:

Zogby America Poll. June 27-29, 2005. N=905 likely voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.3 (for all likely voters).

"Do you agree or disagree that if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment?"

Agree Disagree Unsure
% % %
ALL 42 50 8
Democrats 59 30 10
Republicans 25 70 5
Independents 43 49 8
Libertarians 36 53 12

[DemFromCT]

hey, Kagro, what am I? Chopped liver? ;-)

[emptywheel]

Uh, Dem, what's a matter, your sarcasm glasses not working today?

You know, I taught a deaf woman once, and she told me there is no marker in sign language for irony. She said she had to be close enough to a person, and know that person well enough, and be keeping enough of an eye on that person (as opposed to the signer) to read the irony. The professor who was lecturing the course and I had been cracking on Freud for weeks before I figured out she was taking us seriously.

[DemFromCT]

Heh.

I hope I didn't disappoint anyone in that it took me a few minutes to find it. ;-(

[emptywheel]

Just use it as a baseline to improve off of. 37 minutes. Can you improve on that for the next time? We can even get you a little beeper in case we need a poll result while you're in a meeting or something.

[Kagro X]

Well, here's to having more of it. Keep the question in the polling, and keep asking. There's probably no better way to get this question taken seriously than by planting it while in "hey, just asking" mode.