Don't Believe the Hype
Ladd, Everett Carll
Don't Believe the Hype by Everett Carll Ladd HERE S A POLITICAL CONUNDRUM: Why did President Clinton capitulate to congressional Republicans' main demands in the preliminary budget agreement...
...Had it been, some enterprising journalists might have seen reason to review all the relevant poll findings...
...By themselves these data hardly spell disaster for the president, but neither do they show him gaining...
...The answer may lie in part in the contrasting political character of the president and the current congressional leadership...
...Well before last Sunday's White House decision to give in and end the stalemate that had shut down the government, the administration had been under growing pressure from a large bloc of congressional Democrats to do just that...
...On the trial heats front, the president has for the past three months been shown besting Senator Dole, just as he was shown getting womped by Colin Powell before the general declined to run...
...Over the last quarter century "Congress" has become an epithet, while even relatively unpopular presidents are seen symbolizing the quest for national unity...
...The president's approval ratings have been a model of consistency-dropping on rare occasions into the high thirties and rising a couple of times to the high fifties, but remaining stuck mostly in a narrow range from the mid-forties to the low fifties...
...Forty percent called themselves only somewhat confident, and 30 percent said they had no confidence at all...
...They said so by a margin of 47-25 percent in the Nov...
...In June 1982, the response didn't mean Reagan was up and gaining, nor does it mean Clinton is now...
...Everett Carll Ladd is president of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research...
...Fifty-one percent told Gallup the legislature was "more to blame" for the failure to move the budget...
...There is one poll finding that, more than others, might lead an observer who's trying to cut through this froth to think the budget fight was going the president's way...
...The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken November 19 put him at 49 percent, just about where he was in September (46 percent...
...The apparent conflict between these political judgments on the one hand and the success Clinton was supposed to be having with the public on the other, was never acknowledged...
...The first thing to be noted is that this question doesn't speak to intensity: How strongly do I feel that x or y is "to blame," and what does my judgment incline me to think or do...
...Moreover, virtually every time over the last 20 years there's been such a confrontation between the two branches, the public has said Congress was at fault-even when the incumbent president was unpopular...
...An astonishingly low 9 percent said "extremely confident," and just 19 percent more said they were "quite confident...
...The basic impulses in contemporary public thinking-for a kind of moral renewal, and for curbing government's growth-show no sign of weakening whatsoever...
...For example, the late October 'NBC/Journal poll asked respondents how confident they were "that Bill Clinton has the right set of personal characteristics to be president of the United States...
...Stability, indeed...
...What's more, there hasn't been any significant trend over this span across the various polls...
...17-18 Gallup survey- almost exactly what Gallup had found a week earlier and very close to what other organizations have recorded...
...The Los Angeles Times surveys recorded him at 51 percent in mid-September and 50 percent at the end of October...
...Struggles like the one now going on between a president and Congress always invite big-time partisan spinning, of course, and endless media hype...
...Asked whom they considered more to blame for the shutdown, Clinton or the GOP Congress, large pluralities have picked the latter...
...Other measures continue to reveal some exceptional weaknesses...
...The broad philosophic-policy realignment that ushered in the "Reagan Revolution" and underlies the current one is pretty solid...
...We get some help on this from the late October NBC/Journal survey that found-two weeks before the partial shutdown began-a strong plurality (43-32 percent) saying if an agreement didn't get reached in time down the road, Congress would be more to blame...
...This speaks to Dole's weaknesses-at this point in the campaign at least-and gives no hint of Clinton gaining strength overall...
...only 23 percent blamed Reagan...
...In June 1982, with the U.S...
...It's seven points below the average for all ten...
...CBS News recorded a 47 percent approval rate in the fourth week of October and 48 percent on November 19...
...They would have found that Clinton has not, in fact, been gaining in public approval...
...The 70 percent in the two low-to-no confidence positions equals his low point in nine previous polls...
...Don't Believe the Hype by Everett Carll Ladd HERE S A POLITICAL CONUNDRUM: Why did President Clinton capitulate to congressional Republicans' main demands in the preliminary budget agreement reached November 19-when according to almost every press account he had been winning the public opinion battle hands down...
...That's where they were in the late summer and early fall, and where they are today...
...Let's start with the familiar poll question: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bill Clinton is handling his job as president...
...The ABC News/Washington Post poll had him at 52 percent approval in late September and 54 percent in the second week of November...
...There will continue to be ups and downs in political sentiment...
...In 31 national-level polls taken over the last few months, Clinton's average approval rating has been 48 percent-from a low of 43 to a high of 54...
...But another large part has nothing at all to do with political willpower: It's simply not true that the battle for the minds and hearts of the American people has been going the Democrats' way...
...economy in recession, Ronald Reagan's approval score languishing in the low forties, and registered voters saying by a 15-point margin that they would vote Democratic if a congressional election were held "today," most respondents laid the current budget impasse at Congress's doorstep...
...Lots of impulses are in play here...
...Gallup had the president at 48 percent approval in September and 53 percent on November 17-18...
...The Democrats picked up 26 seats in the House in 1982...
...Clinton has indeed found it hard to hold to any course...
Vol. 1 • December 1995 • No. 12
