Randy Kuhl's blog, and the
Ontario GOP blog, take encouragement from a
USA Today/Gallup poll on S-CHIP. Both note that a majority of those polled (55%) said they were "somewhat concerned" (33%) or "very concerned" (22%) that S-CHIP would be an incentive for the middle class to drop private health insurance. And another majority (52%) preferred Bush's plan to limit S-CHIP to a family of 4 making less than $41K, versus the Democrats' plan to make the upper limit $61K.
Both Kuhl the the Ontario GOP omit another interesting statistic from that poll. When asked who they trust to get S-CHIP right, 52% say that they trust the Democrats. Only 32% trust the President. Another interesting fact: 17% of the respondents were following S-CHIP "very closely", and 34% "somewhat closely". Almost half of the public (49%) are following the issue "not too closely" or "not at all".
So, when a generally uninformed public is presented specific facts on S-CHIP, they tend to agree with Republicans. When those facts are absent, their general distrust of the President governs their opinions. The news on S-CHIP could be worse, but this certainly doesn't qualify as good news for Republicans.
Also, it's interesting to see Republicans in the same position where Democrats usually find themselves. The Republicans' position is based on a careful reading of the details. Democrats are aiming straight for the gut. When half of the public doesn't really care, the gut carries the day.
Update: Via
pollster.com, here's the Gallup
writeup on the poll.
Comments
I probably wouldn't read much one way or another into this particular poll. I'd like to hear what the guys at pollster.com think about it.
I will say this: when people start citing public opinion poll numbers on their Congressional blog, it's never a good sign.
I haven't seen this one go by on pollster.com. I looked for more detail on the gallup site, but it wasn't there. I wonder what the selection criteria were -- it would be a more interesting poll if it asked likely voters.