Long, detailed poll from Kaiser on public opinion on health care (pdf). Read the whole thing, but these are the parts I found interesting:
At least at this point in the still developing general election campaign, President Barack Obama is trusted by larger shares with the future of both Medicare and the ACA than any of his Republican challengers: roughly six in ten say they trust the President, compared to roughly four in ten who say they have at least some trust in Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. Rick Santorum or Rep. Ron Paul, and three in ten who have at least some trust in former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Among independents, President Obama garners trust from higher shares than any of the Republican candidates on both Medicare and the ACA, with no GOP candidate in particular standing out.
Translation: Obama has almost twenty points on any Republican re: trust on both the ACA and Medicare.
I am not surprised. How anyone trusts Mitt Romney on anything at this point is beyond me. I think every statement he makes should be recorded, so people can compare his positions from day to day.
Contraception:
Even as the debate rages, the basic policy retains majority support: six in ten (63 percent) Americans say they support the requirement that health plans include no‐cost birth control, while a third (33percent) oppose it. Although the policy is targeted at a benefit provided to women, the survey suggests there is no large gender gap on the issue. Two‐thirds of women (66 percent) back the requirement, similar to the six in ten men (60 percent) that support it
Instead, the fault lines are much wider by party identification and by age. Overall, almost twice the number of Democrats (83 percent) as Republicans (42 percent) back the no‐cost birth control requirement. The same gap appears even if you narrow the analysis to women only, with 85 percent of Democratic women backing the no‐cost contraception requirement, compared to 42 percent of Republican women. And as the debate over contraceptive coverage has become more politicized during recent months, the proportion of Republican women who oppose the requirement has risen, from 39 percent last August to 53 percent now. Meanwhile, most independent women (67 percent) are in favor of the plan.
Seems like an easy political decision for Democrats. 63% overall support, with 85% of Democratic women supporting contraception coverage, and 67% of women who self-identify as independents supporting contraception coverage.
Republican women oppose contraception coverage, and they discovered they opposed it much, much more once they found out Democrats supported it, but they weren’t voting for us anyway.
jharp
Rush is now referring to Sandra Fluke as Sandra Fl(uck)e.
Classy guy. Keep digging Rush. Women will find that hilarious.
kay
@jharp:
What the poll tells me is President Obama should ignore paid pundits. He’s a better politician than they are. Democratic women, his base, support the policy overwhelmingly. Independent women support the policy by a wide margin. They were wrong about Catholics, too. The Catholic support is nearly identical to the broader public.
TooManyJens
@jharp: Actually, isn’t that closer to how her name is pronounced than what he’d been saying? When she was on the View, the hosts pronounced her name — I don’t quite know the best way to represent it, but sort of like Fleuck.
TenguPhule
If you’re a Republican and a woman, obviously you don’t need to vote, just pump out babies and listen to your betters.
/sarcasm
Zifnab
They might not trust him per-say, but I suspect they have an inkling of what he’s going to do. And they may support that hypothetical agenda.
tjmn
Kay, I take it Ohio voters will have trust issues, finally, with the Gov over saying no to federal aid?
TenguPhule
Corrected for accuracy.
g
I would be extremely surprised if Republican women oppose contraception coverage. I’m curious how the question is worded.
Most people already have contraception coverage in their plans – this has been the norm since the EEOC ruling in 2001. Why would anyone be in favor of losing what they have?
harlana
the people who call themselves independents but are really just embarrassed republicans, because he “seems like a nice moderate guy” (compared to the screeching, whiny Santorum and pompous, villianous Newt) “and i don’t want to vote for Obama b/c i have a short attention span and i’ve already forgotten about the Bush presidency” – they just don’t like anyone who makes them feel icky or skittish and Mitt, at least, can pull off that part. unless a lot of them stay home.
TooManyJens
I remember in 2008 there was a project that specifically encouraged unmarried women to vote, since that demographic is more likely not to vote but to support Democrats when they do. Anyone heard about anything like that this year?
c u n d gulag
The problem with the “herd mentality” of Republicans, is that it leads them to change their positions (look at Mitt) – depending on what they just just ‘heard’ about what the Liberals were ‘fer’ and ‘agin’ today.
TooManyJens
@g:
Why would Republicans filibuster measures they supported a year or a month earlier? Same reason.
kay
@Zifnab:
To have an inkling on what he’s going to do, you’d have to ignore exactly half of what he says, because he opposes his own record. Hell, he sometimes opposes his own statements refuting his record.
I don’t think trusting Mitt Romney is a rational process. If they “trust” him, they are “trusting” their own hopes or aspirations on either his record or his statements. It has nothing to do with reality.
Poopyman
@g:
I can’t answer that, but maybe you should ask Republican union members.
jharp
@kay:
Yes he is. He is a brilliant politician. I sometimes forget that a black man named Barack Hussein Obama was elected President. Pretty amazing feat from a pretty amazing man.
We’re lucky to have him.
TenguPhule
There’s a trope for that.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooDumbToLive
JR
What is this with everyone calling this “no-cost”?? We will all pay for this insurance, no one will get anything “for free”!
I bet if it was made clear that people buying insurance that covers hormone therapy is what we’re talking about, then the approval numbers will go up substantially!
Joey Maloney
@TenguPhule: My peanut butter is upset and offended by your slur against its intelligence and discernment. Nutella, on the other hand…stone dumb.
kay
@tjmn:
I don’t know if that issue will hurt Kasich, but Kasich has a sort of cumulative trust problem, and that issue will ADD to the general Kasich dislike.
There is a commenter here who said it better than I could, months ago, Nony Nony, and it’s this: “Kasich hates us”.
I really think that’s how people feel. That he has very little use for us. He’s just not FOND of us.
It’s bizzarre and disconcerting, to have a governor who really seems to have it in for you.
I think a lot of political problems are like that. They build. Everyone seizes on the tipping point as THE CAUSE, but trust is more complicated and layered than that. Trust ERODES.
harlana
@jharp: good – i didn’t expect the non-apology apology, glad he’s back true to form so this can continue, i like to watch goopers silently pee their pants.
Librarian
Letterman is going to have a field day with this. Maybe he’ll run this backwards too.
RP
Have you heard the parable of the scorpion and the frog?
Mino
@g: Perhaps it is a reduced field of women that identify as Republican that has shifted the numbers. A more concentrated pool of venom, as it were.
Brachiator
@kay:
The sadder message here is that Republican women are wiling to vote against their own self interest in order to further conservative ideological principles.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
I’d just like to thank all the Republicans and their various enablers who have made my last week on Facebook probably the most fun ever.
The true believers have truly gone off the rails and are sounding like unhinged lunatics to even the most sympathetic of independents, and they just can’t stop themselves! They’re the ones keep this whole thing alive!
rikyrah
I’m with you, Kay.
I don’t get it. the thought of someone with obviously NO CORE WHATSOEVER, outside of his blinding ambition, at the other end of the 3 am phone call scares me to pieces.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I’m taking all of those Republican women’s pigeons away. If they keep it up, I’ll take their cardboard boxes as well.
kay
@Brachiator:
I didn’t get that far. I think they could get there with a simple partisan analysis:
“I like that idea”. First impression.
Two months later “all Republican leaders hate that idea, I don’t trust Democrats, so I hate that idea, too”.
I am of the opinion that this is much broader and more serious than GOP leaders are letting on. It really is a battle against contraceptives, and it predated Obama’s rule change. They were shutting down Planned Parenthood and cutting Title X well prior to Obama’s rule change, and both Planned Parenthood and Title X are ABOUT access to contraception.
Both Romney and Santorum are OPPOSED to funding Title X, and Title X IS federal funding of contraception. This is a real policy battle. I think that’s why Obama took it on. They are, in fact, anti-contraception. This is big.
bootsy
What I would like to know is what the GOOPers are going to do about the fact that RomneyCare is exactly the same as ObamaCare (Horrors!), esp. in light of possible Romnevitability.
My instinct is that they’ll simply run against ObamaCare, and not mention anything about Romney. More of a the-big-lie strategy. Hopefully the President and the rest of us can keep pointing it out that it’s exactly the same. Goodness knows what the RomneyBot would do if questioned on this — probably pivot as fast as transistors allow.
Kyle
Republicanism is all about resentment. I suspect it’s older women who hate the thought of “young sluts” having more fun than they ever did. Or they know Dems are for it, so they just hate it by reflex.
ruemara
@Joey Maloney: Nutella, while delicious, is mostly sugar, oil and hazelnut flavor. I cannot disagree with your assessment. Homemade peanutella, however, we would have to fight to the death over it.
Woodrowfan
how many of those republican women think that it’s tax dollars paying for contraception, because that’s what the RW echo chamber is saying.
Xenos
@Kyle: Don’t these older Republican women have daughters and granddaughters? Don’t they have friends who need hormone therapy?
At this pace there will be no women under the age of forty voting for Republicans for quite some time.
Brachiator
@kay:
And yet, I don’t believe for a second that conservative women do not use contraception themselves. All the surveys indicate a wide use of contraceptives by women in all political demographics.
And while I readily accept that there are a core of conservatives whose disdain for contraception goes back to Griswold v. Connecticut, there is still a contradiction here between the political position of Republican women and their own personal choices.
In attacking Planned Parenthood, some conservative women could pretend that it was about abortion, or about punishing “the Other,” poor and nonwhite women. But when the Republicans start pushing a hard line anti-contraception position, then I really wonder what is going on with these women, that they don’t appear to realize that they are being put down along with all other women.
Also, I woul really like to see interviews with ordinary Republican women to get a better understanding of what is going on here.
The Other Chuck
@ruemara:
My local Italian deli, which is literally next door, sells these little tubs of spreadable Gianduja. This stuff is better than sex even if you’re doing it right.
The Other Chuck
@Brachiator:
“Those sluts make real women look bad and even when I use birth control I don’t need government paying for theirs and nobama and soshulist and bailouts and Chicago politics and Ayers and Alinsky and hwaWAHhwaWAHhwaWAH” [trumpet with mute Charlie Brown style]
Really, when you do actually find a reasoned argument made in good faith from the right, let me know. I’ve been looking for years now.
Roger Moore
@TooManyJens:
Yes, it’s called the Republican War on Contraception. It’s as if the Republicans want to lose.
Hal
Can I please have a taste of whatever the 4 in 10 who somewhat trust any Republican candidates with the future of medicare are drinking?
If Republicans get their way, it’s the end of medicare as we know it, so how the hell do you even somewhat trust any of these guys?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Brachiator:
You think too hard about this.
It’s the same thing why any stalwart, god-fearing Red Stater votes against their own interests to stand behind the GOP full-bore: 1) It’s never going to harm ME, it only hurts those filthy (insert hated scapegoat group here)! 2) Republicans may be crazy, but Dems want to DESTROY AMERICAAAAAA!!! 3) This may hurt in the short term, but the GOP ensure that I’m ALWAYS FREE!!!
jrg
@Brachiator: I gotta go with The Other Chuck on this one. Whatever the reason is, it’s almost certainly arglebargle-nazi-kenyan-socialist bullshit.
There’s no sense trying to understand people who want to be lied to.
Bobby Thomson
Why should Republican women behave any differently than the Republican men who aren’t billionaires?
MTiffany
Cue handwringing centrists: But what’s the use of an overwhelming majority if it isn’t bipartisan?
FlipYrWhig
It really is amazing to me how Republicans, up and down the party, blow with the wind like this. If The Party decides to take an official view, even–especially!–on something they formerly had no problem with or even endorsed, that history gets disappeared, the membership recalibrates its views, and, sure as anything, Republicans en masse decide they wholeheartedly support the new diktat. I know they’re authoritarians, but, damn, are they authoritarians.
kay
@Brachiator:
I don’t think they’re putting the three things together. A lot of Democrats aren’t putting the three things together. Obama’s new rule is only a piece of the war that Obama has been fighting since 2010.
Planned Parenthood is ABOUT access to contraception. It’s about some other things, too, but one of the major focuses of PP is actually getting contraception. Title X is ABOUT contraception. Obama’s new rule is about contraception.
Republicans oppose ALL of that. This opposition is a huge change. NO Republicans have EVER opposed Title X funding before. Hell, George HW Bush was the biggest sponsor of the program in Congress. Rick Santorum voted for Title X funding. NOW he opposes it. In 6 years, Rick Santorum went FAR Right on contraception.
This really is a war on contraception. That’s not hyperbole. Republican women aren’t putting those three things together as “access to contraception”.
kay
@Brachiator:
The shorter answer is, “they do not (yet) know how extreme Republicans are on this issue”.
kay
@MTiffany:
It’s so funny how far I am from that, because I read it as “85% of Democrats agree on something!”
That’s like a MIRACLE :)
Warmongerer
@Brachiator:
They support these measures because they don’t think it’ll ever affect them personally. Maybe they’re old enough that they don’t need birth control anymore. Maybe they even have a religious objection. Most likely they’re well off enough that they’ve never had a problem getting it so no one else should have a problem either.
The bottom line is that it just affects sluts and socialists. You know, *those* people.
Until, of course, one day it does affect them, at which point they’ll have a road to Damascus moment and it’ll become the most important issue ever. Sadly, that day will probably come well after the election.
Republicans are generally incapable of empathizing with other people, especially ones outside their social circle. It’s always ME ME ME and Republicans women are no different. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be Republicans to begin with.
Brachiator
@jrg:
There’s usually a reason people want or need to be lied to.
@kay:
That’s the thing. It seems pretty clear to a lot of other people, even conservative pundits. And it’s not like stuff like Santorum echoing official Catholic opposition to birth control is being hidden from Republican women.
But as I say, I can far more easily understand these Republicans hating people they perceive to be The Other, and wanting to take their rights away. But this new, thing, people shouting, “hell yes, I want my employer to only provide health insurance that agrees with his moral principles,” or “hell, yes, I want to be forced to pay for birth control or other medical costs out of my own pocket,” or “hell yes, I would be OK with my state outlawing all birth control,” well, this is beyond nuts.
And also, like I say, I want to see interviews with conservative women, not conservative men talking for them, on this issue.
kay
@Brachiator:
It’s funny, because this is one issue where I feel as if pundits were ahead of blogs.
Romney was asked about Griswold at a debate. Paul Begala went after Mary Matalin two weeks ago on Title X. She lied, of course, insisted they weren’t going after it, but they are. They have, actually. The Tea Party House cut Title X. Obama insisted it be put back in.
So it’s this weird, submerged real policy debate on contraception, amid all this screaming about sluts. Pundits ARE talking about the broader issue.
Just so bizarre. Santorum used his support for Title X to rebut attacks that he wanted to deny access to birth control. A week later, he came out against Title X. The GOP policy choice is now anti-contraception. That’s fact.
Usually, when I hear something really extreme, and I look into it further, I find out that it’s not as cut and dried as presented. This is the opposite of that. The further I look, the more I’m convinced they are actually going after contraception. That’s not fundraising appeal stuff for Democrats. That’s true.
Brachiator
@Warmongerer:
Sorry, this doesn’t ring true. If they’re old enough that they don’t need birth control, this doesn’t mean that they didn’t use the pill, or have daughters and grand daughters that use the pill or other forms of contraception. And I doubt that most of these people are that well off that they would be indifferent to the costs involved.
And because the opposition increased when it became a public debate, I’m not seeing past religious conviction as being a significant issue.
@kay:
I agree about the larger policy dimensions. There has long been a Republican movement that sought to dismantle everything that the Democrats put in place since FDR, and to undo every liberal ruling since the Warren Court.
But this still doesn’t quite tell me why Republican women would be so willing to go backwards. Hell, at this point I am waiting for some women Republicans to explain why women having the vote is dangerous.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Ann Coulter said years ago that women shouldn’t have the vote.
I don’t think this is a case where Republican women genuinely, after reflecting on the issues associated with contraception and how they suit their views on everything else, have decided they no longer support it. They’re simply indicating that they now know what their team’s official position is, and that they’re quite willing to repeat it when asked. Once something becomes The Republican Position, it’s in the catechism, and they have to say that thing is what they believe. That’s how Republicans work. If it was determined that Republicans loved Spanish speakers and Muslims now, they’d pour forth onto local newspaper websites extolling their virtues immediately, praising their conservative inclinations that everyone has always known, and never admitting that it was a massive change of heart.
JR in WV
My Mom had COPD from her addiction to Pall Malls, which she was given for free at college football games back in the 1940s. She and my Dad were both Rockefeller Republicans, and were proud to never vote for a Democratic candidate.
She lived 3 or 4 more years in order to vote against Bob Dole, or whoever the Republicans nominated, because of their stance against abortion. I think Mom had a “road to Damascus” moment long ago, when a close friend, or even a relative, died of a botched abortion, 50 years ago.
She said, “Don’t tell your Dad, I don’t want him to be upset, but I have to vote against those men. They don’t understand, and they have no business making the rules for women, who do understand.”
I don’t think her votes really counted for much, really; they moved their residency to FL (at great expense) to avoid income taxes, but they kept her alive for extra years, which was worth, well, anything! And of course Dad would have been happy to know that the extra years were on account of her memory of a lost friend or cousin.
I think, hope, the Republicans are painting themselves into a corner which will then become too hot for them to stand. Because most people get it, even if their party officials continue to not get it.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
Ann Coulter is not a human being, so this doesn’t count.
But more seriously, you bring up an interesting point here. I don’t know of any Republican women who echoed Coulter, and said, “yeah, we shouldn’t vote.” Nor is there, as far as I know, an active movement among conservative women, to repeal women’s suffrage.
Religious Conservative women even gloss over the apparent contradiction of being willingly subservient to men and yet having an idependent opinion and vote. I half recall Michelle Bachmann making some noise about how she could be subservient to her husband and still be president, but there didn’t seem to be any point in trying to listen to her make an argument for this.
I know that a lot of people here believe this, but I don’t think it explains as much as people think it does.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: I have a strong sense that they enjoy greatly knowing just what to say. Even if it isn’t what they would believe if they reasoned through it or formed analogies to other aspects of their life experiences. The herd aspect has primacy. All the shibboleths, all the internalizing and recounting of talking points. It’s how they feel they win in political conversation.
Case in point from college, circa 1989: my friend Mike is very pro-gun. I’m anti-gun. He starts dropping statistics, telling anecdotes, etc. All I have is my convictions. He has convictions and ready-made things to say. It feels for all the world like he wins every argument between us, because I can’t keep up under the barrage.
They drill each other on how to come across as better informed and more passionate. Pundits train them, and then they fan out to proselytize.
The only slightly analogous liberal phenomenon is when word goes out that we’re all supposed to say “Native American” instead of “Indian” now, and we correct each other when we find laggards. But I’m very sure that this is virtually ALL they do when they get involved in public discourse: they receive marching orders, and they pass them on, and by repeating them to each other intact, they reinforce the experience of rightness and inclusion.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
At this point, I almost wonder if it’s just plain discomfort with the topic. Older women especially aren’t always comfortable talking about sex, even in private and to other women.
So it may not necessarily mean that they support the direction that the Republicans are going, but that they don’t want to have the conversation.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
I think you can come up with a better analogy than that, because I think even the most stubborn holdouts understand that Dr. Sanjay Gupta did not grow up on a Navajo reservation.
mclaren
It is indeed an “easy decision for Democrats.” I’m not voting for Barack Obama. The guy has betrayed every promise he ever made.
mclaren
There, fixed that for you.
Obama signs ACTA, bypassing congress entirely.
Source: “U.S. Signs ACTA” by David Kravetz, arstechnica.com
5 months ago
Source: “Obama criticizes Military Commissions Act,” September 28 2006.
Source: “Obama Sharply Criticized For Reviving Bush-Era Military Commissions,” The Public Record, 16 May 2009.
Source: Youtube clip of candidate Barack Obama mocking the idea of mandating the purchase of health insurance because it does nothing to control health care costs.
Source: “Judge rules against health law, cites Obama’s words,” The Washignton Times, Stephen Dinan.
Source: “Obama Embraces Signing Statements After Knocking Bush for Using Them,” The Daily Beast, 4 January 2012.
Source: “Obama’s change: From kidnapping and torture to assassination,” 31 December 2011, The Hardcore News.
Source: “Barack Obama criticizes Bush as he outlines foreign policy goals,” The New York TImes, 23 April 2007.
Source: “AP Source: Holder Will Address Targeted Killings,” The Washington Times.
Source: News video of mass protests by Pakistanis after continued U.S. drone killings of innocent women and children in wedding parties.
Obama signs Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy.
Is there anything candidate Barack Obama promised to do or implied he would do in 2007-2008 that he has not betrayed and reversed by 2012?
Mnemosyne
@mclaren:
Uh, Holder gave the speech today. Lawfare discusses it here and here.
Do you think maybe you could address current events for once instead of posting clips from speeches Obama made in 2007 and claiming that they’re totally still relevant 5 years later?
pseudonymous in nc
Is there anything mclaren won’t do to try and get the last word? Yawn.