In a famous poll a few years ago, half the Americans surveyed said George W. Bush was a “uniter” while the other half called him a “divider.” A recent Pew survey finds that the stark divide among partisans has continued and increased, with an amazing 60-point gap between Democrats’ and Republicans’ approvals of Barack Obama (as compared with differences in the 20s when Nixon and Carter assumed their presidencies, gradually increasing to a 50-point gap in approval of George W. Bush at the beginning of his term.
These divergent views represent sorting as much as they indicate partisanship. As an economist colleague of mine writes:
It is not that the nation is more partisan today but that the voting population has now realigned themselves in a way that they associate with the party that represents their views. The obvious examples are southern Democrats and New England Republicans. It would not be surprising that Richard Nixon had strong Democratic support given the nature of the Southern Democratic party. Those Democrats are now Republicans and as would be expected do not support Obama.
Similarly, views of partisans on specific issues have diverged. Here are average positions of self-declared Democrats, Republicans, and independents on abortion (on a scale in which 1 implies complete illegality and 4 implies complete restriction):
Views on economic and foreign policy questions have moved apart as well. Republican and Democratic voters differed more over the Iraq war in 2006 than in 2003, and even at the start of the war they differed much more than supporters of the two parties did on the Korean and Vietnam wars. It will be interesting to see how the positions of partisans on economic and foreign policy dilemmas change as Obama and the Democrats necessarily will have to shift from critics to defenders of the system.
13 responses so far
1 mlindroo // Apr 7, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Another difference is that the Republican party had more supporters eight years ago than it does today, including RINOs and indepndendents. Those groups have largely left the GOP, which means the Republican base is more conservative (and hence fiercely anti-Obama) than the rest of the country.
Note that Obama’s approval ratings *OVERALL* remain strong despite GOP opposition, which suggests the conservative minority is now somewhat “out of touch” with the feelings and priorities of the average American voter (=independents/moderates and Democrats).
MARCU$
2 krove // Apr 8, 2009 at 3:29 am
mlindroo is right the right is way further right than before. With the lunatic right media like Beck and Hannity pushing armed struggle against a President elected in a landslide what do you expect.
The normal people of the country are solidly behind the President. That’s why the GOP is polling numbers lower than ever seen. And they will go further down if the extremists continue to be pushed into the spotlight.
3 ChristianMiller // Apr 8, 2009 at 4:11 am
Obama is and will continue to be a very bad President.
Obama has a large cult following which are largely ignorant of politics and world affairs. The media protects and promotes Obama at any cost. The cult of celebrity and racial-identification acolytes will support him no matter what – they are too psychologically invested.
With Obama trashing nearly everything this country stands for we are going to have even more polarization.
krove – your comments are false no one is pushing for armed struggle and Obama did not win in a landslide – you don’t care about the GOP at all do you?
4 Cforchange // Apr 8, 2009 at 5:19 am
This survey did not appear to reflect the actual number of voters and by political party affiliation. It seems to make the point of the poll irrelevant as will all future polls if the party size isn’t included in the scope of relevancy and will set the GOP for a false sense for .what will create a winning majority.
I would be careful of who I refer to as a cult – cop killer Richard was a Beck fan. Maybe he wasn’t pushed but he was certainly excited beyond reason, yes too psychologically invested.
Many like David Frum have advised that stirring the pot is not wise and unless you’re nutty you would have to agree that Hilter style recruitment tactics will result in Hilter like actions.
5 ottovbvs // Apr 8, 2009 at 7:18 am
I thought the conclusions of this poll were fairly meaningless. The GOP has swung right, this is news, and hence it’s less willing to compromise with the Democrats. If we’re seeing more polarization it’s not very surprising since it’s been pursued as a political strategy by the GOP for 20 years or more. Has everyone forgotten Karl Rove boasting about it after the 2004 election as the means by which he won on a platform of god, guns and gays. The problem is polarization has turned out to be a disastrous long term political strategy that has made a dwindling segment of he electorate fervent supporters of Republicanism while the dynamic and growing segment of the electorate has been alienated. I saw a stat the other day that must be making Republican strategists very nervous: apparently 81% of the 19-30 demographic approve of Obama while 8% of them approve of congressional republicans. Since I suspect the 14-19 age group think much the same way and Obama will probably be in office for eight years this has huge psephological implications over the next fifty years.Perhaps I need to google that piece by Ruy Texiera from a few years back which looks more prescient by the day.
6 Bulldoglover100 // Apr 8, 2009 at 7:33 am
Apples and Oranges unless you count the Independents……who by the way we can NEVER win another election without…..and when those are figured into your little piece of fantasy? We lose and lose big.
7 barker13 // Apr 8, 2009 at 9:16 am
Re: Franco; 4:11 AM
“…following which are largely ignorant of politics and world affairs.”
I’ll go beyond Franco’s point. I’d bet krove’s left kidney that the average respondent to such polling operates almost totally on emotion and what the “think” they know rather than operating upon having a base of factual information and being intellectually capable of analyzing said information.
In other words… the average American views politics as “sporting even” more than as an exercise in civics and government. Most people have their “team” and as for the Independents… again… how much does the average American actually KNOW about… er… issues… nuts and bolts… history…
(*SHRUG*)
Hey… to illustrate my point let me ask you folks a question:
Let’s say that over the next three years – with Obama as president, chances are with the Democrats retaining control of one or both houses of Congress thru 2012 – our economic problems continue to deepen… inflation increases, unemployment increases, interest rates start SLOWLY going up, but too slowly to dampen inflation… let’s even throw in a foreign policy crisis or two…
Now. As yourselves. Even under these circumstances (which I predict to be the circumstances in real life) would any of you absolutely count Obama out as far as winning a second term is concerned…???
To those who intelligently respond “no”… I rest my case.
BILL
8 sinz54 // Apr 8, 2009 at 10:22 am
ottovbvs: The reason that modern conservatism has been reduced to social issues (”God, guns and gays”), is because it’s the victim of its own success on other issues.
The conservative coalition, which began in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War, was comprised of foreign-policy hawks, social conservatives, and economic conservatives. What originally held them all together was their opposition to Communism and its watered-down little brother, socialism: Foreign-policy hawks opposed Soviet expansionism; economic conservatives opposed command economies; and social conservatives opposed “Godless, atheistic communism.”
With the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, this coalition started to fall apart. And the disagreements between them have emerged: Social conservatives like Phyllis Schafly and Pat Buchanan oppose free trade and immigration; paleo-conservatives like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan oppose foreign policy interventionism; etc.
The only way to keep the Phyllis Schlaflys and Pat Buchanans in the GOP fold, despite a foreign and economic policy they oppose, is to emphasize “God, guns and gays.”
A social conservative like Mike Huckabee is quite moderate on economic issues–he may be further to the left than Bill Clinton. What keeps Huckabee in the GOP, is God.
9 krove // Apr 8, 2009 at 11:34 am
Yes Obama will win again in 2012. If the economy gets back on track he will win in a landslide again against any opponent, if up against Palin I am guessing she would win Alaska and maybe Oklahoma.
If the economy is not doing so good he will win by normal margins ( a Bush 2004 election).
I would also predict that the GOP is in danger of losing the following Senate seats in 2010. In order of vulnerability
Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Florida with North Carolina as a tossup.
10 bloodstar // Apr 8, 2009 at 2:26 pm
krove:
I’d put Kentucky and Florida ahead of Pennsylvania personally, but I understand where you’re coming from. The right turn in the republican party polling is because the party is shrinking in size, Unfortunately the entire cycle of purification is a self reinforcing one, and I can’t see anything that is going to stop it in the near future.
11 sinz54 // Apr 8, 2009 at 4:54 pm
bloodstar: That “self-reinforcing cycle of purification” was launched, and is being sustained, by a fallacious interpretation of history:
It has become practically an article of faith among die-hard Red State conservatives that the GOP lost the 2006 congressional election because the GOP base was so disgusted with GOP politicians that they stayed away from the polls, and did not vote or campaign actively for GOP candidates.
The consequence of that (if it were true) is that the GOP leadership must do more to mollify the GOP base in the future, by turning even more to the right. That’s why you hear these incessant calls from the GOP base for the GOP to “return to conservative principles”–because the base believes that men like McCain and even George W. Bush weren’t conservative enough; and that only a “true conservative” (Sarah Palin?) would excite the base enough to get them to turn out in large numbers and win elections.
The problem is, that article of faith is false.
Exit polls confirm that in 2006, the GOP base did turn out in numbers nearly as high as in 2004. But the GOP lost the 2006 election anyway, due to a significant shift of moderate and Independent voters toward the Dems. That was even more true in 2008, and besides that you had an even more massive shift of first-time voters toward the Dems. So the consequences of that is that the GOP has to win back moderate and Independent voters, who would be more responsive to a more moderate message, especially on social issues.
But that article of faith persists. Most likely because some popular figures in conservative media are continuing to spread it.
12 ktward // Apr 9, 2009 at 9:44 pm
barker13:
You’re a head case.
Now you’re absurdly suggesting that you are either …
1) Qualified to assess the ability of polling respondents to intelligently wage in on the issues, based on nothing but your own devoid-of-facts opinion, or
2) That you’ve some kind of divine knowledge of the electorate’s level of knowledge, intentions and motivations.
You’re letting your narcissistic fascination with your own opinion get in the way of legitimate discourse, which I was quite enjoying until I spotted you.
Why don’t you let the big boys/gals take care of the commenting here- you go *SHRUG/CHUCKLE/SMILE* yourself happy over at townhall. They appreciate your kind.
13 greg_barton // Apr 12, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Here’s a divide for you: Democrats and Independents have decided to live in the real world, and Republicans have decided to keep thinking they can bend reality to their will. Like all village idiots we’ll tolerate them and thank our lucky stars that they’re no longer mayor.
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