OxBlog

Saturday, May 03, 2003

# Posted 10:31 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

POLLS, POLS, & POLARIZATION: I'm beginning to think that even the WaPo is incapable of reporting intelligently on the results of opinion polls. Take a minute to read this paragraph:
Partisan polarization continues to define views of Bush and the state of the country. Just 32 percent of Democrats said the country is heading in the right direction, compared with 72 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of independents. On Bush, 92 percent of Republicans said they approve of how he is handling his job, compared with 53 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents.
Polarization? If a majority of opposition voters and two-thirds of independents approve of how the president is handling his job, you call that 'polarization'? I call that 'unity'.

If the Post wanted to support its argument, it should've shown that fewer Democrats support Bush now than they did 3 months ago or 6 months ago or whenever. And, while I don't know the number for the Clinton era off-hand, I'd very surprised to discover any moment during those eight years at which a majority of Republicans approved of the job he was doing.

Leaving that aside for a moment, let's take a look at the raw data from the poll that the WaPo is describing. Here again, we see that there is much more evidence against polarization than for it.

For example, take a look at the results of question 20, "Who do you trust to do a better job handling [insert issue here]. (Bush) or (the Democrats in Congress)?" The answers aren't all that surprising. Bush has a 70-20 lead on Iraq on the war on terror and a 60-30 lead on defense policy and North Korea. In contrast, the Democrats have significant leads on health care and the enviornment, in addition to slight leads on Social Security and taxes.

What those results mean is that many of the individuals who approve strongly of Bush's foreign policy prefer Democratic approaches to domestic policy. That sort of ability to discrinimate between issue provides compelling evidence against the charge of polarization. If the nation were actually split, voters would line up with their party across the board, instead of defecting on critical issues.

One might even say that issue discrimination is an important sign of healthy democratic politics, since it shows an ability to look past partisan identity and evaluate the policy proposals offered by different parties.

Finally, here's one last thing for those of you who have been following the polls as closely as I have. Two weeks ago, I blasted a WaPo/ABC poll for including the following question:
"How do you feel about the possibility that the United States will get bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission in Iraq - would you say you're very concerned about that, somewhat concerned, not too concerned or not concerned at all?"
Lo and behold, this week's poll included the exact same question again. Who writes these things? Johnny Apple?
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