“the we must move the nation forward, beyond the partisan ship” argument is not going to fly. Only 11% of the American people have faith in congress.

Which ever party pushes hardest for accountability will take the White House and congress. The crimes committed by this administration have gone beyond partisanship.

Real honesty and accountability is what is needed here, that is how this nation can move forward.

This CNN Survey actually supports your position.

While overall Congress has a very low support level (22%) most of that disgust is clearly being leveled at Republicans. Even the Democratic leadership, held by many as being ineffective and solicitous to the Republicans and Bush, actually rate in at 43 percent, twice that of Congress in general. And they are still well above the results of Bush.

That means that the poor Republicans must be wallowing way down below 10% support!

Still the Democratic leaders still confront a disapproval rating of 51 percent, 11 percentage points worse than in March.

But this may suggest that the “rank-and-file” may have better ratings if the public is blaming the problems in Congress with the leadership. I suspect, intuitively, from what I have seen on this site and elsewhere that the leadership has really become a target of disappointment, if not vilification, for failing to be tougher with Bush and controlling their own Caucus to succeed inthose efforts.

cinnamonape @ 239 –

good points. i therefore, offer this correction:

i don’t trust any poll that mark penn or his associates had anything to do with.

(is that ok?)

Yep…Penn is a PR shill. There are lots of problems with his methodology regarding identifying interest groups. And we all know that campaigns release private polling results when they wish to influence political campaigns. Even more insidious is the use of polling to massage political opinion by asking leading questions or providing information that may shape perceptions.

“Please rank from 1-10 whether you believe it will least (1) or most (10) affect the “X” campaign
X voted for partial birth abortion
X announced that his divorce was the result of his turning to the gay lifestyle…etc.”

These are cases where the survey isn’t a survey at all…it’s an attack ad. many are more subtle, but still designed to shape opinion or bring issues to the forefront that people ignored.

Surveys and polls have to be carefully examined as to source and methodology. Who was surveyed (the sample pool), how were they approached (phone, internet) was the selection random throughout the process or was there self-selection, how large was the sample and what is the standard error, were there and “massaging” of the raw data to make it reflect what the sampler believes to be the “voting public”? How was that “massage ratio” determined?

Take Rasmussen, which massages their data based on the proportion of Democrats, Republicans, Indys “in the population”. Yet Rassmussen somehow derives these ratios from their own surveys. But why would one survey allow the determination of these proportions yet the raw data in another survey not reflect these ratios??? I’ve never been able to figure this out. I’ve also never been able to ascertain how their polls never waver from a tight fit despite the probability that, on occasion, there should be statistical error of 3% off on one side or the other. One would expect such normal “wavering” about 5/100 times. But the daily survey (e.g. of Bush’s approval) never ever seems to jump more than 1 or 2 points.

It’s best to use many polls and look at the trends that occur in them rather than place too much meaning on actual numbers.
http://www.pollingreport.com is the best compilation of surveys for this. Oddball results stand out so that you can look and see if this survey has some sort of methodological bias vs. other surveys.

I never trust internet surveys that say “vote here”. They mean nothing other than the biases of the people that (repeatedly) chose to vote on that issue. They may influence public opinion, however…particualrly if someone wants to influence opinions of those on a particular site or group.

Look at what happened at the Conservative Christian (Family Research Center) “Values Voters” Convention. Attendees overwhelmingly voted in-person for Mike Huckabee, a conservative Southern Baptist Minister. Mitt Romney was way down at 10%, Ron Paul virtually non-existant. But when the internet votes were counted Romney won, and Ron Paul placed third! Someone was stuffing ballot boxes!

Who are the Hillary supporters? Is it name recognition? I’ve never heard anyone say that Hillary is their first choice, and I’m in NY.

Then why do people respond on the phone to the pollster that they will support Hillary in the Primaries???

I really think that many of us are so politicized that whenever we talk to people about who they support they respond in the way they think that will avoid confrontation. I know lots of people who support Hillary (I’m in Sacramento) and will say so if they know I’m not going to try to convert them. Once I start arguing with them they shut down.

I tend to think that her supporters are… yes…people who want to end the Bush nightmare and are unsure that the other candidates can win. Try to argue that Hillary is the one that will not win over the Republicans and they may grudgingly admit, “I voted for Bush one time”.

Hillary’s the favorite by name recognition and that’s partially because the Republicans have attacked her incessantly. She’s become a sort of “anti-Bush” as a result. If you look at other countries the same sort of thing happens. The most attacked and defamed opposition leader is accepted as the one that is supported most by those who oppose the party in control. Sure there are factions within the opposition that actually don’t support that leader but they become a lightning rod.

For the other political leaders in the opposition they have to struggle hard to emerge from that relative obscurity. It’s hard to get attention if you aren’t a sitting governor or Senator. It’s difficult to get attention if you are in a the minority party. It’s even difficult to get attention if you are in the majority party, but weren’t part of the Administration (the problems with the Republicans…and thank God Cheney isn’t young!).

Party members with sizeable followings on the margins sometimes form third parties either before or soon after the polls. They usually are swept along by the enthusiasm of their followers, which obscures a more general lack of support, either regionally or in general. The activism and energy can be confusing and deceptive. Almost always those schisms are premature, at least in the American political system. The general history of third parties in this country indicates that they rarely win elections, but can lose them for the party that suffers the schism. If Ron Paul runs as a third party candidate I suspect it would hurt the Republicans, just as the candidacy of Wallace, Perot, and Nader did. The only time when a “pure” third party (as opposed to reformed coalition parties) actually won was in 1860.

Parties usually change from the inside, although some have argued the do so when large numbers of those who fled to third parties return to the “fold”. But there are dangers. When John Anderson ran in 1980 he likely drew off many “Rockefeller Republicans” from the party. They never were able to return to their previous importance afterwards. Social Conservatives controlled the machinery as a result of the “Reagan Revolution”.

It’s interesting that you mention Dodd as the candidate least likely to let these bastards off the hook. It turns out that Dodd’s father was one of the prosecutors at Nuremberg, and Dodd recently published a book of his fathers letters from Nuremberg: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-…..0307381161

Until now, I hadn’t quite made that connection, but your damn right: he’d be the guy that would prosecute them.

Prosecution of these evil doers ought to be a major campaign issue, and it turns out Americans, especially white males, often vote out of spite: http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=10369

All these issues and concerns are why I am liking Dodd most as a Candidate. Not because he will push BushCo to the Hague, I don’t think he would, but because I am seeing and hearing that Dodd will correct the erroneous policies Bushco has made.

That’s my take as well. But my primary is not for a good while, so I may not have much choice by then. But I’m not going to sit on the sidelines and let Giuliani, Thompson, Romney or McCain continue the Bush-era!

Who are the Hillary supporters? Is it name recognition? I’ve never heard anyone say that Hillary is their first choice, and I’m in NY.

I’ve heard a few say they’d vote for Hillary, but it seemed to me their willingness to vote for Hillary is a submission to the inevitability of her nomination as expressed in the MSM