Okay, the headline is usually "Democrats in Disarray", but not this time. We know about the public option being popular.
As Democratic congressional leaders and White House officials work to shape health care bills that will go to the House and Senate floors, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that support for a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers has rebounded from its summertime lows and now wins clear majority support from the public.
mcjoan covered that well yesterday. But outside of the public option, ABC News last night ran with the interesting political numbers, presented here from the WaPo.
Overall, 57 percent approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president and 40 percent disapprove. While those numbers have moved only marginally over the past few months, here too, there are fresh signs of issues among the party faithful: "strong approval" among liberal Democrats is down 16 percentage points over the past month.
So what? pass health care, and especially pass health care with a strong public option and those numbers go up. But if they stay the same... well, 57% is a strong number. After all, where does the opposition stand?
Only 20 percent of adults identify themselves as Republicans, little changed in recent months, but still the lowest single number in Post-ABC polls since 1983. Political independents continue to make up the largest group, at 42 percent of respondents; 33 percent see themselves as Democrats.
20%? Yes, 20%. That's the lowest number in 26 years.
The wide gap in partisan leanings and the lack of confidence in the GOP carries into early assessments of next year's midterm elections: 51 percent say they would back the Democratic candidate in their congressional district if the November 2010 election were held now, 39 percent would vote for the Republican. Independents split 45 percent for the Democrat, 41 percent toward the GOP.
And on the key question of
"How much confidence do you have in [ITEM] to make the right decisions for the country's future - a great deal of confidence, a good amount, just some or none at all?"
Obama 49
Dem congress 34
GOP congress 19
Chris Cillizza picks up on that as well.
Less than one in five voters (19 percent) expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decisions for America's future while a whopping 79 percent lacked that confidence...
Among independent voters, who went heavily for Obama in 2008 and congressional Democrats in 2006, the numbers for Republicans on the confidence questions were even more worse. Just 17 percent of independents expressed confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decision while 83 percent said they did not have that confidence.
It's getting popular to talk about a GOP wave election in 2010, but these numbers suggest we're not there yet. Obama and Congress have issues with Democrats, but the likelihood is that Dems will come home, while Republicans have nowhere to go (just like in NJ's governor race.) And like in NJ, if I were the GOP, I'd be looking over my shoulder at third parties. The third party may not win but it sure can be a spoiler. That's what happens when no one wants to be a Republican.
In the meantime Democrats have work to do. They can start by passing some decent legislation that people are interested in. I wonder if there's anything of interest that they have in mind?