Ruth Marcus:
Chief Justice Roberts is a big crybaby
Gotta love that headline.
Mark Silva:
The level of disapproval, interestingly, does not represent a record high in Gallup's daily tracking -- that was 48 percent, in late January. But 46-percent approval marks a new low for the president by Gallup's count, by one notch. Other polls have measured lower nadirs, others higher -- Obama's approval has held at 53 percent in a new AP-GFK poll -- but we've showcased Gallup for some time for its neutrality and for the convenience of comparing its measurements of past presidents for six decades.
Gallup itself says Obama's numbers are pretty steady if you look at the weekly numbers.
Speaking of polls, this is from playing with pollster.com's graphs (long time readers know I like to set sensitivity up high, and look at the Big Mo.)
Daniel Gross:
The bogus Republican claim that Obamacare is a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy
First, the proposed health care reform does not take over the system in any sense. Much to the chagrin of progressives, the bills under consideration don't contain a public option and don't provide for a single payer. In fact, they provide subsidies for millions of people to purchase private insurance...
In pretty much every year of the Bush administration, the government "took over" a greater chunk of the health care sector. And many of the Republicans who are complaining about reform proposals today didn't utter a peep. In fact, they helped the process along by voting for the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003. ...
So, to reiterate, we're already half way toward fully socialized medicine. The government has already taken over one-twelfth of the economy—and more every day. That's the status quo the opponents of reform are defending.
David Brooks:
Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term.
This explanation is as far off as any, since it glosses over the disaster that was Bush's first term, and doesn't acknowledge the foreign policy nonsense from the Cheneys and other Bush dead-enders. There's certainly more consternation over economic policy and coddling Wall Street.
Charlie Cook:
So when is news that appears to be good for a party not really something it should cheer about? This week may have been just such a time, after the Gallup Poll released a national survey showing Democrats with a 3-point advantage, 47 percent to 44 percent, on the generic congressional ballot test...
But as Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport pointed out in releasing the results on Tuesday, "Republicans generally are more likely to vote in midterm elections than are Democrats, usually giving the former an advantage among likely voters." Over the years, Gallup has found that when it converts from registered to likely voters, support for Democrats usually drops about 4 points.
It needs to improve. But the election is not today.
Ron Brownstein:
As the final health care votes approach, the Democrats' enduring dream of covering the uninsured rests mostly with Democratic lawmakers more concerned about controlling costs than expanding access.
These fiscally conservative, center-right members of Congress will likely cast the determining votes, especially in the House. Inevitably, they must decide whether they can sell the plan nearing completion to swing voters in their closely contested districts. But even if these Democrats cross that threshold, they also must decide whether the plan is more likely to slow or accelerate the crushing rise in health care spending. "There is risk either way," says Len Nichols, director of George Mason University's Center for Health Policy Research. "There is risk if you [pass it], and there is risk if you don't."
But the risk if you don't is greater, both fiscally and politically.