Americans see Republicans as favoring 'haves' over 'have-nots'

According to a new poll by The Washington Post and Pew Research, 47% of Americans think congressional Republican favor 'haves' over 'have-nots' compared with 7% who think they favor 'have-nots' and 32% who think they favor both equally.

Meanwhile, 45% of Americans think President Obama treats both equally, compared with 15% who thinks he favors the 'haves' and 29% who thinks he favors the 'have-nots.'

As Greg Sargent points out, those numbers pretty much invalidate the conservative line of argument that President Obama is pursuing some form of class warfare — if anybody's doing that, it's the GOP.

And while it's true that the percentage of Americans who think President Obama treats both groups equally has dropped slightly since April, 2009 — from 51% to 46% — that's because more people now think his administration favors the haves over the have nots than they did in April 2009. (The number is up to 15% now from 8% then.)