A new Washington Post/ABC poll Has good news both on Healthcare and Bipartisanship. Most people want Congress to keep trying on Healthcare reform and a plurality of people blame the Republicans for the lack of bipartisanship, or let's face it, completely stonewalling of ANYTHING President Obama proposes. Join me below the fold for some surprising outtakes.
This is what struck me in the new poll about Health Care. You'd think that after a year of back and forth bickering on it, and the insistance of Republicans that things were "going too fast", that most people would be in favor of scrapping HCR alltogether. Not so. A majority of the people think that Congress should keep trying on Healthcare. This INCLUDES independants. Maybe we need to email, fax, snail mail this chart to our Representatives.
As party leaders tussle over the proposed bipartisan health care summit, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they want Congress to keep working to pass comprehensive health-care reform. Democrats overwhelmingly support continued action on this front, as do 56 percent of independents and 42 percent of Republicans.
88% of Democrats, 56% of Independants and even 42% of Republicans thinks they should keep trying. That's got to raise some red flags with the GOP. They've been trying so hard to push the story that Healthcare Reform needs to be scrapped, but even 42% of their own party thinks differently. I have to say I'm even shocked by these numbers. The media has been relentlessly pounding the President and his administration over this.
The other piece of this poll was on bipartisanship. I know that there MANY on the left that think the President is doing too much to compromise with the right. There has been a lot of hair pulling and ranting about how the GOP will NEVER compromise with Dems or the President on anything. And frankly, I agree. But take a look at these numbers concerning bipartisanship. 58% of people think Republicans are doing too little to compromise with the administration.
Nearly six in 10 in the new poll say the Republicans aren't doing enough to forge compromise with President Obama on important issues; more than four in 10 see Obama as doing too little to get GOP support. Among independents, 56 percent see the Republicans in Congress as too unbending and 50 percent say so of the president; 28 percent of independents say both sides are doing too little to find agreement.
Will we see more cooperation from the GOP going forward? Don't count on it, but their "ascendency" may be overblown at this point. The GOP shouldn't start celebrating just yet.
Sample and Margin of Error:
UPDATE
New Rasmussen Poll shows Tea Party comes in last
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds that in a three-way congressional contest with a Tea Party candidate on the ballot, the Democrat earns 36% support. The GOP candidate comes in second with 25% of the vote, while the Tea Party candidate picks up 17%. Twenty-three percent (23%) are undecided.
And this is AFTER their first big National Convention!