Posted on 04/09/2005 10:14:10 AM PDT by smoothsailing
SATURDAY, APRIL 09, 2005 12:00 AM
Don't be so sure that Schiavo intervention hurt the GOP
C onventional wisdom is clear: Washington's intervention in the Terri Schiavo case hurt the GOP big-time. A Time Magazine poll found that three-quarters of the public thought Congress was wrong to intervene after a hospice, under court order, pulled the disabled woman's feeding tube, while 70 percent disapproved of President Bush's role in the saga.
Funny. A new Zogby International poll shows that, when asked questions that go to the heart of the Schiavo matter, the public is very much in sync with the failed attempt by Congress and Bush to save the woman's life.
Zogby, in a poll commissioned by the Christian Defense Coalition, found that by a two-to-one margin -- 44 percent versus 24 percent -- likely voters believe the law should assume a patient wants to live and be kept alive with the help of a feeding tube, if a patient -- like Schiavo -- left no written statement on end-of-life care.
Should hearsay be admissible (as happened with Schiavo), when courts decide if a feeding tube should be removed? Some 57 percent said no; 31 percent said yes.
If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, not on life support and without a written end-of-life directive, should he or she be denied food and water? Among those polled, 80 percent said no.
The poll is not clear-cut. A majority of those questioned said elected officials should not intervene when the courts deny rights to the disabled and that elected officials shouldn't intervene to protect a disabled person's right to live, despite conflicting testimony. On the other hand, a razor-thin majority, 44 percent, agreed that the feds should intervene if a state court denies food and water to a disabled person; 43 percent disagreed.
The bottom line: The conventional wisdom is off. It may well be that other polls showed voters disapproving of what Washington did, because they didn't know Schiavo left no written directive, that there was conflicting testimony on her end-of-life wishes or that her husband had two children with another woman.
Conventional wisdom is also wrong in defining this case as a GOP issue. Not one Democratic senator voted against the measure to send the case to federal courts. As the Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Fund noted, Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton each had a choice to vote against the bill, "and they didn't."
Also, lefties Jesse Jackson, Nat Hentoff and Ralph Nader opposed removing the feeding tube. Ditto disability advocates. It's a bedrock issue: You don't deny food and water to a disabled woman unless you know for sure that she wants you to.
My favorite post-Schiavo spin is that the Democrats are the party that wants to keep the government out of family life. Sure, that works -- if you forget that the Democrats want to take teenagers' birth control and abortion decisions away from parents, Democrats want taxpayers to pay for said birth control and abortions, and Democrats made spousal abuse a federal crime.
Polls showed that Americans opposed what Washington did, but a more in-depth poll suggests most voters strongly support the sentiments that drove Washington to intervene. The Democratic Party wants government out of family matters -- unless they involve children. Other than that, the convention wisdom is solid.
This article was printed via the web on 4/9/2005 12:58:35 PM . This article appeared in The Post and Courier and updated online at Charleston.net on Saturday, April 09, 2005.
ping
ping
Convential wisdom is off a heck of a lot more than it is on.
I don't think it hurt the GOP. I didn't like the idea of them stepping on the state but I didn't see any other choice.
The conventional wisdom shows just how far off base the govt. and mainstream media are from the values of the people.
I think organizations supporting the disabled need to do a bit more publicity work on this one!
That said, however, I agree that the GOP position will emerge as the favored one, no matter what the press says. Most Dems, after all, tried to avoid saying anything at all about the case, simply because they knew that the GOP position was not only right but was going to be the popular one, even though they are so pro-death they could not bring themselves to support it.
The GOP should be proud of its efforts in this case, although perhaps ashamed that they failed in the long run, and should not back off from the issue, as it is doing now. The GOP always backs down in the face of media pressure, and it's a stupid short-sighted move, especially in this case.
The newly crowned king of truth and honesty in polling.
Can the political resurrection of Pat Buchanan be far behind?
So9
Pubbies were on both sides. Whether it hurt the party as a whole? I don't think so. I do believe that pubblies will remember Jeb Bush's part or lack thereof.
My 81 year old other has been a liberal political bell weather for years. She still hates George Bush, but she is now REALLLLY scared of the Democrats who she feels abandoned a vulnerable person who was essentially one of her peers. I think the GOP just received more credibility with the geriatric population.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4416469.stm
Only the insular liberal "elites" expected a stand for life to "hurt" the GOP.
I was thinking maybe Ross Perot. :)
The negative polls the MSM were trumpheting during the Terri Schiavo intervention were nothing but false advertisement. They mis-represented the facts and asked leading and mis-leading questions in their polls.
That'll work! ;)
Terri ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
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