Posted on 05/11/2007 1:59:20 PM PDT by Sleeping Beauty
Bush-Cheney Impeachment Might Be Idle Talk, But Numbers Show True Trouble
Anti-war Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania is prominent among some Democrats in his use of the "I" word -- impeachment -- about President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Murtha made his comments on CBS's "Face the Nation" and elsewhere.
Few serious observers think things will ever get to actual impeachment. And yet the American public seems more open to the concept than many imagine, according to a new national poll. The implications of this public sentiment could be huge for the 2008 presidential elections.
Our InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll asked this:
"Would you favor or oppose the impeachment by Congress of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney?"
Favor: 39 percent.
Oppose: 55 percent.
Undecided/Don't Know: 6 percent.
The survey of 621 registered voters has been weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.
About four out of 10 Americans favor impeaching the president and vice president. But the biggest news from this survey is not the overall results, but the opinions of independent voters, who usually decide presidential elections.
Forty-two percent of independents want Bush and Cheney impeached. These aren't just voters who disapprove of the White House. Instead, they're for initiating a process that could remove them from office.
To help put these startling numbers into perspective, I turned to the man most identified with the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, former Congressman Bob Barr.
Recall that Barr initiated the Clinton impeachment process by filing what's called an "Inquiry of Impeachment." That's a resolution that precedes an actual "Bill of Impeachment." In the case of Clinton, it was filed long before anybody had heard of Monica Lewinsky.
Analyzing the InsiderAdvantage polling numbers, Barr said, "This indicates the surprising depth of dissatisfaction with Bush.
"I'm not sure we -- [the leaders behind Clinton's impeachment] -- ever really had hard polling numbers in favor of impeachment that were this high when we were in the midst of the process. Perhaps, but I don't recall it."
Those few in the Democrat-controlled House who are advocating impeachment are on the fringe of political thought -- at least for now. That's probably justifiable. Their reasons for impeachment look specious.
Yet one can't help but recall that Barr sounded like a lone voice in the wilderness when he first targeted Clinton. And one of his "charges" against President Clinton was the catchall accusation of "violation of oath of office."
It's not beyond consideration that what now seems silly political grandstanding could get much more serious, especially if the Iraq war continues to go badly, current scandals surrounding the attorney general or White House political adviser Karl Rove get worse, or new White House scandals emerge.
Be all that as it may, the main significance of this public opinion survey isn't its potential predictive value regarding the careers of Bush and Cheney. Rather, the poll tells us that the Republican team readying to assume the party's mantle when the presidential campaign kicks off in earnest in the summer of 2008 might be facing insurmountable odds.
Independent voters are the critical demographic in key swing states such as Florida and Ohio. We track this segment of voters carefully throughout presidential contests, and we know it well. Having no true party alliance, independents can drift into either side's camp and thereby elect the president.
The fact that such a large percentage of these voters are willing to support something as drastic as the impeachment of the president and vice president tells me that the depth of the irritation with the president over his handling of the war, and over his political tin ear when (not) listening to the public's rising discontent, is becoming a powerful political force in itself.
Having been close to former Speaker Newt Gingrich when his Republican-majority House of Representatives pushed for the impeachment of a president, I can vouch that pursuit of impeachment can be tricky enough to backfire on those who initiate it.
That's why I don't expect current Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California to allow the nascent impeachment movement to grow much larger.
Nevertheless, the astounding public sentiment expressed in this poll illustrates just how far Bush and Cheney may have set their party back.
Matt Towery is a former National Republican legislator of the year and author of Powerchicks: How Women Will Dominate America.
It makes no sense as far as the Dem political strategy goes. They have more power with the "bad guys" in office. Right?
What do you think?
More poll nonsense. The Dems can try impeachment. They will get the bill on election day 2008.
50% of the people are Democrats. What did you expect?
I say : IMPEACH CONGRESS!
He was a local Republican legislator who abruptly quit politics a number of years back.
He has set himself up as a sort of Bill Shipp-type (he wishes) political commentator over the last few years. But he's all over the place with a lot of odd ideas, many of them liberal and anti-Republican.
If anybody knows why he quit, speak up!
Um, consider the source. Raiders News Network? InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll? Yep, I believe that “nearly 40% of Americans” figure, uh huh...
The only thing the poll shows is that the Democrats want Pelosi as President. If they did impeach the President, they may as well turn our country over to our enemy.
“The survey of 621 registered voters has been weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.”
Should read:
“The survey of 621 registered New York registered Democratic voters has been over-weighted for elimination of anyone over the age of 45, of the white race, male heterosexual gender and conservative political affiliation. The poll has a no real margin of error but just for grits and shins we’ll tell you it’s something along the lines of plus or minus 4 percent.”
you’ve summed it up nicely..
Sounds like some lefties wet dream.
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Electrician -- I really did consider the source (believe me, I know better than to post a crappy source here at FR). I couldn't find anything definitive.
So, then I looked up the author. He has some credibility. So, I took a chance and posted it. But I honestly don't get it -- since it makes no sense for Dems to get behind this.
The information provided about this "poll" is specious. We don't know where - are these people national? Or are they all in San Francisco? What kind of weighting was done? And how do they know how to weight the data? Did they weight the data according to their own bias? Is the number of participants statistically significant? How many people were asked to participate, but refused? Given the theory that conservatives hang up on these pollsters more often than radicaleftists, was the data weighted to reflect this? How did they calculate the probability of error?
The fact is, this poll, as with the vast majority of polls, represents the sponsor's desired outcome. It may or may not have any bearing on reality.
The sponsor intends the poll to affect opinion, rather than report on it.
AAM, I looked him up. He seems to be all over the place, editorially. I'm still looking and will get back to you.
Nancy Pelosi is (supposedly) very angry with Kucinich for re-proposing it, since it has been (supposedly) taken off the table.
This is one more tactic by the Dems and their Left-wing puppet masters, to undermine the Republicans, and the country. They will play up the number for impeachment rather than admit the number against. And the American people won’t put two and two together. They won’t see the greater number against.
Moreover, I know that rank and file antiwar folks, some of whom I count as friends, are 100% sincere in their belief that a grievous betrayal of the American people has taken place, and I respect that they must follow through on their convictions.
I even have sympathy for the symbolic calls for impeachment of this President for signing the Campaign Finance Reform Act, a pornographically unconstitutional law. Candidate Bush had vowed unequivocally to veto CFR for exactly the right reasons. And he didn't.
All that said, in my opinion, the segment of the American people who countenance impeachment over the invasion of Iraq are exercising terrible judgement.
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