Just take a swig and pass it on...
Posted on 01/10/2010 7:47:51 PM PST by dangus
Washington was rather shocked by a Public Policy Polling (PPP) which showed Republican Scott Brown with a one point lead over Democrat Martha Coakley in the race for Ted Kennedy's former senate seat. If the poll is accurate, and a subsequent poll by the Boston Herald suggests it is, the internals of the polls ought to send every elected Democrat office holder screaming in terror.
PPP shows Obama's approval rating in Massachusetts, one of the most Democrat-dominated states in the union at 44%. That would seem to suggest a 50-state sweep in 2012. But their home page is more in line with the sort of polls coming out of the mainstream press: Obama at 52% nationally. Could Obama's approval rating in Massachusetts really be eight percentage points lower than in the rest of the country? Or are polling firms only giving us honest results when there is an election about to demonstrate the electorate's true leanings?
The PPP press release implies that one reason for their surprising find is that they are surveying likely voters, and that Brown's supporters are more likely to be counted that Coakley's. But their partisan breakdown doesn't bear that out. According to their likely voter model, 44% of those who turn out will be Democrats, whereas only 37% of voters in Massachusetts are registered as Democrats. And their poll asked registration, not how they voted; fully 39% indicated that they were Independents. Only 17% said they were Republicans.
PPP points out that in their sample, Obama voters outnumbered McCain voters by 16%, as opposed to the 26% that Obama won by. But 7% couldn't remember... or didn' want to remember. Usually most of those respondents are those who regret their decision.
Demographics internals don't make it seem any more likely that PPP's "likely voters" are more Republican than the general population, either. 40-65 year-olds seem very heavily represented in PPP's results, but Coakley actually won that group. And blacks, made up 9% of PPP's voters, versus just 7% of Massachusetts residents, but 20% of Democrats.
The only way PPP's polls make any sense (without any duplicity) is if Obama for whatever reason is vastly more unpopular wherever elections are held, like Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. This is possible... Perhaps as campaigns focus voters onto the issues, Democrats simply lack credibility. That doesn't augur well for 2010, when most statehouses, all house seats and 37 senate seats are up for elections.
Polling data is available at http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_MA_45398436.pdf
PPP points out that in their sample, Obama voters outnumbered McCain voters by 16%, as opposed to the 26% that Obama won by. But 7% couldn’t remember...
_______________________________________________
If i was blind drunk, I would know whom I voted for.
“If i was blind drunk, I would know whom I voted for.”
But if you were stone-cold sober, and it was Obama you voted for, would you admit it?
>>If i was blind drunk, I would know whom I voted for.<<
FWIIW, I *am* a blind drunk and I had to get into that state to hold my nose, take a swig and pull the lever for McCain (although Sarah provided some comfort — well her being on the ballot anyway...).
Exactly: “Don’t know” in these polls means, “I’m ashamed to admit it.”
Post of the day, IMHO. LOL.
If i was blind drunk, I would know whom I voted for.”
But if you were stone-cold sober, and it was Obama you voted for, would you admit it?
Interesting...even if your not blind drunk.
Oh boy ... more dead people are getting
ready vote. You just know they’ll pull
every ACORN/Black Panther trick in the
book.
I musy be blind drunk, because I’m completely confused...lol.
Just take a swig and pass it on...
LOL. After watching Schmidt lie about Sarah on 60 Minutes tonight, I wish I had something here to swig.
FReep mail me if you want on/off the list.
geez, I read this and sent another 20.00 off to the Brown campaign..
The House and Senate debate how much to limit insurance flexibility..
wall street journal
The House version of ObamaCare is more destructive than the Senate version, though that’s like comparing Krakatoa and Mount Vesuvius. At any rate, one of the main Democrat-on-Democrat bouts in their secret nonconference committee turns on who will regulate the insurance industry to within an inch of its commercial life.
Both bills blow up the individual and small-business insurance markets, to be replaced with new “exchanges” in which people can buy heavily subsidized coverage and insurers will be told what rates they can charge consumers and what benefits they must cover. The Senate would create 50 exchanges and leave the regulation to state insurance commissioners, who would have to follow minimum (or rather, maximum) standards. The House prefers one national exchange and a new federal regulator called the Health Choices Administration.
The sole purpose of this office is to obliterate health choices: What really will be universal about “universal coverage” is that all consumers will have to buy essentially one standard product that Washington decides is best. Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a flavor of what she expected of the new health choices commissioner when she said at a recent press conference that insurance companies “will be crying out for a public option.”
The irony is that the same Democrats who have spent years opposing the regulatory competition that would come from allowing interstate insurance sales are now suddenly fine with national policies. As long as they’re the ones running the show.
State insurance commissioners haven’t distinguished themselves as the most innovative public servants, and their many anticompetitive edicts have driven up health costs across the country. Democrats now want to impose those same regulations on the places that have had the good sense so far to avoid them. But like politics, all health markets are local. At least the Senate’s approach would preserve some scrap of federalism that would let states make their own decisions, for better or worse.
Another problem is that the health choices commissar would approve all increases in insurance premiums, i.e., national price controls. All insurers, especially the smaller outfits, would thus be exposed to bankruptcy if their revenues can’t cover the mandated benefits that those capped premiums are supposed to fund. States, however, would still be required to police the stability and solvency of insurers and maintain guarantee funds to cover obligations if a carrier goes under.
In other words, state taxpayers would be responsible for backstopping the consequences of mistakes made in Washington. It’s like creating federal deposit insurance and setting interest rates and then saying states have to clean up failed banks.
After their year of ObamaCare cheerleading, it’s tempting to let insurers and their shareholders deal with the consequences of their misguided political calculations. But the real losers will be patients, and at this point probably the best that can be hoped is that Democrats will destroy as little as possible.
BTTT
IMO The Independents don't want to be democrats and they aren't comfortable registering GOP because of social pressures from employees, union officials etc...But get them angry and we'll see how they vote. Remember MA has elected “R”s in the past.
Please donate to the Brown Campaign(R) Mass (Brown and the Patriots vs. Cokley and the Communists). No donation too small, I donated today. Monday is a planned Money Bomb day. Send shock waves through the RAT party. Link to contribute in my signature line. I donated today. Election on 1/19/2010. Donate to Free Republic too, while you are at it.
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