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March 28, 2007
Pew's Odd Analysis
If a poll revealed the following about the beliefs of the American public, what would you say?
-62% reject the idea that "Success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control."Sounds like America is a somewhat conservative place, right? Well, that's not how Pew saw their study. They titled it "Political Landscape More Favorable to Democrats."-69% say that the poor have become too dependent on government assistance programs.
-45% say that they would rather have a smaller government (43% say bigger).
-86% say the United States should be involved in world affairs and reject isolationism.
-50% say "We should all be willing to fight for our country, whether
it is right or wrong."-43% say torture can often or sometimes be justified
-55% feel that pre-emptive war against those who are a threat is justified.
-75% feel that "we should restrict and control people coming into our country to live more than we do now."
-78% agree that "prayer is an important part of my daily life."
-55% are against gay marriage.
-64% are in favor of the death penalty.
-62% agree with the statement "when something is run by the government, it is usually inefficient and wasteful"
Well, if they're talking about conservative Democrats in the form of Zell Miller, sure. But Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can't be taking much solace from this report, which suggests that small-government, pro-business, hawkish social libertarianism is favored by a majority of those polled.
Allah's got some of the less-encouraging numbers for conservative Republicans. A major shortcoming of this poll is in its assumptions - the "trending Democrat" numbers are based in simple party identification, not on issues favored by Democrats. There are some encouraging numbers for Democrats on government assistance, but for the most part, the reports shows Americans are not on the fringes of either party, but somewhere in the middle.
The report also says that social conservatism is on the decline, but that number seems based on a ridiculous "old-fashioned values" scale question, which seems a bit too subjective to be of any real use. What these data sets suggest to me is that Americans are tired of excessive partisanship and the hardcore ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum.
If Democrats read this to mean "maintain the status quo" they’re in trouble, as people are not trending liberal. If Republicans believe this means they can go hard right, they're wrong as well. The poll also shows solid support for ideas such as greater government support of the poor and also shows that while people may be pro-business, they are increasingly troubled by what they see as the excesses of business.
Sure, guys like Tom Tancredo can take heart in the 75% pro-enforcement number on immigration, but he should also pay attention to the fact that the poll shows 59% of Americans in favor of providing a path to citizenship for illegal aliens who have lived and worked in the country for years.
Pew may be a liberal organization, but the poll has solid methodology and a good-sized and random sample. To conservatives who may be tempted to write it off based on the ideology of the organization that funded it, I would say read the actual report and look at the data itself, as I believe Pew's analysis to be flawed at best, wishful thinking at worst.
Posted by slublog at March 28, 2007 12:10 AM
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