RUSH: Let me mention this before I forget to ’cause I promised that I would. It’s this polling data that’s out from Stan Greenberg and his company, Democracy Corps. What happened here: “Today we are releasing our first survey of the 2014 landscape, a cooperative endeavor conducted with Democracy Corps for NPR. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted the calls March 19-23, 2014, and compiled the data.
“The survey polled 840 likely 2014 voters nationally. The sample contains six percentage points more Democrats than Republicans, 37% Democrat and 31% Republican, consistent with other national polling of likely voters.” They discussed this on NPR. That’s another story. The poll predicts a Republican wave in November. I was one of the first public personas to go public with that prediction.
And then I was concomitantly ridiculed and castigated and told to shut up and stick to what I know about, and so forth. I was really made fun of, laughed at and all that. And then others, after I concomitantly broke the ice, began to pop up with their prediction of the same thing, all the while telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. And now, this poll predicts much the same.
“With seven months to go before the election, the political environment looks remarkably promising for Republicans. Six factors create that environment: 1. The midterm election in the sixth year of a president’s term has been bad news for the party controlling the White House for a century, and this year looks like no exception. (The one time the pattern did not hold was 1998 when Bill Clinton enjoyed an approval rating in the mid 60s…)” because people liked sex in the Oval Office.
“2. The demographics of midterm elections favor Republicans over Democrats,” and that’s a turnout factor, replicating 2010. “3. Obamacare remains unpopular, especially among independents who,” it says here, “hold the balance of power in midterm elections.” Independents really don’t like Obamacare. Oh, speaking of that, a little side note. I had this in the sound bites yesterday but I didn’t get to it. Doesn’t matter.
Ron Fournier for the first time I’m aware of in recorded modern history, said that if the Democrats continue their lambasting of the Tea Party it’s gonna send independents running straight to the Republican Party. You never hear that! What you hear is, “If you Republicans don’t shut up about Obama, the independents are gonna get really ticked and they’re gonna run back back to the Democrats.” They never say the opposite.
But Ron Fournier did. He said that the Democrats are running the risk of sending the independents right into the arms of the Republicans. “4. President Obama’s job approval remains stuck in the low to mid 40s. 5. The generic ballot … is essentially even, which has historically been good for Republicans.” No, that’s not the right way to put it. The generic ballot says, “Okay, are you voting Republican or Democrat?”
If the Republicans are showing up even, that means they’re way ahead because normally the Democrats win that. Theoretically, it’s because there are more Democrats than Republicans. “6. The Senate seats up in 2014 strongly favor Republicans.” Anyway, this bunch is projecting a wave election for the Republicans. Yet the pollsters showed up on Morning Edition yesterday and didn’t talk about any of this.
They talked about how much better Obamacare’s doing in the polls. And they talked of all kinds of other things. They spun it all up for the Democrats when they got onto NPR talking about it. None of what I just read you from their own press release did they discuss.