Of Popularity

The beginning of the end, hopefully.

No, not the Gates-Crowley-Obama affair, though maybe that also. I'm speaking of a myth discovered, embraced and coveted by the mainstream media.

It started with a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey pertaining to attitudes toward President Obama and his policies and released April 28, 2009, which found

More than eight in 10, 81%, said they personally like the president on the eve of his 100th day in the Oval Office. Of those respondents, 51% said they like him and his policies, while 31% said they like him personally while disapproving of his policies.

Just 12% said they don’t like Obama or his policies, and only 3% said they don’t like him but approve of his policies.

I didn't notice this at the time, but Susan Davis and her editor failed miserably in this article. She writes "of those respondents" (i.e., the 81%), 51% like Obama and his policies. That would be 51% of 81%, or 41.31%. Then she writes 31% like him but not his policies; presumably, that would be 31% of the 81%, or 25.11%.

Davis writes also "12% said they don't like Obama or his policies, and only 3% said they don't like him but approve of his policies." That would be a total of 81-82%.

For those who doubt that is what Davis meant, feel free to assume she meant that 51% of all respondents like Obama and his policies, 31% liked him but not his policies, 12% didn't like Obama or his policies, and only 3% liked Obama's policies but not him. That's how it was generally reported, conveniently.

The traditional media lapped it up. Obama was himself much more popular than his policies, they (it?) exulted. America just adored our cool, new president, but were skeptical of liberalism, they cooed.

As someone situated between the 81%/41% and the 3% (closer to the latter), I had my doubts. Sure, the President was a little more popular than his policies, I understood. Still, it defied reason that somehow tens of millions of Americans liked a chief executive while eschewing his policies. Plus, opposition to the policies of the first black President was, I figured, in part a proxy for opposition to the individual himself, so difficult for some poll respondents to concede to a survey taker, or in some cases even to oneself.

Shoot (for you NRA supporters) forward three months, and what do we have? From another Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll:

In mid-June, respondents were evenly divided when asked whether they thought Mr. Obama's health plan was a good or bad idea. In the new poll, conducted July 24-27, 42% called it a bad idea while 36% said it was a good idea.

But

....the poll showed strong support among respondents for ideas common to all of the pieces of health-care legislation being considered by Congress.

When given several details of the proposal, 56% said they favored the plan compared with 38% who oppose it.

The description given to poll respondents didn't include a public-insurance plan, which divides the public, nor specifics about what income levels might be taxed to fund the plan.

Reporting on a New York Times/CBS News poll taken approximately a month earlier, the Times had noted

The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan — something like Medicare for those under 65 — that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.

Sentiment shifted somewhat over the following five weeks. Still, the Christian Science Monitor observed on July 20 that "the polls are saying," in part

Some 42 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama’s healthcare plan is a bad idea, up from 32 percent in June, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Thursday. Thirty-six percent call it a good idea....

For all their wariness of big government, Americans generally support the idea of a “public plan” offered by the government alongside private insurers, according to a poll conducted for the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington.

Summary: Though skeptical, poll respondents generally support major health care reform, even a public option, surely a "liberal" change to the present system. Yet, call it Obama's plan, and opposition rises.

It's going to be nearly impossible to convince the mainstream media, with their preconceived notions and class preferences of sympathy for corporate America, to acknowledge what's going on. But the citizens of this country are not as enamored of Barack Obama the man or of the fee-based, profit-driven health insurance industry as the Fourth Estate believe, or would like to believe.