Bad Poll News for Obama, Big Government and the Democrat Party

Rush Limbaugh.com ^ | October 6, 2014 | Rush Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There's also, ladies and gentlemen, there's another poll. Actually a couple of polls out there. Voter opposition to Obama is at a 16-year high. Voter opposition to Obama is worse than voter opposition ever was to George W. Bush. Now, you wouldn't know this because the Drive-Bys of course are not talking about it. They're not reporting it on a daily basis. They have not been reporting Obama's decline in favorability with the American people and the people who voted for him, like they chronicled it with Bush multiple times a day, much less multiple times a week.

The AP has a funny story. Well, it's funny in the way it's reported. The headline: "Americans Worry -- Can Government Protect Us?" And what's funny about this, this is an AP story reporting an AP poll. And you have to dig hard to find the numbers, because they're so bad. For example, in one result they use the term "nine in 10." Nine out of 10 Americans, blah, blah. Instead of saying 90%. They have really reduced the use of numbers in this piece so that the low-information crowd will not realize the full impact of it.

Here's the thing that worries about it. This is gonna featured with details coming up here. But the thing that worries me about this, we've talked about this in terms of the Millennials before. It used to be, and it wasn't that long ago, if you had a poll that showed something like nine out of 10 Americans worry that government can't protect 'em, that would automatically redound nagatively to Democrats. But it doesn't today, necessarily, as we have found.

The Millennials, for example, are losing faith in America, not the Democrat Party, not Obama. They are responding negatively poll after poll to Obama policy after Obama policy after Democrat Party policy, and it isn't working for 'em, and they're very down and out about their futures. But they think it means the country's best days are behind us. They don't associate it, at least a significant number of them don't, associate that failure of government with failure of the Democrat Party. For some reason -- well, it's not for some reason. We know why. They do not associate the Democrat Party with the party of Big Government.

Now, stop and think. How could the Republicans have possibly lost that? The Republican Party used to be known as the party of limited small government, and by virtue of that the Democrats were known government as the part of Big Government. That's not automatic anymore. That is a huge branding loss. Anyway, details on all of that and more are coming up.

But that nine out of 10 number, by the way, that the AP refuses to call 90%, 90% of those polled say they are likely to vote in the November election and say the economy is an extremely or very important issue, which would not redound well to the party in power, which in this case is the party in the White House. But even the poll question, "Can government protect us?" What does government not have a hand in anymore?

When you get right down to it, what does government not have a hand in? The government's hand is in virtually everything you do, including what you say, including, if Michelle Obama had her druthers, what you eat. The government's determining what kind of car you drive or want to. The government's determining the lightbulb ban. Can government do enough to save us? Can government protect us? And you've got Ebola. The government's got its hands in the name of the Washington Redskins. The government's got its hands in whatever's going on the NFL, be it concussions or domestic abuse.

And then there's a poll at TheHill.com: "Democrats Start to Point Fingers." And this one's kind of surprising because of the source, TheHill.com, talking about trouble in the Democrat Party and Democrat paradise.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: "Angry and frustrated voters are planning to use the midterm elections in one month to tell President Obama they oppose his agenda, the highest 'no vote' percentage in the last 16 years measured by Gallup. The polling outfit found that 32% of voters want to send a message of opposition with their vote, compared to just 20% who are sending a signal of support.

"That is 13 points higher than in 1998 when former President Clinton was headed to impeachment for lying about his sex affair with" Monica Lewinsky, and it's higher "than in 2008, when Americans were tired of President Bush’s military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan." I know. Don't get me started on that again. They were "tired" of it because they'd been talked into it for five years.

Now, this question is not new. It was first asked by Gallup back in 1998. Question reads this way: "'Will your vote for a candidate be made in order to send a message that you SUPPORT Barack Obama, be made in order to send a message that you oppose Barack Obama, or will you NOT be sending a message about Barack Obama with your vote?' Not surprisingly, Republicans want to use their vote as a megaphone of opposition," and then begun quotes the numbers here.

The story is in the Washington Examiner, but it is a huge number here. It's a 16-year high. People are actually responding to a question about whether or not their vote is specifically a message of opposition to Obama. It's a huge number. It's the biggest, I think, since Gallup has been asking the question. It's not that long ago, 1998. Republicans have, I'm sure, strategists and consultants and pollsters which have told them something similar to this. That is one of the reasons why the Republicans are just standing mute and not saying anything.

They think that by opening up they might make of themselves targets, and they really believe the more they're invisible, the more they're not even on people's minds, the better the outcome will be. I understand that, by the way, but I still think it's just a tremendous opportunity. I mean, look, you've got a record high number of people who claim that their vote is to send a message of opposition to Barack Obama. To me, that's a golden opportunity to build on it, expand the number of people by virtue of education.

Here again, it seems to be a large number of people just waiting for a connection. You know, the majority opposition to Obamacare seems to me to have always been an opportunity for the Republicans to connect with a majority of the American people on something, Obamacare. Another one is the economy and jobs. There are any number of things that people oppose in great numbers what Obama is doing, a majority.

Immigration's another made to order, but of course we know where the Republicans are on that. But they are passing up these opportunities to forge a connection with a majority body of thought. I can't help but think it's a missed opportunity. It's an opportunity to actually forge an alliance with people and let them know you think the same way, you're on the same page with 'em. But they're opting to stand mute.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There's an American people survey that says the American people worry that the government can't protect us. Really? The government's gonna protect us from sexual assault here. I mean, they can't protect us from Ebola apparently, and they apparently can't protect us from terrorism, but, boy, they can sure protect us from date rape and they can protect us from sexual assault. They really get going on that.

"Americans lack confidence in the government's ability to protect their personal safety and economic security, a sign that their widespread unease about the state of the nation extends far beyond politics, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll."

I referenced this poll at the beginning of the program. They don't use any numbers. The numbers are so devastating that AP tries to report their poll without using numbers. They used the term "nine in 10" instead of the stronger "90%."

"Widespread unease about the state of the nation extends far beyond politics." "Widespread unease" instead of using the number.

A couple of pull quotes. "The poll found that Democrats tend to express more faith in the government's ability to protect them than do Republicans. Yet even among Democrats, just 27 percent are confident the government can keep them safe from terrorist attacks."

Now, why isn't that a headline? The headline to the story: "Americans Worry -- Can Government Protect Us?" The Democrats in the poll, which the AP says, hey, the Democrats have a lot more faith in government than the Republicans, right? And then you get to the number and you find out it's only 27% of Democrats are confident the government can keep them safe from terror attacks. And then it says: "Fewer than 1 in 5 say so on each of the other issues, including climate change." Only 20%, one in five, big whoop.

They don't use 20%. Fewer than 20% say the government can protect them against a bunch of things, including climate change. "For many of those questioned in the poll, conducted before doctors in Texas diagnosed a Liberian man with the Ebola virus, the concern starts with the economy. The poll found that 9 in 10 of those most likely to vote in the Nov. 4 election call the economy an extremely or very important issue." Once again, not 90%, but nine in 10.

"Those surveyed also pointed to events such as the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, that followed the fatal police shooting an unarmed black 18-year-old and the beheading of a woman in an Oklahoma food processing plant, apparently at the hand of a suspended co-worker."

So there isn't a lot of faith in the government. Now, this is what's frustrating to me. In the old days -- and it's not too long ago -- the political parties were identified as Democrats believe in Big Government, Big Government to defend, protect, take care of. Democrats believe that government has to pave the way for you because you're too stupid to make the right decisions. Republicans believe in smaller government, limited government, government that gets out of your way.

You have a poll that shows 90% of the American people think the government can't keep them safe, in the old days it'd be the end of the Democrat Party because they would have been solely, exclusively identified with this poll, and particularly under these circumstances where the Democrats are running the country. Except the media wants you to think the Republicans in the House are.

As far as the low-information voter is concerned, the reason Washington doesn't work is because of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. Not because of Obama. No, the Limbaugh theory explains Obama. In fact, to low-information voters, the Democrats aren't even political, no, no, no, no, no. The Democrats just have compassion, and Obama, they just care about people. It's the Republicans who always engage in politics and the Republicans who never cooperate and the Republicans who never try to get along. The Republicans are always trying to stop Obama and so forth. And yet in the midst of all that, 90% think the government's blowing everything it's touching. Only 27% of Democrats have no problem whatsoever with the way the government's operating.

What worries me about this is polling I've seen at other polls of Millennials. They have said things very close to this, but they say they've lost faith in the country, and that's the devastating thing. So if you have 90% of the people think government can't protect 'em, I hope that does not mean 90% have lost faith in the country, rather than have lost faith in Obama or lost faith in this administration.

END TRANSCRIPT

[catfish1957]

Doesn’t really mater when you have liberal candidates getting 150% of the cemetery vote.

[catfish1957]

matter- mater

[vpintheak]

Color me pessimistic. Until a majority of Americans actually vote, we will continue the downhill trend. America is by and large center-right.
We get outvoted by the motivated left and their cheating tactics.

[TomServo]

Blah blah - he said the same thing in 2012...BFD

[Uncle Miltie]

So what will actually occur under a Republican congress? Anything actually different than we get right now?

[Zhang Fei]

Limbaugh is wrong:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx

Bush bottomed in the high 20’s. Obama bottomed in the high 30’s. There are a couple of years left for Obama to take those numbers lower, so he might well match Bush. However, as of today, Obama’s lowest numbers are 10% higher than the nadir of Bush’s approval ratings.

[Zhang Fei]

Having said that, if you look at the Gallup numbers, it’s clear that Obama’s numbers are much worse than they were in 2010. And we know what happened in 2010.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx

[ScottinVA]

I appreciate Rush’s attempts to encourage us, but I’m not seeing an big shift away from the dems.

[Jagdgewehr]

I have reached the point where polls mean nothing to me. The only poll that will encourage me as a sign there is a change for the better includes a ballot box.

[nhwingut]

That’s because Obama has a built in 5-6% cushion thanks to 90% support from blacks.

[ScottinVA]

“America is by and large center-right.”

I would’ve agreed with that statement 10 years ago. Demographic and ideological changes have shifted this country decidedly leftward. It’s much more center-left. A center-right country would never have elected Obama in the first place, much less a second time.

[FreeReign]

Having said that, if you look at the Gallup numbers, it’s clear that Obama’s numbers are much worse than they were in 2010. And we know what happened in 2010.

The Tea Party and the Republican Party were more united in 2010. This time, not so much.

[ScottinVA]

There won’t be a Republican Senate.

[Uncle Miltie]

Kinda doubt it. Seems likely Roberts will flame out in kansas. That should have been safe.

[exit82]

The most important thing we can do is to talk down the Dems to our friends, family and workmates and to encourage people to vote Republican.

Less than a month to go, and the 2014 election is the last chance we have to neuter the Kenyan.

If the Dems keep the Senate, and we lose seats in the House, kiss America good-bye.

[donozark]

Agree totally with your #12. The America that I knew and loved is just not the same anymore. Sad but true...Chances of electing true conservatives, en masse, to Congress is slim to none.

[Uncle Miltie]

It’s the tea party’s fault for demanding actual conservatism. Just ask.

[Zhang Fei]

That’s because Obama has a built in 5-6% cushion thanks to 90% support from blacks.

That's true for any given Democratic pol.

[Zhang Fei]

Obama’s approval-disapproval was near even in 2010. It’s now 10 points underwater. Unity may not matter as much.