Posted on 04/28/2007 11:20:41 AM PDT by freespirited
Today's little quote on Vice-President Cheney from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in the New York Times, "I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating", was the second time in two weeks that a prominent Democratic Senator asserted that public support for the Vice-President is exceptionally low. On April 15, on Fox News Sunday, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) said "Vice President Cheney has zero credibility. I don't think anybody more than 5 percent or 10 percent of the hardcore solid Republican base believes much that Vice President Cheney says. He has no credibility."
My colleague at Pollster.com, Mark Blumenthal, promptly set the current record straight with this post. Cheney's approval is running between 29% and 34% in the four most recent polls.
Normally I'd write either of these quotes off to hyperbole in a world rarely disciplined by details like data, but the two quotes in short order raises a more interesting question: do Democrats, even political professionals, systematically misperceive Cheney's standing in public opinion? It isn't that Cheney has a particularly positive public standing, but as the figure above shows, he in fact is only a few points lower in approval rating than is President Bush.
In the "paired-data" (meaning only polls that ask about both Bush and Cheney job approval) above, Bush approval is about 34% and Cheney approval is 32%-33%. Over the course of the entire administration, Cheney has consistently been a bit below the President in approval, more-so in the first term and less-so in the second term. This is partly an artifact of more people saying they "don't know" if they approve or disapprove of Cheney.
Since Democrats are such poll watching whores, someone should be showing them these polls.
Vox Populi-Poll Results On Withdrawing Troops-National Review
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1824755/posts
The point being missed is that VP Cheney’s approval rating is higher than the Democratic Congress...higher than Senator Reid...
And let's not forget the media have been toiling night and day since 198? to smear Dick Cheney.....Is this the best they can do?
{Yeah, I've always liked the guy. Does it show?}
Personally, I like Cheney more than Bush. Cheney is a real conservative.
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