Settling Along The Dividing Line

by digby

Polling is showing that people have come back down from their teabagger highs:

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama’s health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks. Still, Americans remain divided over complex legislation that Democrats are advancing in Congress. The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.

That doesn’t sound great, but what’s within the poll is fairly encouraging. First of all, some seniors seem to be coming to their senses, at least the liberal ones:

Among seniors, opposition fell from 59 percent in September to 43 percent now. Almost four in 10, 38 percent, now support it, compared with 31 percent in September. Retiree Sandi Murray, 65, of Hesperia, Mich., said she doesn’t have any concerns her Medicare coverage will suffer. “I think it will be A-OK,” she said.

Independents are coming around too (sort of):

The poll found that 68 percent of Democrats support the congressional plans, up from 57 percent in early September. Opposition among independents plunged from 51 percent to 36 percent. However, only 29 percent of independents currently support the plans in Congress.

There is one group, however that remains adamantly opposed:

Republicans remain solidly against the congressional health care plans, with four out of five opposed. However, even 13 percent say they support the bills in Congress, a contrast with the mood of GOP lawmakers, who are all but unanimously opposed.[…]
Andrew Newcomb, 28, who works in sales and lives near Destin, Fla., said he doesn’t think taxpayers should have to take on the costs of covering the uninsured. “I don’t want my tax money to pay for some pill-popper to fake some injury and go to the hospital when I don’t ever go to the hospital,” said Newcomb, adding he can afford to go to the doctor and pay $60 for a checkup.

Lovely people.

The August silly season was brutal this year, but things seem to have calmed down. The country is divided on HC reform, but then — it’s always divided. In fact, being divided is a defining characteristic of America — we even had a civil war over it. The only thing that’s new is that the political parties have finally cleanly divided along the ideological (and regional) fault lines that have always been there. That’s just the way it is now and I would think the sooner the country understands that this is the new political terrain the better off we’ll be.

More than ever before, elections should have consequences. It may take a while to make the political establishment understand this, but eventually the American parliamentary style (such as it is) should become accepted and we’ll fight this stuff out without having to battle the conventional village wisdom that everything has to be bipartisan or it isn’t legitimate.

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