Fickle Independents
by digby
Keeping in mind that most Americans have better things to do than follow the arcane business of government standoffs (and many think there’s a difference between the ACA and Obamacare…) it’s probably not a good idea to put too much stock in polls about all this. I would guess that most people retreat to familiar partisan corners. But this is sort of interesting, nonetheless:
The latest research from YouGov, conducted in the first two days of the shutdown, shows that half (50%) of Americans blame Republicans in Congress for the continuing shutdown. 11% blame Democrats in Congress while 29% blame President Obama for not ending the shutdown. This divides along partisan lines, with Democrats tending to blame Republicans and Republicans tending to blame the President or Democrats. Independents, however, are largely split, with 41% blaming Republicans in Congress and 33% blaming the President.
Andrew Sullivan says president Obama should be worried:
I’d find the narrow split among Independents unnerving, if I were the president. 33 percent blame the president for the shutdown and impasse? Given that he has already conceded sequester-level spending, and has cut the deficit in the last three years by the swiftest amount since the end of the Second World War, what else do they want him to do? If he were to abandon his signature domestic achievement after re-election, because of blackmail, we might as well give up on elections and representative government altogether.
Except, the fact is that Obama lost the independent vote in 2012 by 5 points. So, more of them are supporting him on this than voted for him.
But I do think the Democrats should probably curb their strutting around and stop declaring victory. I don’t know what these lunatics will do when they’re cornered, but it’s unlikely they’ll just start crying like little babies and quietly suck their thumbs. They tend toward the dramatic.
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