Two-thirds of GOP blame Obama for recession
Published: August 19, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
Fox News viewers more misinformed than most about health care reform; support for reform drops without public option
Nearly two-thirds of Republican supporters believe President Barack Obama is to blame for the recession that began in December, 2007, according to an opinion poll from Rasmussen Reports.
Among the general population, 39 percent say President Obama takes the blame for the economic downturn, while 55 percent blame President Bush. By comparison, in May, 27 percent blamed President Obama, while 62 percent blamed the former White House resident.
That suggests a slow but certain change in the electoral attitude, as President Obama begins to “own” the economic state of the country.
“The partisan gap is noticeable,” Rasmussen states on its Web site. “Eighty-two percent of Democrats see Obama’s Republican predecessor as the cause of the nation’s current economic problems, while 64% of GOP voters blame the policies of the current Democratic president. Voters not affiliated with either party blame Bush more but by just eight points.”
(Thanks to CQ Politics for the tip.)
PUBLIC MISINFORMED ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM — ESPECIALLY FOX VIEWERS
A poll done for NBC News finds that a majority of Americans are misinformed about key elements of the health care reform effort.
According to Chuck Todd at MSNBC, 55 percent of Americans believe the proposed public health plan would insure illegal immigrants; 54 percent believe the plan would result in a government takeover of health care in the US; and 50 percent believe the plan would use taxpayers’ money to pay for abortions. None of those assertions are true.
Additionally, 45 percent of Americans believe the “death panel” story — that the public health plan would create special committees that would decide who gets to receive life-saving treatment and who doesn’t.
But the misinformation was particularly strong among self-identified Fox News viewers. Among those, 72 percent believe illegal immigrants will get free health care; 79 percent believe it will lead to a government takeover of health care; 69 percent say taxpayer money will be used for abortions; and 75 percent believe the “death panel” claim.
The same poll found that only 21 percent of those surveyed trust the Republicans on the issue of health care.
(Thanks to Matt Corley at ThinkProgress for the tip.)
SUPPORT FOR HEALTH REFORM DROPS WITHOUT PUBLIC OPTION
Dropping the public option from health care reform won’t convince opponents to change their minds about it, but it will convince supporters to abandon the plan — that’s the gist of another poll from Rasmussen Reports.
“Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called ‘public option’ is removed,” Rasmussen states on its Web site. With the public option part of the deal, support for the plan hovers at around 42 percent.
Rasmussen points out that dropping the public option would make only a small change in the opposition to the plan: 37 percent would be “strongly” opposed without a public option, compared to 44 percent “strongly” opposed with a public plan.
But, among supporters, a very different picture emerges:
Without the public option, just 50 percent of Democrats support the legislation. That’s down from 69 percent support measured a week ago. But here the enthusiasm gap is especially strong. A week ago, polling found that 44 percent of Democrats Strongly favored the reform plan. Without the public option, just 12 percent of Democrats Strongly support it.
Among Republicans, 79 percent are opposed to a plan that includes a public option, while 69 percent are opposed to a health reform plan without a public option.
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Yeah that’s great considering the recession started in Nov. 2006, I believe; rawstory covered it.
This is more of the GOP lying to their own constituents to try to piece their party back together so they can eventually pick up where Dubya left off.
Here we go again….Raw Story, WHY do you continually quote that rightwing Rasmussen poll to us? It’s a joke. Their polls always slant to the right- in some cases heavily. This poll is absolutely ridiculous. Did anyone consider a reason why they would conduct a poll like this in the first place?
Now, with that said, it would not surprise me in the least that 2/3 of the GOP believe this. I’m suprised in wasn’t 3/3, honestly.
This is a political “party” (more like a cult) that has no analytical skills whatsoever. Many of them probably also believe that Obama took office right after the election, so he must “own” December, of course. Also, this “recession” was going on during much of the Bush/Cheney regime.
Raw, quit wasting our time with this shit. None of us need to be reminded repeatedly how deranged, sick, and reality-distorted these republicans are. We know already.
Except, polls like this are nothing but informational, so they don’t really do anything other than help shed light on things.. You also suggest this is a “right leaning poll”, but that means MORE than 2/3s _wrongly_ blame Obama for the Shrub’s mess..
Now, if this was a “poll” that said “2/3s of Americans support the war in Iraq”, or “2/3s of Americans want Obama to resign”, then we would be within reason to dismiss the poll.. but, in this case, it just says “the bulk of the GOP are really really stupid”. Nothing wrong with polls like that
Let me see. 2 / 3 of 22% (Republicans) = 15% of the population? Not much to worry about.
As expected the GOP failed their IQ test. Who would have known that Obama was secretly running the Bush administraion? What other “brilliant” accessments will the GOP put forth?
Just proves that you don’t have to be stupid to be a Republican, but most Republicans are stupid.
Considering the right wing GOP gets it’s information from it’s own alternate reality network, it doesn’t surprise me that they cannot use their brain. It is sort of like Jimmy Carter being sandwiched in between eight years of Nixon/Ford and eight years of Raygun which makes twenty years in all but the wingnuts can blame all the bad of that twenty years on Carter. Go figure. Interesting article pasted below.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-12/the-gops-misplaced-rage/full/
Jeebus H. Christ — are Repiglicans really that self-servingly ignorant that they’re willing to forget wholesale eight fucking years of flagrant, felonious spending on two wars — one of which was created simply as a boondoggle moneygrab for Bushler’s buddies?! What a bunc of sacks of crap these people are. Less than one fucking year in office and the man created a recession that began last year while their dipshit pResident was in office.
These people truly are the scum of the earth.
Perhaps we need a more stringent standard applied to “news” organizations such as Fox. Or, we could just revoke Rupert Murdoch’s American citizenship and send him back to Australia.
Two-thirds of GOP HAVE AMNESIA about
their guys BUSH-CHENEY who CREATED THE RECESSION.
The next civil war just may be between true Americans and the GoP……..Gee, I’d have a good reason to carry on then!
TODAY’S REPUBLICANS ARE AMERICA’S ENEMY WITHIN
Republicans ARE practicing seditious DEMAGOGUERY and insurrectionary OBSTRUCTIONISM intended to destabilize our economy for purposes of political exploitation.
Republicans AREN’T making a sincere effort to STOP the bleeding THEIR incompetent leadership and failed policies created. Instead, they’re using conflicting economic theories as a smokescreen to conceal their subversive agenda, which is to cause President Obama and America to fail so they can blame Democrats for the consequences of THEIR calamitous mismanagement.
Republicans ARE preposterously professing that THEIR disgraceful political WHORING had nothing to do with the banking, real estate, stock market and employment catastrophes that resulted.
Republicans ARE trying to hamstring Democrats to prevent them from repairing the damage caused during a Republican presidency.
Republicans ARE offering controversial arguments they know no one can agree on to disrupt and prevent progressive change. They’d rather divide America and create political gridlock than endure the political consequences of effective Democratic governance. That’s how they gained power and that’s how they’re trying to retain it.
Republicans AREN’T the LOYAL OPPOSITION; they ARE the ENEMY WITHIN whose personal priorities have eroded their moral and ethical standards to the point that duplicity and betrayal are their preferred modus operandi.
It’s one thing to advocate their conservative beliefs; it’s another thing entirely to willfully sabotage America’s government because a successful Democratic presidency would not be vulnerable to the greed, fears and hatreds that have produced and sustained the radical Republican corporatism and extremism that have poisoned and crippled America.
Why would the Republicans tell the truth when they know most Americans have believed the lies they have told for 8 years. Now yes anyone with a brain would know the Recession started even before Obama was a Senator but you can led people to the water but they don’t have to drink it. Many Americans still believe Saddam had WMD’s and the Mushroom Cloud told by Connie Rice. Yes Bush said for 8 years the US does not torture nor do we transport detainees to other countries. Oops I forgot all that was a lie and the other countries told of how the Bush Administration paid them to help. Saddam has only the WMD’s given to him in the 70’s by the USA and there was never a Mushroom Cloud. No wonder the US is ranked so low in education when most get their news from Fox News who has Anchors who are drunks and drug addicts as well as members of the KKK.
It’s amazing they could find enough Republicons capable of even taking a poll. You would need an IQ in double digits to be able to answer most questions. Most of them are so lost, or fed full of lies, and distortions, they couldn’t find their ass with both hands. They really don’t know what to do when calling people names has little effect any more. I guess they will watch more Glen Beck, and listen to more Limpbaugh and retreat a little more into their fantasy world.
Republicans Are A Disease
http://www.RepublicansAreADisease.com
I find it incredible that our airwaves are licensed to corporations which seem to have an agenda wholly separate from disseminating information. I look forward to the FCC getting a commissioner with the cajones to break up the media ownership cabals which are only confusing the electorate in the hopes of keeping us docile, or at worst, angry at eachother, rather than the entities that are getting richer on our backs. (Pardon the run on sentence)
Peace (and health) to all.
John
49% of North Carolina Republicans think Obama is not a natural born U.S. citizen. 12% of that 49% do not know or are not sure that Hawaii is a state. I would like to see the numbers on other red states.
Not at all surprising that they seem ignorant of the fact that the recession started long before Obama cam along. The average GOP voter is extremely low IQ, low information.
“That suggests a slow but certain change in the electoral attitude, as President Obama begins to “own” the economic state of the country.”
No, it suggests that Americans are too stupid to even remember what they saw with their own eyes.. and that is that this really started becoming a serious problem LONG before the one they “blame” ever took office.
It also suggests that “partisanship” is the ONLY thing driving large numbers of the population, which means you can never come to any kind of “rational” understanding with them.
Ignorance is bliss, and most Americans are some happy mother fuckers (despite being driven off a cliff by the right-wing).
People who are reality based realize that causes come before effects. People who are faith based don’t even realize what cause and effect are. To them, miracles are what run the world and God is constantly lending a hand to make sure that things fall the way they are supposed to, winds blow the way they are supposed to, the sun rises and sets the way it is supposed to, etc. They therefore have no problem whatsoever believing that God punished us with a recession for something we would do in the future. This is what happens when faith replaces knowledge as the basis for action.
Rofl, well at least the uneducated are a block.
It’s no wonder that the right wing doesn’t believe in evolution. If they think the recession is Obama’s fault, they’re about to go the way of the dodo bird. Even cockroaches aren’t THAT dumb.
Big deal. Two thirds of the GOP blame Obama for anything that pisses them off.
Two thirds of stupid people, mean they are 100 per cent stupid.
FOX News is a nest of poisonous snakes and vile spiders… take a flamethrower to the studio……………..Opps sounded like “right-wing crazy” there for a minute…but some times you got to be willing to fight just as nasty as the “other” side does
I blame Obama for Vietnam. 9/11, and mumps.
This article highlights the need for health care reform, particularly in the area of mental health services.
1.5 million more fell below poverty line in 2008..Believe me , there is enough blame to go around for both parties..All should be fired for doing this to us..
how much cheaper/easier would it be for obama to have rupert murdoch and roger ailes “blackwatered” instead of actually trying to re-educate those poor white southerners?
“Nearly two-thirds of Republican supporters believe President Barack Obama is to blame for the recession that began in December, 2007, according to an opinion poll from Rasmussen Reports.”
This proves that Republicans are unfair in their opinions, unable to process information on their own, and dependent on Fox News for truth about issues. We as a nation are doomed to failure, mediocrity, and strife until we shrink the numbers of such people either through overwhelming political strength, education through successful example, or both.
Fox “News” IS what’s wrong with America.
Polls indicate that only 4 out of 10 Americans are intelligent enough to make rational decisions.
Are these guys stoned or just stupid? This whole bloody fiasco has been cooking for ten years or so. Every bubble bursts when it gets to a certain point. Our entire economy was based on bubbles. Geesh, what morons.