Disappointing Poll Results
Realistically, that headline should read "Disappointment Poll Results," so I'll just start off by apologizing. Ahem.
Yesterday we ran a poll here on why, exactly, Obama has disappointed so many Lefties (and other people who voted for him). Today we present the results of this poll, which (so far) has garnered exactly 100 entries, a statistically nice round number.
Of the number who responded, 17 answered by rejecting the entire idea. They chose:
1. I reject the premise of the question, as President Obama has not disappointed me.
This doesn't sound like a lot, but it would have put this answer in either second or third place, depending on how you add things up (more on that in a moment). Add to that the big caveat that this is in no way a scientific public opinion poll, and an impressive number of respondents are still squarely behind Obama. After all, this isn't a poll of "the entire Left," but rather more accurately a poll of people who read my column on my site or at the Huffington Post, who bother to respond in the comments. A high number of people who do firmly support Obama likely never read my column, or even if they are readers, may not have finished yesterday's column or bothered to respond to it. But, like I said, even with all of that to have "Obama has not disappointed me" be either second or third place is pretty impressive, I have to say.
Everyone got three choices from a list that was (admittedly) too long, and the answers were tallied thusly: your first choice got a score of 3, your second choice got a 2, and your third choice got marked as a 1. Then I added them all up. Two further clarifications: in the final tally (below), I have not included people who answered "Obama has not disappointed me," so this list is really of the 83 percent who registered disappointment. Secondly, I have not included people who answered with choice number 26, or "Other," because they had different reasons for answering this way. If number 26 had been included, it would have been in sixth place. But I have included one recurring choice in "Other," which was some version of: "Obama should have investigated the Bush/Cheney White House for criminal wrongdoing." This answer got enough votes to place on its own, so I'm including it in the list.
So, without further ado, here are the top reasons why Lefties (and other responders) have been disappointed by Barack Obama. The first two led the pack by a huge amount, and were neck-and-neck throughout the tallying. By an edge, the number one answer to the survey was:
3. Far too much emphasis on bipartisanship; far too little emphasis on standing up for core Democratic values and using his bully pulpit to give voice to the Democratic narrative.
This scored 103 points, and 24 people made it their top choice. Slightly behind was:
4. Being too quick to bargain away the strongest and best part of legislation.
Which scored 95 points, with 15 people making it their top choice.
The gap between second and third place was the biggest in the tally. The next five were all grouped fairly tightly together, and should be seen as roughly equal (by anyone looking at this for real answers to people's discontent out there). Third place was actually a tie between the following two answers, which both scored 35:
5. Being too close to Wall Street, and not paying nearly enough attention to Main Street.
12. Not being a "fierce advocate" for much of anything.
In fifth place, with 33 points, was:
16. His continued Bush-era policies on national defense/civil liberties (interrogation, not closing Guantanamo, assassination policy, etc.).
Sixth place had 27 points (answer 26, or "Other" scored 31 points, I should mention here, for completeness' sake):
15. His surge in Afghanistan, instead of bringing our troops home (or other foreign policy disappointments).
From here, there was a small gap in score, with seventh place getting 21 points:
11. Obama's too corporate.
In eighth place, with 19 points, was:
6. Not focusing enough on improving the economy and creating jobs.
In ninth place was the specific answer for the "Other" question, which got 17 points:
26. Other: Obama not prosecuting or investigating the Bush/Cheney team for criminal activities.
And rounding out the top ten, with 14 points, was:
20. Lack of true leadership.
From here to the end, all answers got 12 points or fewer. To save space here, I'm not going to paste them all in, so please refer to yesterday's column to see what the numbers stand for:
11th place -- Answer 13 -- (12 points)
12th -- 9 -- (11)
13th -- 17 -- (9)
14th -- 19 -- (8)
15th -- 2 -- (7)
16th (tie) -- 7, 10 -- (5)
18th (tie) -- 22, 24 -- (4)
20th -- 14 -- (3)
21st (tie) -- 18, 23 -- (2)
23rd -- 21 -- (1)
Two answers got zero votes. The first was an obvious joke, thrown in there for a moment of much-needed comic relief towards the end of the list:
25. I heard he's a Muslim/a Socialist/wasn't born in Hawai'i.
And the second one I really didn't expect a whole lot of people to answer, and not too surprisingly, no one chose:
8. Obama's too liberal.
Because there were so many choices in the list, drawing conclusions isn't as easy as it might look. This is due to the amateur nature of this survey, so you'll have to forgive us for that.
The top two answers (too much bipartisanship effort, not enough standing up for Democratic values; and bargaining away strong parts of legislation) are pretty similar, in that they both address not standing up for a clear agenda. But you could also include in this loose definition the answers 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, and 22, which all reflect some degree of "not playing offense well enough," or other perceived lack of leadership. Lumping together all these scores would give us a whopping score of 281, due to the top two being there (which account for 198 of that score).
The second broad category would be "the economy." There are several answers which fit in this broad generalization, including 5, 6, 11, 19, and 23. If all of these scores were combined, economic disappointment would score 85.
The third group concerns foreign policy and Obama's national security activities. While this only has two items on the list (15 and 16), you'd also have to add in the write-in "investigate Bush and Cheney" for answer 26 as well. Even though there are only three things to add up here, the score is an impressively-high 77.
What's really surprising to me, though, is that the last group scored so low. The surprise comes because these are some of the usual reasons trotted out by the media to "explain" the disappointment with Obama -- things like "campaign promises broken/not kept" and "this is not 'Change we can believe in'," and "Obama hasn't changed the culture of Washington." Added to answers 2, 7, and 21 are the "single issue" answer 13 and the generic "overall disappointment" answer 24. Adding all of these together only scores 29.
I will keep tallying the votes, and updating here over the next few days, as more votes trickle in, but I did want to thank everyone for responding. If I had only gotten a handful of responses, it would have been impossible to make any sort of conclusions (due to a tiny "data universe"), but I think with 100 votes (and counting...) the sample is large enough to gain insight into the disappointment on the Left out there, and to spotlight exactly what has been annoying folks.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Very interesting. I liked this poll concept of yours a lot. I'm surprised that this came in as #8, i.e., pretty low on the list: "Not focusing enough on improving the economy and creating jobs."
I also liked the second analysis, lumping category answers together. That's a smart way of identifying "underlying" sentiments and attitudes.
Chria,
First off, you deserve some sort of medal just for tallying all of these results which must have taken you infinitely longer than you might have expected since lefties apparently are unable to follow simple instructions.
Not surprisingly, therefore, they don't, generally speaking, follow what Obama/Biden/Geithner have been accomplishing before their very eyes over the course of the last 18 months and so they are not the best judges when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of this administration.
Secondly, it is more than ironic that option #4 would have ranked so high on their list of disappointments since it is the very lack of support from lefties, professional or otherwise, that is most responsible for allowing the Republicans to sustain their opposition to everything the administration has tried to do and which has prevented legislation from being even stronger than it is.
And, so, ironically, the lefties have no one to blame but themselves for option #4.
liz,
i disagree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the causes for #4. until the public option was bargained away with the assent of the president, my impression was that most lefties (as well as centrists and even a smattering of social conservatives) were basically on board. no matter what the pundits said, the public option was something that most people wanted, and only upon its demise did public support really start to wane. sure, there are always nitpickers, but the health-care hole is, for the most part, one the administration dug for itself.
in general, i find CW's analysis of the aggregate data to be spot on; namely, not standing up for a clear agenda. i'm not suggesting he should have been completely inflexible, but there are some things that can be compromised and others that never should. regarding what to stand up for and what to compromise, the president chose poorly.
Chris1962 -
As for #8, consider the audience. I bet if I polled only independents (if that were somehow possible for me to do), #8 would have rated higher.
I may have lumped too many into the first composite group, but I thought grouping them was interesting, too.
Lia (heh) -
Yeah, it's astounding how many people can't follow simple instructions, I agree.
Harry Reid bears a lot of blame for #4, I would warrant. Reid -- at least what the public hears of him -- is not a very good negotiator as he gives in immediately on the toughest stance, without bargaining anything for it. He does get things through in the end, though, I have to give him that, so maybe his public image isn't a full and accurate one.
nypoet22 -
I think the whole giving-up-the-public-option bit would have gone down a lot better with the Left if they had just been allowed to make their case, but instead Max Baucus arrested a bunch of doctors. Sigh.
-CW
Chris,
Okay, that was laugh-out-loud funny and I will retire tonight with a big ole grin on my face. :) It was also a very long time in coming and, I guess we’re now officially even on that score!
I noticed that error, which I will chalk up to my own rapidly deteriorating eyesight, not long after I posted it and have been laughing ever since.
until the public option was bargained away with the assent of the president, my impression was that most lefties (as well as centrists and even a smattering of social conservatives) were basically on board.
There was no bargaining over that. Those were insurance lobbyist Karen Ignagni's non-negotiable terms, which Obama immediately agreed to — once he'd decided to even BOTHER pursing HCR, that is. On the campaign trail, it was just the most important thing in the world. But once safely inside the White House, they discussed whether they should even go for it, with Biden dead-set against it all along.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PwqSCJmbxk&feature=player_embedded
Here's the whole gruesome story: http://chris11962.com/videos/pbs%20frontline/obamas%20deal.html
I think the whole giving-up-the-public-option bit would have gone down a lot better with the Left if they had just been allowed to make their case, but instead Max Baucus arrested a bunch of doctors. Sigh.
Then again, you have to consider that Baucus knew as well as Obama that the public option was already out the door, given Ignani's terms. I don't suspect Baucus (or Obama) would want anybody at the table pushing for the public option at that point.
All of the poll questions can be boiled down to one overriding problem with Obama.
He is not a leader.
Obama is all about theory. He is the professorial type who would make a great advisor to a real leader. Even his campaign, effective though it was, was all grounded in theory.
"In THEORY, I would make a good president" was what the Obama campaign was all about.
Even the decision to continue and expand Bush era CounterTerrorism policies (which ya'all know I FIRMLY support and agree with) isn't a sign of leadership, as he is simply following in the footsteps.
The only task left up to Americans now is to try and limit the damage that Obama can do in the next 2 years when he attempts to play with his theories and use the country as a giant petri dish...
Michale.....
michale,
He is not a leader.
i'm willing to walk up to that ledge with you and say obama hasn't been much of a leader so far, but i'm not willing to jump off and call it an inherent character flaw just yet.
my current working hypothesis is that he just ran for president five to ten years too soon, before really understanding the full workings of government and how the executive role would best be handled. most of us knew he was very inexperienced as an executive, and maybe we were a bit naive about just how long it would take him to grow into a real understanding of the job. to me, the deficits in leadership can be traced to someone who (though it pains me to echo a slogan from hillary's primary campaign) was simply not ready on day one to efficiently handle the mass of troubles heaped upon his plate.
to me, this is what the evidence seems to suggest. as always, i'll adjust my opinion as more facts come in.
NYpoet,
i'm willing to walk up to that ledge with you and say obama hasn't been much of a leader so far, but i'm not willing to jump off and call it an inherent character flaw just yet.
Fair enough...
I'll happily concede that you might be right. Obama still might come thru and prove himself to be the great leader we thought he was..
my current working hypothesis is that he just ran for president five to ten years too soon, before really understanding the full workings of government and how the executive role would best be handled. most of us knew he was very inexperienced as an executive, and maybe we were a bit naive about just how long it would take him to grow into a real understanding of the job. to me, the deficits in leadership can be traced to someone who (though it pains me to echo a slogan from hillary's primary campaign) was simply not ready on day one to efficiently handle the mass of troubles heaped upon his plate.
That's a pretty spot on analysis that I can find no logical fault with..
Time will tell if Obama will rise to the occasion or not.
Michale....
"some sort of medal just for tallying all of these results"
What sort? Virtual, of course. I hereby award the MIBOTW medal.
dsws -
I'm going to assume that "B" stands for "Blogger" and not think about what else it could stand for.
Heh.
Choice #1 has been very popular since the 100 tally, just for everyone's info, over at HuffPost.
-CW
Choice #1 has been very popular since the 100 tally, just for everyone's info, over at HuffPost.
Now THERE'S a shocker.....
{/sarcasm}
Michale.....
Michale,
Actually, that IS a shocker, no sarcasm intended ... quite pleasantly so, though. :)
Speaking of polls..
In two close races, endangered Democrats are even running ads touting how they oppose their leadership.
“Democrats kept thinking: ‘We’re going to get better. We’re going to get well before the election,’” said one of Washington’s best-connected Democrats. “But as of this week, you now have people saying that Republicans are going to win the House. And now it’s starting to look like the Senate is going to be a lot closer than people thought.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41469.html#ixzz0xhlv7X5B
Who's yer daddy?? :D
Michale.....
Who's yer daddy?? :D
Hahahaha. Rasmussen has the CA Senate race as a toss-up now, with Boxer and Fiorina statistically tied at 44% and 43%, respectively. And Whitman's leading Brown 48% to 40%.
Wisconsin is statistically tied, too: Johnson, 47%; Feingold, 46%. This is starting to get really interesting.