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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-01-18

Of The WaPo-ABC News Poll

You’ve probably all seen the numbers by now, so I won’t go into too much depth on those. Suffice to say the big number—52 percent job approval—was buried so far in the article that I thought it would come with a Jimmy Hoffa signature.

What struck me about the poll, though, was this little snippet buried even further in than the JA number:

Americans divide equally over Bush's proposal to index Social Security benefits for future retirees to increases in the cost of living rather than to wage growth as is now the case, a change that would effectively mean benefits would be lower than currently projected. A clear majority of Americans -- 55 percent -- support the president's proposal to allow younger workers to put some of their Social Security savings into stocks or bonds. When packaged together, the two components draw the support of 54 percent of those surveyed.

The survey suggests that Democratic leaders may be out of step with their rank and file on the severity of the problems facing Social Security. Those leaders are attempting to thwart Bush's plans by saying there is no immediate crisis. But two-thirds of all Democrats said they worry that there is not enough money to keep Social Security funded until they retire.

“Democratic leaders may be out of step with their rank and file. . .” Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.

Look, the overall impression that is emerging from the wave of polls that have come out in the past week is that the country likes this President, and trusts him with the big issue of security and terrorism. On everything else, this country is deeply divided, and no amount of compromising will close that chasm.

The President and his team should focus all their energies on crafting good policies—the politics will follow.
Posted by: Michael / 1/18/2005 03:01:00 PM

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