A March 29 Rasmussen poll found that only 16 percent of voters would vote for their incumbent members of Congress; 56 percent would vote against them.
A March 28 poll from the University of Washington found that conservatives hold extreme views about Barack Obama and that Tea Party members have views that are even more extreme. For example, 75 percent of Tea Party members believe he is a socialist and 40 percent of non-Tea Party conservatives. Overall, 55 percent of conservatives believe Obama is a socialist. Note: On March 29, media critic Howard Kurtz published a report revealing that Fox News correspondent Bill Sammon often called Obama a socialist on air during the campaign, but privately said he did not believe that was the case.
A March 24 Gallup poll found that unionized workers at all levels of government are much more likely to be Democrats than nonunionized workers.
On March 21, the Spring issue of the journal National Affairs published an article by Tevi Troy, an official in the George W. Bush administration, on problems with the confirmation process.
A March 21 Rasmussen poll found that the percentage of Americans who believe “government is the problem” has fallen from 59 percent to 46 percent.
In a March 16 commentary, pollster Mark Blumenthal reported on a study which found that automated telephone polls tend to skew more toward those with strongly held views, thus giving them excess weight in poll results.
A March 15, ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 64 percent of people now believe that the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting, up from 52 percent a year ago.
A March 15 poll from Public Policy Polling found that 25 percent of Republicans expect the now-defunct group ACORN to steal the election for Barack Obama next year; 31 percent aren’t sure.
A March 14 Harris poll finds that an overwhelming 87 percent majority of the public believes that political discussions today are angry and bad tempered, and that a 67 percent majority believes that today's political climate is more angry and bad tempered than it used to be.
A March 9 Pew poll found that two-thirds of conservative Republicans and Tea Party members believe that Islam is an inherently violent religion.
A March 8 Harris poll found declining public support for the Tea Party. It also found that Tea Party support is strongest among the elderly and the poorly educated.
I last posted items on this topic on March 7.
Bruce Bartlett is an American historian and columnist who focuses on the intersection between politics and economics. He blogs daily and writes a weekly column at The Fiscal Times. Bartlett has written for Forbes Magazine and Creators Syndicate, and his work is informed by many years in government, including as a senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House. He is the author of seven books including the New York Times best-seller, Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006).
