One small blot on the NYT poll results...
Nathan Newman yesterday wrote about the good political news in the Times poll on immigration -- not just illegal immigration, but attitudes toward legal immigration as well. Wouldn't it be amusing if the final result of the current illegal immigration culture-economics war in the US -- including all the right wing appeals to the honour of those who "waited in line" and "made it honestly" -- were to rustle up renewed affection of the institution of immigration itself rather than the unfairness of illegals "jumping the queue"? It seems like a plausible result to me, and that's what p.33 the NYT poll results seem to suggest. You have to scroll through about 32 pages of similarly good news to get there. Happy poll!
I did notice, though, one small area of bad news for Democrats that I haven't seen anyone write about yet: the survey responses on Medicare Part D. When asked how easy or difficult they had "heard or read" the plan was to understand, 75% of seniors (and 70% of all respondants) said somewhat or very difficult. But the perspective of respondants who are actually enrolled in the program was much different: the percentage who found the experience of enrolling very or fairly easy was a full 61%, compared to only 33% who found the experience onerous.
On the related question of how the benefit would affect their spending on drugs, the results were similarly not awful for the GOP. A plurality (42%) of enrollees said they were spending less on drugs since enrolling (19% said they were spending more). And seniors were fairly evenly split (40-44%) on whether Medicare Part D would actually save them money over the long run. As well, the popular opinion of the program seems to have improved rather dramatically since early 2005 (question 87, p.39).
Those aren't the greatest numbers by any means, but they do suggest that Medicare Part D won't be the backlash debacle for the Republicans in November that it ought to be and that I was rubbing my hands about earlier. And they also suggest that, if the Dems regain control of Congress, they may have to be a bit careful of stepping into a political minefield when they try to repeal the worst parts of it.
I did notice, though, one small area of bad news for Democrats that I haven't seen anyone write about yet: the survey responses on Medicare Part D. When asked how easy or difficult they had "heard or read" the plan was to understand, 75% of seniors (and 70% of all respondants) said somewhat or very difficult. But the perspective of respondants who are actually enrolled in the program was much different: the percentage who found the experience of enrolling very or fairly easy was a full 61%, compared to only 33% who found the experience onerous.
On the related question of how the benefit would affect their spending on drugs, the results were similarly not awful for the GOP. A plurality (42%) of enrollees said they were spending less on drugs since enrolling (19% said they were spending more). And seniors were fairly evenly split (40-44%) on whether Medicare Part D would actually save them money over the long run. As well, the popular opinion of the program seems to have improved rather dramatically since early 2005 (question 87, p.39).
Those aren't the greatest numbers by any means, but they do suggest that Medicare Part D won't be the backlash debacle for the Republicans in November that it ought to be and that I was rubbing my hands about earlier. And they also suggest that, if the Dems regain control of Congress, they may have to be a bit careful of stepping into a political minefield when they try to repeal the worst parts of it.
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