{"id":2602,"date":"2004-09-23T13:54:53","date_gmt":"2004-09-23T18:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2602.html"},"modified":"2004-09-23T13:54:53","modified_gmt":"2004-09-23T18:54:53","slug":"encouraging-data-from-nbcwsj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/encouraging-data-from-nbcwsj\/","title":{"rendered":"Encouraging data from NBC\/WSJ"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve more or less sworn off national polling data — it’s a state-by-state race — but the latest poll<\/a> from NBC\/Wall Street Journal had a whole lot of interesting information that warrants attention.<\/p>\n

Let’s get the horserace out of the way. This poll shows Bush at 48%, Kerry close behind at 45%. Among likely voters, Bush lead is slightly bigger, 50% to 46%. That’s awfully close, but since nationwide data doesn’t really matter, let’s talk about the internals.<\/p>\n

First, the good news, of which there is plenty. On the war, Americans are not happy, feel the invasion was not worth the cost, and aren’t confident that there’s a plan for the future.<\/p>\n

Just 40% said that “removing Saddam Hussein from power … was worth the number of U.S. military casualties and the financial cost,” while 52% said it wasn’t — the biggest gap in the year since the question was first posed.<\/p>\n

On separate questions asked for the first time: 52% of the respondents said the incursion “has been a poor use of money;” 53% said they weren’t confident the war “will come to a successful conclusion;” and by 47% to 41%, those polled said they did not think the war “will be a victory for the United States.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Moreover, as Ryan Lizza noted<\/a>, Kerry is ahead on tax policy as well.<\/p>\n

When voters are polled on the specifics of the two candidates platforms on taxes and Iraq, as many other polls have shown, Kerry wins. His tax plan beats Bush’s by 49 percent to 41 percent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the pillars of Bush’s presidency — taxes and Iraq — aren’t going well for him. Perhaps most importantly, the public is definitely ready for a change.<\/p>\n

Bush’s approval rating is at 47 percent. He has net negative ratings on the economy (45\/51) and foreign policy (44\/51). Fifty-five percent of voters say America “is worse off than it was four years ago.” More than two-thirds think the economy has gotten worse or stayed the same over the last year. And in what is one of the most interesting findings, even a healthy chunk of Bush supporters do not want a second term to look anything like the president’s first four years. Fifty-eight percent of voters say he “should make major changes in [a] second term.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All of this is incredibly encouraging news, especially after Kerry had a tough couple of months and Bush enjoyed a relatively successful convention and brief bounce.<\/p>\n

Then there’s the bad news…
\n<\/p>\n

Bush is beating Kerry 68 to 36<\/i> when voters are asked if the candidates “have a message” and “you know what they would do if elected.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

OK, let’s acknowledge that this isn’t good. Kerry’s been campaigning for president for about two years, but voters don’t seem to recognize his agenda. It’s discouraging, to say the least.<\/p>\n

But — and here’s the kicker — it’s the kind of thing that’s relatively easy to fix<\/i>. As the public gets increasingly engaged in the campaign (for many, it will be for the first time this cycle) and watch the debates, they’ll learn more about Kerry’s message and his vision for the future. Indeed, I suspect they’ll like what they hear.<\/p>\n

Objectively, when looking at the NBC\/WSJ data and considering the next month or so, I’d much rather be in Kerry’s shoes than Bush’s. Voters don’t like the war, don’t approve of the state of the economy, and want a change. They haven’t moved to Kerry yet, but there’s time to make that happen and Kerry’s message is starting to gel at just the right time.<\/p>\n

There’s reason for optimism. “Dem panic” is so<\/i> last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve more or less sworn off national polling data — it’s a state-by-state race — but the latest poll from NBC\/Wall Street Journal had a whole lot of interesting information that warrants attention. Let’s get the horserace out of the way. This poll shows Bush at 48%, Kerry close behind at 45%. Among likely voters, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}