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Still Waiting For The Pushback

Marco Rubio declared at CPAC that we were witnessing the “single greatest pushback in American history.”  So, how’s the pushback coming?  Not so well: This confirms what I was finding in the poll I discussed yesterday.  Overall majority opposition to this health care legislation does not necessarily translate into a backlash against the party that […]

Marco Rubio declared at CPAC that we were witnessing the “single greatest pushback in American history.”  So, how’s the pushback coming?  Not so well:

Overall Reaction to Passing Healthcare Bill, Among National Adults and by Party, March 2010

This confirms what I was finding in the poll I discussed yesterday.  Overall majority opposition to this health care legislation does not necessarily translate into a backlash against the party that passed the bill, because many of the bill’s opponents are unhappy with some of the elements but ultimately they prefer something over nothing.  Even after we acknowledge that Gallup is surveying adults rather than likely voters, and bearing in mind that public opinion can be changed and shaped by dedicated propaganda campaigns, there is no evidence of the intense opposition of the majority that Republican politicians and conservative pundits refer to all the time. 

The “center-right nation” claim with which Republicans console themselves at night is a myth.  If the “center-right” consists of the people who are opposed to greater government intervention in the health care sector, the “center-right” would seem to be around 40% of the population.  That means that this is not really a “center-right nation,” at least as far as it concerns the role of government in the economy according to conventional American definitions of right and left.  There probably are some issues where a “center-right” position really does command a majority of the public’s support, but this doesn’t seem to be one of them.  

When 50% of respondents say that they are pleased or enthusiastic about some high-profile, controversial thing the government has done, this is not normally the prologue to political annihilation for the people in charge of the government in that year’s election.

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