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News/Politics 2-1-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Just a few from me, and then you folks can have at it.

1. Conservatives outnumber liberals in 47 states. Let’s hope it turns into high voter turnout.

From TheWaPo  “People who identify as conservative outnumber those who call themselves liberal in 47 states, according to a new Gallup survey.

Nationally, conservatives had a 14.6 percentage point lead on liberals, though that was more than a full point smaller than last year’s lead. The gap in 2013 was largest in Wyoming, where 40.5 percentage points separated those who identified as conservatives from those who identified as liberals. Only Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont and D.C. had more liberals than conservatives. The top 10 liberal states voted for Obama during the last two elections, while the top 10 conservative states chose the Republican nominee.

Another Gallup poll this week found that the Democratic party’s advantage in the states had gone down dramatically, though the party can still lay claim to more states than Republicans can. Still, the new findings suggest that most Americans are ideologically at the center to center-right. And the implications for Democrats could be simple: focus on the middle.”

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2. Fox News is once again the most, and least, trusted news source. It all depends on your political leanings.

From PublicPolicyPolling  “PPP’s 5th annual poll about trust in TV news continues to find what it does every year: Fox News is both the most trusted and least trusted name in news.

35% of Americans say they trust Fox News more than any other TV news outlet, followed by 14% for PBS, 11% for ABC, 10% for CNN, 9% for CBS, 6% each for Comedy Central and MSNBC, and 3% for NBC. It leads the way because of its continuing near total support among Republicans as the place to go for news- 69% of Republicans say it’s their most trusted source with nothing else polling above 7%. Meanwhile Democrats are split between a lot of different outlets when it comes to who they have the most faith in- PBS at 21%, CNN and ABC at 18%, and CBS and MSNBC at 12% all poll in double digits. It’s interesting that while Fox News and MSNBC are often thought of as equivalent, Fox News is by far and away the most trusted source of GOP voters while MSNBC is only tied for 4th among Democrats.

Fox News also leads the ‘least trusted’ list in our annual poll. 33% give it that designation to 19% for MSNBC, 14% for Comedy Central, 11% for CNN, 5% for ABC, 4% for CBS, and 2% each for NBC and PBS. That’s largely because 57% of Democrats give it their least trusted designation, with only Comedy Central at 18% also hitting double digits with them. MSNBC leads the way among Republicans at 38%, but CNN at 17% and Comedy Central at 13% both hit double digits as well. It’s interesting to note that Republicans seem to hate MSNBC more than Democrats like it.

When you look at the 8 outlets we tested individually, only one is clearly trusted by a majority of Americans. That’s PBS, which 57% say they trust to 24% who don’t. Most Democrats (80/6) and independents (49/31) trust it and it at least gets an even split with Republicans at 38%.

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3. Nancy Pelosi is about to receive the Margaret Sanger Award. Seems fitting considering Pelosi’s unwavering support of Sanger’s racist and bloody life’s work. She’ll see it as an honor.

From LifeNews  “Nancy Pelosi will receive the Margaret Sanger award — the top honor given out by the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced today that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi will deliver remarks at the organization’s Annual Gala in Washington on march 27, where she will receive the award. Planned Parenthood is awarding Leader Pelosi the Margaret Sanger Award, the organization’s highest honor, “in recognition of her leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to” the pro-abortion movement during her career.”

“The president of the abortion business announced the award today, though she never mentioned abortion — instead couching her remarks in “women’s health.”

As if nicer terminology could hide the truth about their bloody business.

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15 thoughts on “News/Politics 2-1-14”

  2. What I find weird and scary is that Comedy Central is on the list. These is a disturbing number of young people who get most of their news from them. I actually talked to a young man the other day who thought Stephen Colbert was a real conservative.

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  3. No surprises on the news networks trust rating, except that PBS gets the nod for trustworthiness. At least on The News Hour they try and get someone from both sides of the issue to have a civil discussion, rather than the free-for-all on some of the news networks. The problem is, the discussions are o boring they put me to sleep.

    I wonder if FOX could put a half-hour nightly news on the broadcast channel and compete with NBC, CBS and ABC news at the dinner hour? I would watch it every day.

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  4. The media narrative in the US has always been that the US is a center-right nation. However, in many issue based surveys thats not what emerges … in terms of environment, social security, medicare Americans are more likely to lean to the liberal.

    The poll’s interesting if only for the labels chosen: conservative, moderate, liberal. The number who choose liberal continues to grow but moderate seems to be the label of choice. Americans instinctively tend to avoid the label liberal and would be more apt to choose moderate. (In a point of comparison, liberal and moderate are used interchangeably elsewhere).

    Its also interesting that only one state (Wyoming) is a conservative majority the rest are pluralities and since the moderates are mostly Democrat – leaning and identify as independent. The message may not be for the Democrats to focus on the middle; they are already there. The message should be for the Republicans to move to the middle.

    Interesting — 35% in Texas identify as moderates; what does it mean to be moderate in Texas? probably different than what the 38% in Massachusetts think it means.

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  5. FOX’s status as the most and least trusted has been noted before. As the last election demonstrated, the Republican reliance on FOX led to an echo chamber effect. Until the ballots were counted many in the Republican leadership thought they had a chance and thus scorned Nate Silver’s predictions. The decision to campaign last minute in Pennsylvania rather than Ohio and Rove’s initial refusal to accept the Ohio results are the result of this echo chamber effect.

    Many older liberals see MSNBC as FOX-left and they won’t sink to that level hence they stick to PBS. Elitist snobbery prevents the FOX model from working on the left.

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  6. Thank you HRW. Americans do not know what they really think or believe and need someone to tell us. 🙂
    Moderate means nothing. Someone could be calling themselves a moderate because they lean a little different than the guy standing next to them and don’t want to get in a argument or it could mean they are conservative on some issues and liberal on others. I have a friend who is a uber-green, pro-life Catholic who calls herself a moderate. It is interesting that many liberals don’t like to call themselves liberal. They call themselves progressives or moderate. but conservatives are very proud of being called conservatives. I think people on the left are more likely to be image conscious. They’d rather be cool than right.
    As for the republicans going more to the center, that worked so well the last two times.

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  8. I agree — moderate means nothing hence my comment on Texas and Mass.

    I don’t think an aversion to the term “liberal” has to do with image rather the American left are fairly wimpish in nature. Second, the term is confusing in the US as its used elsewhere to refer to a free market economic position and individual rights hence some Americans prefer progressive or moderate instead.

    As for the last two presidential elections, forget political position, the Republican candidates were weaker than Obama.

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  11. I found this fascinating; the ill effects of wealth.

    The Republicans have done really well playing to their base in non-presidential elections when politically committed vote as opposed to presidential election years when more people are likely to vote. When the moderate,independent or less committed are more likely to vote, the Democrats do better. The message for the Republicans is simple — swing to the middle during presidential elections and then to the right two years later.

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  13. There’s some bunk in that study you reference, hwesseli, at least as it was presented by PBS, although I wouldn’t disagree with the premise (or Paul) that wealth can have ill effects. But I thought I had seen you elsewhere point out a need to consider correlation as well as causation.

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  14. The real problem for the experimenter and psychology in general is an inability to control all variables but when a variety of different studies and experiments point in the same direction, we can draw some conclusions. And its not to hard to imagine entitlement being a problem among the wealthy. Here a US billionaire compares his “plight” to Kristalnacht;

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10598265/Silicon-Valley-billionaire-compares-treatment-of-Americas-rich-to-Nazi-persecution-of-Jews.html

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  15. when a variety of different studies and experiments point in the same direction, we can draw some conclusions.

    I don’t care if it’s 1, 2, or 77 studies based on car make and model or some altered game of monopoly, those things don’t transfer *at all* to the real world. Also, hyperbole isn’t solely a characteristic of “the” wealthy.

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