Last Call For The Sound Of Trump Pets

The Donald continues to dominate the GOP field, and if a new CNN poll is any indication, the nomination is now his to lose as he's up to 24% and pulling away from the field on key issues.

Trump is the biggest gainer in the poll, up 6 points since July according to the first nationwide CNN/ORC poll since the top candidates debated in Cleveland on Aug. 6. Carson gained 5 points and Fiorina 4 points. Trump has also boosted his favorability numbers among Republicans, 58% have a favorable view of Trump now, that figure stood at 50% in the July survey. 

These nationwide findings follow recent polling in Iowa and New Hampshire showing Trump also leads the Republican field in those two key early states.

And what of Jeb Bush's fortunes?

Bush, who held the top spot in the field in most CNN/ORC polls on the race between last fall and Trump's entry into the race in June, has seen his favorability ratings drop alongside his standing in the contest. Overall, 56% hold an unfavorable view of the former Florida governor and 42% of Republican voters have a negative impression. That's an increase in negative views among all adults (up from 43% since July) and among Republican voters (up from 34% unfavorable).

But it's on the issues where Trump is winning in his role as the GOP's unrestrained id.

Still, Trump has quickly won the trust of Republican voters on several top issues. According to the poll, 45% say they trust Trump more than any other Republican candidate on the economy -- up 25 points since June, 44% say they trust Trump over the others on illegal immigration -- up 30 points since June -- and 32% trust him most to handle ISIS, no other candidate comes close on any of these issues.

Oh but it gets better.

On the economy and illegal immigration, Trump is far and away the top choice even among those Republicans who support someone else for the nomination (33% who say they will most likely vote for someone else say Trump is their most trusted on the economy, 29% say so on illegal immigration). Trump is also most trusted on social issues, 19% say he's their top choice to handle that. Bush follows at 15%. 

On two of these issues, Trump is more trusted among conservative Republicans than among moderate Republicans: When it comes to both the economy and illegal immigration, 50% of conservatives say they trust Trump, compared with 35% among moderates on each of those issues.

And what about his rampant sexism?  It only makes the GOP ladies love him even more.

But there is no gender gap among Republicans on favorable views of Trump: 60% of Republican women voters have a positive impression as do 57% of GOP men. Outside the Republican Party, women are less apt to hold a favorable view of Trump, just 17% of women voters who are independents or Democratic leaners see him favorably, compared with 29% of non-Republican male voters.

What can the RNC do, cut off Trump's donors?  He's a billionaire.  He's the archetype of the GOP candidate, a guy so rich he can't be bought by special interests.  They love him, and the rest of the GOP is in 100% panic mode.  Think about this: 3 out of 5 Republican women are perfectly OK with Trump's special brand of misogyny.  It's capitalism meets Dominionism.

And for very good reason.  Trump shows no signs of crashing and burning.  The longer he stays on top, the more likely he'll be the nominee.  Vox's Lee Drutman attempts an explanation:

The data on this is pretty clear. Put simply: While most elite-funded and elite-supported Republicans want to increase immigration and decrease Social Security, a significant number of voters (across both parties) want precisely the opposite — to increase Social Security and decrease immigration. So when Trump speaks out both against immigration and against fellow Republicans who want to cut Social Security, he's speaking out for a lot people. 

By my count of National Election Studies (NES) data, 24 percent of the US population holds this position (increase Social Security, decrease immigration). If we add in the folks who want to maintain (not cut) Social Security and decrease immigration, we are now at 40 percent of the total electorate, which I'll call "populist." No wonder folks are flocking to Trump — and to Bernie Sanders, who holds similar positions, though with more emphasis on the expanding Social Security part and less aggression on immigration.

Math seems pretty solid to me.  Both Trump and Sanders are holding at about 24% nationally among their respective primary polls right now and both are on the upswing.

Of course, in a MUCH more likely scenario, 24% is awfully close to 27%, too, and Trump people are just racist assholes.

Go figure.

There's That Number Again

The percentage of crazy people in America, given a large enough sample size, always seems to come up to be twenty-seven.

A new CNN/ORC poll shows that Americans are not happy about the prospect of a shutdown, which is happening because Congress has been unable to pass a budget for the new fiscal year that begins Tuesday. 

According to the poll, 68% of Americans think shutting down the government for even a few days is a bad idea, while 27% think it's a good idea. 

And it appears most Americans would blame congressional Republicans for a shutdown: Sixty-nine percent said they agreed with the statement that the party's elected officials were acting like "spoiled children." 

Democrats, however, weren't far behind: Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they too were acting like spoiled kids. 

A poll later showed public support for Congress at record low levels.

I wonder how long the GOP will be able to get away with their current position of  "completely destroying a law passed to offer tens of millions of Americans affordable health insurance is a totally reasonable idea". Everything the GOP has done points to their belief that the President will give in and dismantle Obamacare.

Who among our Village "liberal" media will start agreeing with them that the "responsible" thing to do is accede to the GOP's hostage demands "for the good of the country" and that President Obama really should stop being so "arrogant" as to wanting to see Obamacare survive?

We're about to find out.  Bet it's close to 27%.

Great Scott, It's Your Kids, Marty!

As Scott Lemieux points out, this is the Mitt Romney who was Governor of Massachusetts:

Romney hadn’t even previously fathomed that gay people had children. Boston Spirit magazine reported last month that when gay activists met with him in his office in 2004, as Romney was backing a failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, Romney remarked, “I didn’t know you had families.” Julie Goodridge, lead plaintiff in the landmark case that won marriage rights for gays and lesbians before the Supreme Judicial Court, asked what she should tell her 8-year-old daughter about why the governor would block the marriage of her parents. According to Goodridge, Romney responded,”I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.”

Severely conservative.  

But there's nothing Mitt can do or say for the 27% who will always vote GOP, and the 20%+ who will vote against Obama for whatever reason, enough to make him competitive (and depending on red state turnout, more than competitive in the national vote totals.)

Great guy, huh?

Akin And Pains

So the bottom line is that Rep. Todd Akin has until 5 PM central this afternoon to drop out of the Missouri Senate race under the state law.  After that, things get much more complex.  Republicans are desperately trying to get Akin to drop out of the race, but not because they think what he said was wrong, but because they'll cost the GOP a Senate seat they'll basically have to have in order to take control of the upper chamber in January.   Many in the GOP are calling for Akin to leave the race.  Nobody in the GOP is calling for him to leave the House as well, which is why I call hypocrisy on basically the entire party.  If what he said was as "indefensible" as the lip service suggests, then he shouldn't be in Congress, period, right?

Anthony Weiner was driven out for less.

But it seems there are plenty of Missourians who really don't care if Akin is an awful human being.  Republicans will vote for him anyway.  Only winning matters to them, as the latest PPP poll shows:

Missouri voters strongly disagree with the comments Todd Akin made about abortion over the weekend, but it hasn't moved the numbers a whole lot in the Senate race. Akin leads Claire McCaskill by a single point, 44-43. That's basically identical to our last poll of the contest in late May, which found Akin ahead by a 45-44 spread.

It's not that Missouri voters are ok with or supportive of Akin's comments. 75% of voters, including even 64% of Republicans, say they were inappropriate to only 9% who consider them to have been appropriate. 79% of voters say they disagree with what Akin said, including 65% who express 'strong' disagreement with him. 51% of GOP voters say they strongly disagree with him.

All of that is taking a toll on Akin's image. Only 24% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 58% with a negative one. He's pretty universally disliked by Democrats (3/85) and independents (21/61) and even with Republicans (43/34) he's on only narrowly positive ground.

But for all of that the overall numbers in the race have moved very little. When we polled in May McCaskill was getting only 8% of the Republican vote, and even with the controversy around Akin she's only pushed up to 10% of it. GOP voters dislike McCaskill so much they're not going to vote for her no matter what their nominee does. Independent voters haven't moved at all either. In May they supported Akin 45-41, and even though they don't like him on tonight's poll we still found him leading 45-41 with them.

There's your Republican Party, folks.  Even with such awful favorability numbers, even with these massively ignorant comments, even with his long record of being a far-right lunatic...there's a good chance that Missourians are going to vote the asshole into the Senate anyhow, effectively giving him a promotion.

What could Todd Akin do to lose support of Republicans in the state?  Act like a human being with a functioning soul, I guess.  Treat women, gays, and racial minorities with respect, that would lose him plenty of support among the troglodytes.

We'll see how the day unfolds.  My guess is Akin stays, and McCaskill remains in the toughest election battle of her career.  All that motivates Republicans in 2012 is hatred of Democrats.  Akin could eat a kitten on live TV and he'd still be within the margin of polling error because he doesn't have (D) after his name.

He'd get 27% of the vote if he clubbed a baby seal.  Minimum.

And You Shall Know Them By The Trail Of Dead Bankers

FOX News has gone well beyond "Occupy Wall Street has cooties!" and is now firmly into "It's only a matter of time before these people will kill everyone you know and care for!" territory.

Fox News is on a roll with their latest round of polling — the news network has been releasing bits of data over the week, and on Friday they released some new gems. Those crazy kids braving the cold in Zuccatti Park certainly are something…..but what exactly? Fox wanted to find out, so they asked the following question: “How concerned are you that the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations will eventually turn into street riots?”

Apparently a lot of people are. The answers — 16 percent are very concerned, 31 percent are somewhat concerned, 28 percent not very concerned, and 23 not at all. So only a near majority of Americans in the Fox poll think that the protest aimed at Wall Street and income inequality will turn into a violent mess.

While you're at it, FOX should ask "the people" how many of them are concerned that the Obama's thugocracy armies of New Black Panthers are going to eviscerate their grandmothers with a rusty hacksaw and display the remains as performance art.  I'm sure you could hit 27% on that too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to transmit the latest secret order from Dear Leader.  After all, FOX isn't the only folks interested in seeing Occupy Together break out into more "deadly violence".

The Twenty-Seven Percent Solution: Climate Change Edition

A new Harris poll shows that in just four years, the number of Americans who believe that humans are causing global climate change has dropped from 71% in 2007 to just 44% now.

Only 44 percent say they "believe the theory" that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the Earth, down from 51 percent in 2009 and 71 percent in 2007, but most movement has been into the "not sure" column.

The online poll of 2,163 adults was conducted June 13 through 20. Harris does not give margin-of-error figures. 

According to the poll itself, 44% believe it exists, 28% do not, and 28% are now not sure.  That "doesn't believe humans cause climate change" number has been around that magic 27% for a while now.  But nearly all of change in the polls over the years since 1999 has come at the expense of people who used to believe that humanity is responsible for climate change increasingly falling into the "not sure" category.

Enough anti-science propaganda has been deployed against the issue of global climate change that the clear majority of Americans who believed in it has now fallen to a mere plurality, and one that is fading fast.  America's energy companies couldn't be happier, either.

Best part of that Harris poll?  Americans overwhelming believe there are more natural disasters now than just a few years ago, including weather related disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards.  They just don't believe that humans have anything to do with causing it, or are increasingly unsure.

In other words, the climate change denialists are winning big time by muddying the waters.  And the longer we do nothing out of inertia, the worse it will get.

Big Bird Gets Mickey Moused In Orlando

Gov. Lex Luthor Rick Scott is back in the news, this time for vetoing all state PBS funding, all but assuring that Orlando, Florida now becomes the first major US city to lose access to a public broadcasting station.

Just as a deal came together late last week to keep PBS programming on the air in Orlando, Florida’s public broadcasters suffered a financial blow when Gov. Rick Scott vetoed the state’s nearly $4.8 million appropriation for public broadcasting.

That figure had already been reduced by 30 percent from the amount broadcasters received last year. With the cuts, each of 13 public radio stations will lose $87,287 in state funds compared with last year, and each of the 13 public television stations will lose a subsidy of $434,837. Stations receive the same subsidy, regardless of size.

“For me, it is critical; for a small station it might be catastrophic,” said Rick Schneider, president and chief executive of Miami’s WPBT-TV. He said there was “no doubt that people are going to have to look at layoffs” and that he would not be surprised if some stations were shut down. The broadcasters will work to get the funds reinstated, he said.

Orlando’s WMFE-TV had already decided to leave public broadcasting, citing financial strain in its decision to sell itself to a religious broadcaster, which would have left the city without PBS programming on July 1.

But, on Thursday, the University of Central Florida in Orlando said it reached a partnership deal with WBCC, at Brevard Community College in nearby Cocoa. U.C.F. will invest up to $1 million in the college station, which had been the market’s secondary PBS station (and already offered some U.C.F. programming on a digital subchannel) and will now become the primary station, pending PBS approval. It will be renamed WUCF.

But now with the state's PBS funding gone, the WUCF deal is in real trouble.  That will leave Orlando with no PBS station.  But remember, Rick Scott insists that Florida must cut corporate taxes to zero on top of all of the financial mess they are in.  What a great guy.  No wonder his approval ratings just five months into his term are in the basement, and for the Republican-controlled legislature are even worse, both now in the upper 20's and falling in the latest Miami Herald state poll (yes, this means we've reached the Twenty-Seven Percent Solution already.)

No wonder Democrats are feeling increasingly confident in Florida, calling Gov. Scott their "secret weapon" in the state.

It's Not About Race, They Tell Me, Part 2

Anyone who actually thought the Birther thing was actually about the President's long-form birth certificate and not about justification for covert (and increasingly overt) racism, please take note.

Sixteen percent of all voters and 30% of Republicans do not believe President Barack Obama has proven he was born in the U.S., even after release of his long-form birth certificate, a new IBOPE Zogby interactive survey finds.


These results are from an IBOPE Zogby interactive poll conducted April 29-May 2, which was after Obama released the birth certificate and addressed the news media on the topic.

Demographic groups besides Republicans expressing the highest levels of doubt about Obama's birth in the U.S. are conservatives (34%), and those without a college degree (21%) vs. those with a degree (11%).

Yeah, that's right.  There's that twenty-sevenish percent number firmly ensconced in our national debate.  No matter what the President does, about that percentage will continue to publicly insist he's not really their President cause he wasn't born here, so he doesn't count.  Releasing the long-form birth certificate did precisely nothing to tamp down the crazy on that end of the spectrum, as I predicted last week.  Since they're riled up right now, it's actually a bit more than the 27% too.

So yeah, the racist assholes will see what they want to see, and hear the dog whistles they want to hear, and share the "code" that Obama's "not one of us" to their heart's content no matter what the President does.  Same goes for the Deather polls you'll see in the next couple of days/weeks:  I'm betting at least 27% of Republicans will end up saying bin Laden is still alive.

Exciting New Horizons In Obama Derangement Syndrome

John Cole notes that 27% number of winger idiots has reared its ugly head again.

Remember the offensive monkey/Obama/birth certificate email sent by the OC teahadist? Guess what:

In an exclusive Eyewitness News poll, SurveyUSA asked Southern Californians familiar with the email whether they found it offensive. Seventy percent said yes, 27 percent said no.

It’s starting to get freaky.

And how could you NOT find that offensive?

And yet, that 27% says a picture of the President as a toddler with monkey parents is perfectly fine.  Angry Black Lady has some very choice words for Orange County, California in general.  Please note the Orange County Republican who sent out the racist picture in the first place apologized by saying she's not a racist, and really it's your fault for being offended and you should be like Jesus and forgive her.

Oh, and she gets to keep her job as a county party official.  Gotta love it.

Completely Moosed Up This Time

I'm still absolutely convinced Sarah Palin will run for President out of sheer ego, but if she actually does she's going to have a miserable time of it.

Sarah Palin’s unfavorable rating is off the charts.

The former Alaska governor’s numbers are astonishingly upside-down, according to a new Bloomberg poll showing a 32 percentage point spread between those who have an unfavorable rating of Palin and those who view her favorably.

Of the 60 percent in the poll who have an unfavorable opinion of Palin, more than half of them – 38 percent among the whole survey – said they have a “very” unfavorable view of Palin.

Her “very” unfavorable rating is higher than the total favorability ratings of Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump and Chris Christie.

The new poll is a dip from a December Bloomberg poll showing Palin with a net favorable rating of 33 percent and a net unfavorable rating of 57 percent.

Now granted, I think the second she announces her 2012 run her numbers will improve noticeably.  They will not improve to the point where she would actually have a shot of winning, however.  I'm also solidly convinced that her favorable ratings will never go below 27% either, so this is about as bad as it's going to get for her.

Either way, I think America is largely over Sarah Palin at this point.  No doubt she'll find some way to get back to being the center of the universe again quickly.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

John Cole reminds us of the Kung-Fu Monkey Theory of Crazy (aka The Twenty-Seven Percent Solution) that basically states that with all other political variables being essentially equal, about 27% of the voting public will pick the completely effing insane option every single time.

Once again, that number keeps coming up.

The Supreme Court has again rejected an appeal from a "birther" proponent questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama.


The justices Monday turned aside without comment a request for a rehearing of various claims, after dismissing the original appeal in late January.

The long-shot petition by Gregory Hollister had called on Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to withdraw from considering the constitutional claims, contending a conflict of interest by the president's two high court appointees.

Lower federal claims had dismissed Hollister's claims.

And what's so important about this?  As John Cole points out:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll in July found that 71% of Americans believed Obama definitely or probably was born in the United States, while 27% said he definitely or probably was not. The sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The larger the population sample, the closer the crazy option gets to that equilibrium point of 27%, most famously Bush's final approval rating.  If you take eleven random voters, odds are three of them are covered in a thin layer of tinfoil.

New tag:  Twenty-Seven Percent Solution.