A CNN poll released today finds that “opinion about which political party is responsible for the severe economic downturn is shifting.”  According to the survey, “38 percent of the public blames Republicans for the country’s current economic problems. That’s down 15 points from May, when 53 percent blamed the GOP. According to the poll 27 percent now blame the Democrats for the recession, up 6 points from May. Twenty-seven percent now say both parties are responsible for the economic mess.”

Similarly, the Gallup tracking poll has President Obama dipping below 50 percent approval for the first time, with 49 percent approving and 44 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing as president.

None of this is surprising, really.  While we may technically be out of the recession, unemployment is now in the double digits for the first time in many Americans’ memory and trending upwards.  Obama’s sitting in the White House and, rightly or wrongly, he gets the blame.

It’s actually rather remarkable that he’s doing as well as he is.   I credit Bush Fatigue.  People were so glad to see his predecessor leave office that Obama still seems good by comparison.

But that won’t last forever.

As longtime readers know, I believe presidents get far, far too much credit for good economic circumstances and far, far too much blame for economic downturns.  But that’s the nature of the game.

Pollster Glen Bolger (a founding partner at my wife’s firm) looks at the data in the Virginia governor’s race and concludes that Barack Obama hurt Democrat Creigh Deeds.

At the end of tracking, we added some questions paid for by the Republican National Committee specifically to measure the Obama effect.

[...]

The dominant national issue at that time (and still) is health care. Only 44% of likely voters support the Obama plan, while 50% oppose it. Intensity is strongly against — 29% strongly favor/42% strong oppose. The question was worded:

“As you may have heard, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are preparing a plan to change the health care system. From what you have heard about this plan, do you favor or oppose Obama and the Democrats’ health care proposal?”

We also asked a message question that was stunning for two reasons. One, it was stunning in its rejection of the notion of the Democratic wave of 2006-08 is any lasting move, and it was stunning for how close it was to the final election margin:

“I’m going to read you two statements, and please tell me which one comes closest to your opinion.

Some/Other people say it is more important to elect a Governor who will help President Barack Obama implement his agenda.

Other/Some people say that it is more important to elect a Governor who will serve as a check and balance to President Barack Obama.”

Voters opted for the check and balance by a 55%-35% margin. Independents (who voted for Obama by one point in 2008 in Virginia) opted for a check and balance by an overwhelming 58%-25% margin. Throughout our tracking, we regularly found open-ended comments from Independent voters saying they wanted to balance the overwhelming power that the Democrats have in Washington. Given the absolute power the Dems have in DC, that is a very strong message for GOPers running in 2010.

We tested the impact of the Obama endorsement — 24% said they were more likely to vote for Deeds, while 32% were less likely. The minus eight increment on that can not be encouraging to the White House.

Finally, we tested a simple agree/disagree: “Creigh Deeds’ policies are too close to the policies of President Barack Obama.” Fully 52% agreed and only 30% disagreed. By intensity, 30% strongly agreed and only 9% strongly disagreed. Revisionists on the left are blaming Deeds for not embracing Obama enough, but Virginia voters did not agree. Among Independents, it was 52% agree/28% disagree.

His bottom line is that Obama’s “policies have put fiscal and economic messages back into play for Republicans.”

Presumably, by 2010, it will be even harder for Democrats to run against George W. Bush or the Republican Congress of 2006.  The degree to which Obama will be an asset or a liability to his party will, of course, depend on intervening events.  If we’re still looking at 10 percent unemployment next November, it’ll almost certainly be the latter.

The special election to fill New York’s 23rd Congressional District seat vacated by the appointment of Republican John McHugh as Secretary of the Army has taken yet another bizarre twist.  Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend, causing great celebration on the part of Republicans like Michelle Malkin, who termed her “radical leftist GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava” and chortled “don’t let the door hit you on the way out!”  Earlier, Malkin had explained why, in her view, “the GOP should be ‘purged’ of left-wing saboteurs.”

Well, now Scozzafava has endorsed Democrat Bill Owens over Conservative Doug Hoffman in a press release.

I am supporting Bill Owens for Congress and urge you to do the same.

It’s not in the cards for me to be your representative, but I strongly believe Bill is the only candidate who can build upon John McHugh’s lasting legacy in the U.S. Congress. John and I worked together on the expansion of Fort Drum and I know how important that base is to the economy of this region. I am confident that Bill will be able to provide the leadership and continuity of support to Drum Country just as John did during his tenure in Congress.

In Bill Owens, I see a sense of duty and integrity that will guide him beyond political partisanship. He will be an independent voice devoted to doing what is right for New York. Bill understands this district and its people, and when he represents us in Congress he will put our interests first.

Hoffman’s campaign dubbed her a “turncoat” and said “This afternoon Dede Scozzafava betrayed the GOP.”   But, um, Hoffman split from the GOP and was running against its candidate!

Malkin, happy a day earlier to purge the likes of the radical leftist Scozzafava from the GOP thinks she’s being ungrateful.

Hey, how did that six-figure RNC donation to the NRCC plus $85,000 to the New York GOP plus nearly half-million-dollar investment in advertising and other independent expenditures on behalf of radical leftist Dede Scozzafava work out?

She repaid the GOP by endorsing Democrat candidate Bill Owens. Some gratitude, eh?

But why should she be grateful for the humiliation of having out-of-state Republicans calling her names and openly campaigning for a third party candidate against the duly nominated candidate of their own party?

While I’m a Big Tent guy who thinks the Republican Party needs to accept the fact that winning seats in the Northeast will require backing candidates who would be considered “liberal” in Mississippi, I fully understand the thinking of people like Malkin who prefer an ideological party.  At some point, having an “R” after a candidate’s name doesn’t mean much if they’re going to work against your leadership.   But you can’t have it both ways.  Either the GOP accepts people like Scozzafava as candidates in liberal districts or it runs them off to become Democrats.

Nate Silver calls the race “nearly impossible to forecast.”

Special elections, with their low turnout, are intrinsically pretty difficult to predict. So are multi-candidate races. And certainly, races where there are substantial late-breaking developments — such as the Republican candidate dropping out four days before the election and endorsing her Democratic rival — present especial difficulties for forecasters. Here, you have all three of those circumstances, producing a perfect storm of uncertainty. Not only will I not be surprised if either Democrat Bill Owens or Conservative Doug Hoffman wins on Tuesday — I will not be surprised if one of them wins by a substantial, possibly even double-digit margin.

His gut says that it helps Owens (but then his heart is pulling for Owens).

Owens is probably in a better position than he was 48 hours ago. Endorsements don’t usually matter very much, but with Scozzafava’s exit from the race, you suddenly have as much as 30 percent of the electorate up for grabs and undoubtedly feeling very, very confused. Plus, the endorsement was unexpected (although perhaps it shouldn’t have been, since Scozzafava is much closer ideologically to Owens than to Hoffman), which might make it more impactful.

At least one poll — which Silver “respects” because of its good showing in recent races — shows Hoffman with “a commanding lead.”

In a three way contest with Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava Hoffman leads with 51% to 34% for Owens and 13% for Scozzafava. In a head to head contest with Owens Hoffman holds a 54-38 advantage.

Polling the race was a little haphazard in a weekend with many twists and turns but Hoffman showed a similar lead at all junctures. In interviews conducted before Scozzafava announced the suspension of her campaign Hoffman led Owens 49-31 with 17% going to Scozzafava. Poll respondents Saturday afternoon/evening and early Sunday afternoon were informed that Scozzafava had dropped out but that her name would still be on the ballot. During that period of time Hoffman led Owens 51-34 with Scozzafava’s share going down to 12%. After Scozzafava announced she was endorsing Owens the remaining Sunday respondents were informed of that and the race showed a little tightening with Hoffman up 52-38 on Owens and Scozzafava’s share dropping to 7%.

If Hoffman was at 51% with Scozzafava running, he’ll almost certainly win.  I’d guess almost all of those supporting the Republican candidate will wind up voting Conservative or staying home.  And I’d guess that, in a race where turnout will be extraordinarily low, Hoffman’s True Believers will be far more likely to actually show up.

But, as Silver says, with so many late-breaking developments, prediction is “nearly impossible.”

UPDATE:  Not shockingly, perhaps, but the WSJ editorial board sums up my thoughts exactly:

The voter revolt ought to be a lesson to the GOP’s backroom boys, especially in New York state, where the old Al D’Amato insider club has led the party to irrelevance. GOP state chairman Joe Mondello, now thankfully retired, and Beltway bigs misjudged public dismay against the Democratic agenda in Washington. Nominating a candidate who “can win” in the Northeast does not have to mean someone whose voting record is more liberal on taxes and unions than that of most Blue Dog Democrats.

But that lesson will be for naught if conservatives conclude that their victory is reason to challenge any candidate who doesn’t agree with them on every issue. The truth is that some conservatives are as bloody-minded and intolerant of all dissent as the hard left is at the Daily Kos. A majority political party requires a far more diverse coalition than the audience for your average right-wing blogger or talk show host. Some of those voices prefer having Democrats in power because it drives up their own ratings.

Democrats did themselves no favors by driving Joe Lieberman out of their party, and conservatives will do their cause no good by forcing GOP candidates in Illinois, California and Connecticut to sound like Tom DeLay. If conservatives now revolt against every GOP candidate who disagrees with them on trade, immigration or abortion, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will keep their majorities for a very long time.

Striking that balance isn’t easy.  But it’s essential.

Tyler Cowen points me to an interesting discussion on the subject “Why So Few D.C. Residents Are Married.”

Washington City Paper’s Amanda Hess cites a Pew survey finding that “Only 23 percent of women and 28 percent of men and in D.C. are married, compared to 48 and 52 percent nationwide. The rates in D.C. are so low that they lie entirely off the Pew map’s color key. The closest states to D.C.’s numbers are Rhode Island, where 43 percent of women are married, and Alaska, where 47 percent of men are married.”

While Pew’s D’Vera Cohn attributes this to D.C. residents getting married later than those in any state,  Hess argues that an overlooked factor is that D.C. has the nation’s highest concentration of homosexuals, who are not permitted to marry.

Newsweek blogger Katie Connolly retorts that “Both those explanations are plausible, but they give the data short shrift.”  Instead, she thinks the answer lies in the “nature of race and class in D.C.”

Anyone who’s lived in D.C. is aware of the city’s dirty secret: it essentially operates under an unwritten form of apartheid. In general, affluent, college-educated white folks with decent, steady incomes are clustered in the northwest quadrant. Their needs are serviced by a massive underclass, consisting largely of underprivileged immigrants, African-Americans, and Hispanics, that inhabits the remaining three quarters. Visitors to the city rarely glimpse this side of the city because there’s little reason to venture beyond the fancy hotels, restaurants, and attractions.

[...]

But only around a third of D.C.’s population is white. African-Americans make up 56 percent of the population, and marriage rates among African-Americans have been steadily dropping since the 1960s. The last census found that just 36 percent of African American women were married, down from 62 percent in 1950. Marriage rates for white women also declined over the same period, but only from 66 percent to 57 percent. A large proportion of D.C.’s African-American community is low income or underemployed, both of which are often indicators of low marriage or high divorce rates.

All those explanations strike me as contributors to the puzzle.  All of them, though, miss one crucial issue:  Suburbanization.

The vast majority of those of us who work in the District actually live in Virginia or Maryland.  Some even commute from as far away as West Virginia, Pennsylvania, or Delaware.   Those of us who are married — and especially those of us with children — are much more likely to be in that category.

If you’re young, single, and affluent, D.C. proper — or at least, a handful of gentrified neighborhoods therein — is a great place to live.  It’s not Manhattan but there’s a decent nightlife, a plethora of restaurants, and plenty of things to do.  But unless you’re very well off financially, you’ve either got a roommate, live in an incredibly small space, or both.  And there’s essentially no such thing as a single family home in the District.  (Note for non-urbanites:  A “single family home” is  a “house.”  In places like D.C., even wealthy people tend to live in condos or townhouses.) Let alone a yard.

Oh, and unless you can afford to send your kids to Sidwell Friends, the schools are simply awful.

UPDATE:   Commenter Ugh observes, “I think the problem here is treating the District of Columbia as a state, and then comparing it to real states, each of which is infinitely more rural than the District (even Rhode Island). A more proper comparison would be to the marriage rate in Baltimore proper, or San Francisco, or Oakland, or Manhattan, etc.”

Yes, that’s exactly right. The Pew piece footnotes that point and Connolly uses it as a throwaway line but it’s really important.  Indeed, it’s really another way of making my point about suburbanization:  The same is more or less true in most of our major urban centers but, since the unit of analysis for the other 50 entities is a whole state, the impact is different.

Taegan Goddard links a Public Policy Polling survey [PDF] showing that President Obama would have beaten the most commonly mentioned Republican hopefuls had the election been held from October 16th to 19th and opened to registered voters.  (I hasten to add, it wasn’t.)

In fact, according to the survey, “Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and Tim Pawlenty 50-30.”

Considering that Huckabee, Romney, and Pawlenty remain virtual unknowns to most Americans and Obama is the sitting president, I’m not sure this is as depressing news for the GOP as PPP’s Tom Jensen seems to think.  Indeed, Huckabee is actually within the poll’s margin of error!

Look, the 2012 election’s a ridiculously long time from now and it’s pretty silly even talk about it.  Still, as Dave Schuler notes, it’s a Thursday.  Obama’s quite popular and, while his approval is plummeting by historical standards, it’s still pretty good all things considered.  Given our propensity for re-electing sitting presidents, the fact that the economy is bound to be better by mid-2012, and that the Republican Party seems to be in disarray, I’d say Obama is an early favorite to win a second term.  But we’ll have a much better idea in, say, two years.

My strong hunch is that neither Huckabee nor Palin will be the Republican nominee.  The party traditionally nominates the person whose “turn” it is, which would seemingly point to Romney.  But given how sick everyone is with the Washington wing of the GOP, I wouldn’t be shocked if some governor who’s never run before emerges out of nowhere.

Ezra Klein points to a new ABC/WaPo poll showing a solid majority support “a law that requires all Americans to have health insurance, either getting it from work, buying it on their own, or through eligibility for Medicare or Medicaid.” Further, the same poll finds a third of those who oppose would switch sides “if the government gave financial assistance in getting health insurance to people with incomes below about 40-thousand dollars for an individual, and below 88-thousand dollars for a family of four.”

Kevin Drum is intrigued and guesses the phenomenon likely pretty common.

I’m pretty sure you could quote a couple of lines from Jabberwocky, ask an “in that case” followup question, and get a fair number of people to change their minds.  So what I’d like to know is: what’s the average flip rate?

He thinks figuring this out would be a useful project for political scientists, adding yet another data point to Dan Drezner’s suspicion that those of our ilk are becoming more policy-relevant.

I’m sure Kevin’s right that there’s a flip factor.  Partly, people just want to seem agreeable and reasonable.  Mostly, though, adding a lot of caveats just makes poll questions more confusing.

And the ones Ezra cites above are, frankly, pretty damned confusing.  The initial question is beyond double barreled, throwing so many things into the pot that I’m surprised they found 41% to oppose.  A “law that requires all Americans to have health insurance” sounds pretty good on the surface and talk about the employer or Medicare paying for it obscures the actual policy choice.  If, on the other hand, the question were phrased, “Would you support or oppose a law forcing Americans who do not have health insurance through their employer or the government to pay for it out of their own pocket or go to jail?” support would go down tremendously!

Similarly, if the follow-up were phrased, “Would you be willing to pay more in taxes so individuals making under $40,000 a year — or  $88,000 for families– could get free health insurance from the government?” I’m guessing it wouldn’t do so well.

While a majority still supports criminalization, more Americans than ever think marijuana should be legal, according the latest Gallup survey. Lydia Saad (a family friend) provides the analysis:

Gallup’s October Crime poll finds 44% of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and 54% opposed. U.S. public support for legalizing marijuana was fixed in the 25% range from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but acceptance jumped to 31% in 2000 and has continued to grow throughout this decade.

The question wording is interesting here.  It would be cleaner and less confusing to ask “Do you think the use of marijuana should be illegal?”  But, since marijuana use is and has been illegal, one can understand the negative wording.  Also, they’ve been asking the question the same way over time, which at least allows untainted comparison over time.  We’ve seen a thirty point drop in the number thinking it should be illegal over the past 40 years and a 32 point rise in those thinking it should be legal.  And, allowing for a +/-3 margin of error, the trend has been rather steady.

Saad continues:

The highest level of support for decriminalizing the use of marijuana today is seen with self-described liberals, among whom 78% are in favor. In contrast, 72% of conservatives are opposed. Moderates are about evenly divided on whether the use of marijuana should be legal, although they tilt against it (51% vs. 46%). Somewhat milder differences are seen according to political party, mainly because of the tempered support of Democrats relative to that of liberals. However, a solid 70% of Republicans — similar to the rate seen among conservatives — are opposed.

Essentially, virtually all Republicans self-identify as “conservative” whereas many Democrats think of themselves as “moderate” or even “conservative.”  While this is partly a function of the greater size and therefore diversity of the Democratic coalition at the moment, it’s also the power of branding.   Liberal has been a dirty word for decades, despite views considered ultra liberal in my boyhood now being moderate, if not conservative.

Saad adds:

Public mores on legalization of marijuana have been changing this decade, and are now at their most tolerant in at least 40 years. If public support were to continue growing at a rate of 1% to 2% per year, as it has since 2000, the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years.

Perhaps true.  But here’s the thing: A sizable percentage of those who will privately tell a pollster that they think marijuana should be legal would be unwilling to make that statement publicly, owing to pressure from their church group, social circle, and so forth.  Conversely, those who favor criminalization are likely to be quite vocal and highly organized. We’ll need more than a slight majority supporting decriminalization to actually achieve it.

Via Jonathan Adler, I see that world-renowned economist Robert Barro and his student, Charles Redlick, takes to WSJ to summarize their research report showing that stimulus spending doesn’t work. Oddly, take cuts do.

The bottom line is this: The available empirical evidence does not support the idea that spending multipliers typically exceed one, and thus spending stimulus programs will likely raise GDP by less than the increase in government spending. Defense-spending multipliers exceeding one likely apply only at very high unemployment rates, and nondefense multipliers are probably smaller. However, there is empirical support for the proposition that tax rate reductions will increase real GDP.

Given that this comports with my own sense of how things work — and that Barro is sufficiently important that I was aware of him as a political science graduate student in the early 1990s — makes me somewhat confident in the results.  That they mostly relied on massive increases in defense spending during wartime, for reasons that are empirically sound but nonetheless muddy the research finding — detracts somewhat.

What’s interesting, though, is that public opinion seems to match up well with Barro and Redlick’s findings.  Kevin Drum points me to this chart from John Judis showing that most people think the stimulus helped large banks and Wall Street investment companies but not the little guy:

I’m generally skeptical of asking ordinary people questions of this sort since they don’t have the training to make useful evaluations.  (Full disclosure:  Neither do I.)  Nonetheless, I both think they’re right in this case and, regardless, what they think will influence how they vote.

A NYT/CBS poll finds that President Obama’s approval remains strong but support for his handling of key policy issues is dipping. The Republicans are not, however, gaining much ground.

At 56 percent, his approval rating is down from earlier in the year but still reasonably strong at this point compared with recent presidents.

More Americans are starting to credit his stimulus package with having helped to revive the economy. And Mr. Obama retains a decided advantage with the American public over Republicans on prominent issues, starting with health care.

The poll found that an intense campaign by Mr. Obama to rally support behind his health care plan — including an address to Congress, a run of television interviews and rallies across the country — appears to have done little to allay concerns. Majorities of respondents said that they were confused about the health care argument and that Mr. Obama had not done a good job in explaining what he was trying to accomplish. [...] But the poll suggests that Mr. Obama is in a decidedly more commanding position than Republicans on this issue as Congressional negotiations move into final stages. Most Americans trust Mr. Obama more than Republicans to make the right decisions on the issue; 76 percent said Republicans had not even laid out a clear health care plan. And by a lopsided margin, respondents said that Mr. Obama and not Republicans had made an effort to cross party lines and strike a deal that has the support of both parties. Two-thirds of respondents said they wanted Congress to come up with a bill supported by both sides.

At the same time, there has been a slip in confidence in Mr. Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan. There is tepid support for maintaining troop strength there, much less increasing it, as his top commander in Afghanistan prepares to submit a request for additional forces. A majority of Americans do not want troops there for more than two years.

[...]

The percentage of people who approve of the way he has dealt with Afghanistan has dropped to 44 percent from 56 percent in April. The percentage of Americans who approve of his handling of the economy, at 50 percent, has dropped from 61 percent since April. In April, Mr. Obama had a 43-point advantage over Republicans in terms of who would make the right decisions on the economy; that has dropped to a 26-point advantage. Americans think the economy is on the mend, and there has been a 15-point increase, to 36 percent, in the percentage of Americans who said Mr. Obama’s stimulus package has improved the economy.

Congressional Republicans have an overall favorable rating of 30 percent, within the margin of error of where it has been all year (32, 29, and 28 in the previous surveys) in this poll. Congressional Democrats at at 47 percent which, again, is within the margin of error of where it has been all year (48, 50, and 47 in the previous surveys). So, the decline in Obama’s approval numbers (which are quite consistent with other recent presidents at this point in their first term) isn’t redounding to the benefit of the opposition party.

Republicans are making modest gains on issue areas but are still leagues behind the president. Again, though, that’s pretty typical: A president has to be doing a lousy job, indeed, to fall behind Congress in these things. Congress tends to be viewed with an esteem on par with used car salesmen.

Interestingly, those of us who think Obama is overexposed, making too many public appearances, are in a decided minority (35 percent) with 58 percent saying he’s making “the right number.” Only 4 percent think he’s making too few. (Interestingly, the Obama overexposed and Obama fatigue memes have been around since last summer’s campaign.)

Via Eric Kleefeld, I see Public Policy Polling has surveyed Americans on various conspiracy theories and wild ideas and found substantial adherence to all of them, leading their Tom Jensen to ask “Is extremism becoming mainstream in 21st century American politics?”

Our latest national poll would seem to say yes- 35% voters in the country either think that Barack Obama was not born in the United States or that George W. Bush intentionally allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur so that we could go to war in the Middle East. A very troubled 2% of the population buys into both of those conspiracy theories.

[...]

Only 59% of Americans say confidently that they think Barack Obama was born in the country while 23% think he was not, and 18% are unsure. Among Republicans there are more voters- 42%- who think he was born somewhere else than there are- 37%- who will say for sure that he was born here.

The far out sentiments aren’t limited to the right though. 14% of Americans, including 25% of Democrats, think that George W. Bush let 9/11 happen to justify war, and 8% aren’t sure.

[...]

10% of voters say they think Obama is the Anti-Christ with 11% unsure and 8% say the same of Bush with an equal 11% unsure.

Without seeing the poll itself, it’s hard to know what to make of this.  The blog post above — oddly on the free and crappy Blogspot service — does not link the survey and, while Jensen has an email address at publicpolicypolling.com, that’s currently pulling up a “Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)” error.  So, I have no idea what their sampling methodology — or even the precise question wording — was.

Still, it’s not terribly surprising that a large number of people think things which are demonstrably untrue, let alone things which are unfalsifiable.

Most Americans are aware that questions have been raised about Obama’s American citizenship. And it’s a subject that’s potentially confusing to those who haven’t seriously looked into it.  (Yes, Obama was a Kenyan citizen, by virtue of his father’s being one, but automatically lost it upon attaining majority.  It’s a technically interesting question as to whether his mother could have transmitted citizenship given her residency status under the law as it stood in 1962.  But there’s simply no serious question that he was born in Hawaii, one of the 50 states, which renders all other questions moot.)  So, for those who follow the news only by osmosis, it’s not surprising that a few would think he’s not a citizen and more still would have some doubts.

The Truther conspiracy is more pernicious but easier to believe, since it’s impossible to disprove.  There’s no doubt that there was a memo titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” or that Bush received it five weeks ahead of the 9/11 attacks. Nor is there any question that there were bits and pieces of evidence in the possession of various federal agencies that, in hindsight, could be assembled to show that the government “knew” a lot. For that matter, Bush clearly thought Saddam was an evil dude who needed to be taken out (a belief shared by the Clinton administration.) So, all it takes to turn all of this into evidence that Bush let the attacks go on so as to justify his war is belief that he specifically or the federal government generally is evil.

As to the Anti-Christ responses, I tend to take most of them as “he’s a really bad guy” than expression that he’s a specific figure predicted in Revelations. Else, how does one explain the people who thought both Obama and Bush are the Anti-Christ? But, alas, there are always people who believe a given president is that figure. I recall it being pointed out nearly three decades ago that Ronald Wilson Reagan was comprised of 6-6-6 letters. (For what it’s worth, Snopes helpfully explains that Obama does not much resemble the Anti-Christ described in Revelations.)

Dan Gilgoff passes on word of a new survey projecting that a quarter of Americans will be atheists or non-believers twenty years from now.

If current trends continue, a quarter of Americans are likely to claim “no religion” in 20 years, according to a survey out today by Trinity College. Americans who identify with no religious tradition currently comprise 15 percent of the country, representing the fastest growing segment of the national religious landscape.

While the numbers portend a dramatic change for the American religious scene—”religious nones” accounted for just 8 percent of the population in 1990—the United States is not poised adopt the anti-religious posture of much of secularized Europe. That’s because American religious nones tend to be religious skeptics as opposed to outright atheists. Fewer than ten percent of those identifying with no religious tradition call themselves atheists or hold atheistic beliefs, according to the new study. “American nones are kind of agnostic and deistic, so it’s a very American kind of skepticism,” says Barry Kosmin, director of Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. “It’s a kind of religious indifference that’s not hostile to religion the way they are in France. Franklin and Jefferson would have recognized these people.”

The new study found that, in addition to seeing relatively strong retention numbers, American nones are quickly gaining new members. “Twenty-two percent of the youngest cohort of adults self-identify as nones and they will become tomorrow’s parents,” according to the report. “If current trends continue and cohorts of non-religious young people replace older religious people, the likely outcome is that in two decades the nones could account for around one-quarter of the American population.”

Not surprisingly, Andrew Sullivan attributes the rise of the nones partly to “the intellectual collapse of Christianity under the leadership of Protestant fundamentalists and Catholic theocons.” He adds, “The well-deserved inability of literalists to win many converts among educated people is also surely salient. The emergence of the politicized Christianist right – and its assault on Christianity as a freely chosen spiritual process – will surely lead to a continued and accelerating flight from organized religion.”

While I know many highly educated believers, they do indeed seem to be less than literal in their theology.  But Andrew believes this could lead to a renaissance of faith: “61 percent of Nones find evolution convincing, compared with 38 percent of all Americans. And yet they do not dismiss the possibility of a God they do not understand; and refuse to call themselves atheists. This is the fertile ground on which a new Christianity will at some point grow.”

Color me skeptical.  Religion without wild leaps of faith strikes me as almost pointless.  And I’m not sure the reluctance to jump from “none” to “atheist” is a pining for a more intellectual theology so much as wanting to avoid the cultural stigma that comes with the latter.

This is the view of PZ Myers who, naturally, is “disappointed” and contemptuous.  “I will not be content until the number is 100%. (OK, 95%. It’s not fair to demand rationality from people who are brain damaged or locked up in asylums.)”

Every article I see on this subject makes this desperate rush to reassure their readers that this growing cohort of Americans aren’t really those goddamned atheists — they’re nice people, unlike those cold-hearted, soulless beasts called atheists, and they aren’t planning to storm your churches and rape the choir boys and boil babies in the baptismal fonts, unlike the scary atheistic monsters. They’re special. And most of all, they aren’t French.

[...]

Oh, please. All the low frequency of self-reported atheists in the survey tells you is that the long-running campaign in American culture to stigmatize atheism has been highly successful — and it’s an attitude that we still see expressed in reports like this. The most important news they try to transmit is not the increase in unbelievers, it’s “Thank God they aren’t atheists! They’re just rational skeptics, instead!”

I suspect part of the reason that people are reluctant to call themselves “atheists” is a fear of being lumped in with the likes of Myers, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins.  Not satisfied to use their considerable brainpower to argue for scientific explanations over supernatural ones, they instead show utter disdain for the overwhelming majority of their fellow citizens who were brought up in a religious tradition and cling to parts of it.  “Atheism” in this sense isn’t a mere belief that there is no supernatural overlord controlling our universe but a quasi-religion of its own, with many of the worst traits of organized religion.

Similarly, AllahPundit likes the trend but is baffled by the non-believers who have a “personal god” or otherwise quasi-religious beliefs.   But that strikes me as a cultural phenomenon rather than a purely religious one.  America is steeped in religious traditions that are followed even by non-believers.  Pretty much everyone celebrates Christmas, for example, and even Easter — a more purely religious occasion that doesn’t even result in an extra day off work — has a huge secular buy-in, what with Easter bunnies and the various fun traditions for kids.  Not only does Big Business glom onto these occasions but they’re also massive public rituals, as well.  The President lights the national Christmas tree.  He hosts an Easter egg roll.   We reflexively say “Bless you” when people sneeze and take the Lord’s name in vain when we’re angry, regardless whether we believe in said Lord’s existence.

A sizable number of America’s self-described “religious,” even those who attend church with some regularity, aren’t religious in the sense that their 16th Century forebears were.  They pick and choose from the teachings of their chosen faith at will, occasionally even choosing a new faith altogether for reasons of “comfort” and convenience.  It’s a communal experience from which many draw inspiration and comfort.

Image: SoulPancake

Steve Benen puts together a chart based on DailyKos’ weekly State of the Nation poll and notices that the GOP has virtually no support outside the South:

In case anyone’s having trouble reading the visual, the Republican Party’s favorability is very weak in Northeast (7% to 87%), and only marginally better in the Midwest (13% to 78%) and West (14% to 75%). In the South, however, 50% have a favorable opinion of the GOP, and only 37% have an unfavorable view.

Time will tell how the electorate responds to changing economic circumstances, the debate over health care reform, etc., and I can very easily imagine Democrats taking a drubbing in the midterms. But it seems the Republican Party would be in a much more competitive position — in the short and long term — if its base wasn’t centered in just one region.

As a long-time Southerner living in the DC suburbs of Northern Virginia (the South ends about 40 miles from here as far as I’m concerned) I agree so far as it goes.  Mostly, though, the survey results (and, yes, this poll is reputable despite who’s paying for it) simply point to the low state the GOP is in at the moment

Yes, the hard core base is in the South and Southwest.  Has been for years.  But the Democratic Party is a bicoastal party at its core.  Recall the famous 2000 and 2004 Election County-by-County maps.  Or even the less controversial state-by-state map from 2004:

In fairness, that’s a representation of a winner-take-all system and not quite comparable to the favorability survey.   But, remember, the Democrats were in much better shape in both 2000 and 2004 than the GOP is in 2009.   But relatively small swings in approval lead to drastic changes in voting outcomes.

There’s a reason the Democrats have been around since Jefferson’s/Jackson’s day (depending on who you ask) and the Republicans since Lincoln:  They’re adept at adapting to changing times.  (Also, they’ve rigged the rules in their favor.)  Whether it happens in time for the 2010 or 2012 election cycles, the Republican Party will naturally evolve to meet the realities of the country’s demographic and cultural shifts.  The Democrats did so in the late 1980s and early 1990s, becoming decidedly more moderate in the aggregate on law and order, defense, and other issues where they were getting hammered by the GOP.  And the Republicans have gradually become more embracing of popular social programs over the years ( if not yet the means to pay for them).

To survive at the state and local level, Republicans will have to find candidates who can appeal to non-Cuban Hispanics and a more socially liberal population.  From that group will come the next crop of gubernatorial, senatorial, and presidential candidates.   And, remember, no party has won more than three straight presidential contests since FDR and Truman made it five straight during the Depression and WWII.  Indeed, only Reagan-Bush made it three straight — forcing the Democrats to quit nominating Mondales and Dukakises and reinvent themselves with Clinton.  Who then nearly made it three in a row for the Dems.

A new Investor’s Business Daily poll contends that nearly half the nation’s doctors would “Consider leaving [their] practice or taking an early retirement” if “Congress passes its health care plan.”

Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.

The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors’ own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.

It also calls into question whether an overhaul is even doable; 72% of the doctors polled disagree with the administration’s claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

I consider these numbers about as valid as those in the recent commuting pain survey claiming most people would pay $20 per 15 minutes saved on their commute. In reality, few of the doctors that are truly outraged at the proposed changes can either afford to give up their practices or would rather be doing something else. Further, this is a mail survey, so the results are particularly skewed because it’s essentially a self-selected sample.

My guess is that the 2/3 who oppose “the” plan is about right, despite the fact that there isn’t yet a single plan to oppose.  Moreover, I’m actually surprised that they found 25%  who believed “government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and the quality of care will be better.”  Granted, it’s a ridiculously written triple-barreled question with no research validity whatsoever.   But anyone who’s not only schooled in how medical care works but did well enough in advanced math to get into medical school should know better.

President Obama is losing support among white voters — including white Democrats — a new LAT poll finds.

The voters losing faith in the president are the ones he had worked hardest to attract. New surveys show steep declines in Obama’s approval ratings among whites — including Democrats and independents — who were crucial elements of the diverse coalition that helped elect the country’s first black president. Among white Democrats, Obama’s job approval rating has dropped 11 points since his 100-days mark in April, according to surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It has dropped by 9 points among white independents and whites over 50, and by 12 points among white women — all groups that will be targeted by both parties in next year’s midterm elections.

“While Obama has a lock on African Americans, his support among white voters seems to be almost in a free fall,” said veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse.

Strategists in both parties blame Obama’s decline on growing discontent with his policy agenda, particularly after a month of often-rowdy debate over his proposed healthcare overhaul, in which some conservatives accused him of socialism. Obama’s ratings seem likely to rise again if he wins passage of healthcare legislation this fall.

But the drop in support among whites also comes as some conservatives have stoked controversies that have the potential to further erode Obama’s standing among centrists — including some controversies that resulted from White House stumbles.

Disclosure: Newhouse is a founding partner of Public Opinion Strategies, which employs my wife as its Chief Operating Officer.

It’s virtually axiomatic that, if Obama’s support dropped — which was itself virtually inevitable given his high initial ratings and the political challenges he faced — that it would first do some among the groups that he had to work hardest to persuade.   He got elected partly on an “anybody but Bush” platform and partly on a “Change!” agenda of doing away with politics as usual.  Once he won, however, he was forced to govern in the usual political system.

Beyond that, because so many fiscal conservatives and libertarians were disaffected by the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in the previous Congress, a lot of regular Republican voters supported Obama.  They were naturally going to be disappointed.

President Obama’s approval ratings are continuing to fall, especially among young Democrats and working class whites.

Ron Brownstein highlights a new Pew poll showing the trends since the election:

Pew found Obama’s numbers are weakest among groups that were skeptical of him last year, but appeared to be kicking the tires on him during the honeymoon stage of his presidency. Now those groups–particularly white men without a college education–are retreating rapidly amid the ideologically polarizing debates over health care, the stimulus and his administration’s overall trajectory.

But Pew’s new survey also records perceptible, if still generally modest, erosion among groups that were central to Obama’s coalition last year–including young people, college-educated white women and even partisan Democrats. That is more worrisome for Obama, especially amid signs that the bruising combat over his health care plan is inflaming the conservative base. If conservatives are energized at the same time that Obama’s core supporters are wavering, Democrats could face a withering differential in turnout during next year’s election, many party strategists fear.

[...]

This erosion among non-college whites could threaten Democrats in 2010, particularly across the Rustbelt states of the Midwest, if turnout among these voters remains strong. But over the long run, those voters are not central to Obama’s coalition, in part because they have been reliably Republican in presidential elections since the 1980s, and partly because they are steadily declining as a share of the electorate.

More important to Obama are college-educated white voters, the key to his dramatic and decisive gains last year in suburban counties from Fairfax, Virginia to Arapahoe, Colorado. On this front, the picture is somewhat brighter for him: he maintains majority support among college-educated white women (who gave him 52 percent of their vote last year, matching the Democratic high in recent decades) and his approval rating among college-educated white men still exceeds his (admittedly lackluster) vote with them last year. But with both groups, he is moving in the wrong direction: Obama’s approval rating among the upscale men dropped two points in the Pew survey from July to August, and his standing with the college-plus white women dropped a more ominous five percentage points.

Greg Sargent notes similar trends in the Washington Post/ABC News poll and says this is what Obama gets for reaching out to conservatives:

Much talk today has focused on Obama’s difficulties with independents. But the drop among Dems and liberals is also a key driving factor in the President’s skid, according to WaPo polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta, who graciously provided the additional data.

This suggests Obama’s conciliatory approach to the GOP, and his lack of clarity around the public option — both of which are presumably alienating Dems and liberals — could be key factors driving his dip.

But none of this should be surprising. Obama came to office with outsized expectations, owing to a combination of his enormous charisma, the sustained national malaise during most of Bush’s second term, and an adoring media. It would have been impossible for him to live up to the hype. Especially when he was inheriting two wars, a global financial crisis, and a health care system headed for fiscal meltdown.

Nor is the demographic breakdown at all surprising. Young Democrats naturally had the most unrealistic expectations of the Change! that was coming to Washington, in that they simply don’t have the experience with the American political system to know any better. And of course working class whites and hipster ObamaCons who voted for Obama because they were so tired of the Republicans were going to be disappointed with a president with an agenda fundamentally at odds with their political preferences.  Not to mention that we’ve been a 50-50 country for a while now; a bare majority approval rating is going to be the ceiling outside from brief periods of euphoria.

Brownstein is right that, if this trend sustains itself, it means a bad midterm cycle for Obama’s party.  But that was likely to be the case, anyway.  Not only is a letdown in the off-year election the historical norm but regression to the mean should be expected after two cycles where Republicans lost big in areas naturally friendly to their platform.

It’s way too early to project this trend to 2012.  Still, I don’t see much cause for Republican celebration or Democratic panic.  Barring miracles — or a truly horrendous GOP nominee — Obama wasn’t going to keep the ObamaCons for another cycle.  And, barring a Lyndon Johnson-style meltdown, the disillusioned young Democrats are going to vote for Obama again, although perhaps not as enthusiastically or in quite such high numbers.  Which means, barring something unusual happening, we’re likely to return to our recent pattern of close elections.