Harris poll: Obama's major legislation popular when considered individually, but not as a whole

[ProSense]

Via a Daily Kos post

(PDF)

Most of the Major Pieces of Legislation Signed by Obama Are Popular with Americans who Are Familiar with Them

But a sizable plurality gives negative ratings to the “new laws passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President” when they are considered together

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Some of the other interesting results of this poll are:

• Familiarity with the 7 bills in the list varies greatly. Fully 80% of all adults are very or somewhat familiar with the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. 77% are familiar with the Health Care Reform bill. 72% are familiar with the bill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits. 68% are familiar with stimulus package of increased government spending and tax cuts. 56% are familiar with the 9/11 First Responders health care bill. But only 37% are familiar with the ratification of the Start 2 Nuclear Arms Control bill, and only 39% are familiar with the Financial Regulation bill (the Dodd Frank Bill);
  
  
• Approval of the bills by those who are very or somewhat familiar with them also varies greatly, with between 88% and 51% rating them “good” rather than “bad”. The most popular bills are the 9/11 First Responders bill (88% good) and the bill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits (73%). Also very popular are the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law (68%), the ratification of Start 2 (67%), and the Financial Regulation bill (63%). The people familiar with the other two bills – the stimulus package and the Health Care Reform bill are split almost equally (51% to 49% for both) between those who think them good or bad;
  
  
• Unsurprisingly there is a huge partisan split in attitudes to these pieces of legislation, with Republicans tending to be much more negative and Democrats much more positive about the legislation. However, large majorities of Republicans think that two of these pieces of legislation are “good” – the 9/11 First Responders bill (82%) and the extension of the Bush-era tax-cuts and unemployment benefits (89%). Large majorities of Republicans think that each of the other five pieces of legislation are “bad”.

So What?

These findings suggest several conclusions about public opinion and how it is formed and influenced. One conclusion is that the big picture—how people feel overall—is not the sum of all the small pictures, or how people feel about the details. It is also clear that emotions tend to trump detailed analysis; rhetoric often trumps information; and that partisanship often trumps rational analysis. All of this confirms that Democracy is messy, and the truth of Churchill’s famous remark that Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all of the others.



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PDF

On the overall (those familiar and not familiar), there are high percentages of "not at all sure," but...

Democrats: Net Positive - 59 percent; Negative- 20 percent

18 to 34: Net Positive - 37 percent; Negative- 35 percent

On those familiar with the bill, the range for Democrats is between 82 percent and 93 percent on all but extending the tax cuts at 64 percent.

As the poster at Kos states:

Keep that in mind when people tell you that health reform is unpopular but individual elements of the bill are. Why is it unpopular? Because Republicans tend to believe what they are told by other Republicans. If it were endorsed (like the bill to extend the Bush-era tax cuts), it'd meet with higher approval independent of the merits.

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That's how Fox News stays in business.

Edited to fix format.

[FSogol]

1. Harris Poll: Americans are Simpletons

:shrug:

[rfranklin]

2. Notice that Republicans are out of step on every issue...

They can't even muster total support for 9/11 responders. And, that's their national holiday!

[RedCloud]

6. They require simple solutions for simple minds!

[Arkana]

3. Shock and awe, Americans are idiots and susceptible to messaging campaigns.

[polichick]

4. Yep, a nation of dumbshits. nt

[craigmatic]

5. Americans favor the repub message but prefer Democratic policies.

[ProSense]

7. Not favor, it's the Fox Noise effect. n/t

[Drunken Irishman]

8. So basically, what I should take from this poll, is that Americans can't handle complexity.

[ProSense]

10. You know,

you could right. Some concepts appear to be too complex for some, and now they're being elected to Congress.

[socialist_n_TN]

9. Actually it tells me that Dems are atrocious at...........

messaging. They're SO bad that I wonder if it's deliberate.

I think it scared the SHIT out of the DLC contingent (official and unofficial) when Obama won in '08 with a highly populist left wing message. It fucked with their world view of a "center-right" country and their ass kissing of the moneyied elite. So they sabotaged the '08 victory by not going for what they were elected to do.

[Very_Boring_Name]

11. Exact same thing happened with the Clinton healthcare plan

When they polled, if they simply listed everything that was in the bill, virtually everyone who responded supported it. But if they called it the Clinton healthcare plan, people were overwhelmingly against it. Republican propaganda is a powerful thing.

[FrenchieCat]

12. Thanks Prosense.......

I appreciate the info and the analysis.