Serious Implications

Rasmussen: a poll like none other.

Syndicated columnist Jack Kelly has a dubious column here, entitled “Health reform is in trouble.” Kelly tries to make the case that (1) President Obama’s negative poll ratings are the same as Sarah Palin’s, implying that Palin and Obama are tied, and (2) congressional Democrats will be influenced by these poll numbers when they vote on health reform, and will be disinclined to vote for it.

The only way Kelly can make this phony argument, is by comparing numbers from two very different polls. If he uses the approval and favorability numbers reported for both Palin and Obama in one major poll, Jack’s theory falls apart. Instead, he had to find one poll to boost Palin, and another poll to diminish Obama.

Kelly starts with the following:

In a Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,001 adults released July 24, 40 percent of respondents viewed Ms. Palin positively, 53 percent viewed her negatively.

In a Rasmussen poll of 1,500 likely voters released Monday, 49 percent of respondents at least somewhat approved of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, while 50 percent disapproved.

The margin of error for both polls was plus or minus 3 percent, so Ms. Palin’s negative numbers and Mr. Obama’s fall within it.

Once he had the WaPo/ABC poll in front of him, the source of the Palin numbers, Jack didn’t need to go looking for another to get Obama’s approval ratings. They were right there in the same poll! He could have compared apples to apples, that is, the WaPo/ABC poll numbers for Palin and the WaPo/ABC poll numbers for Obama in the same set of polling questions. He could have, and should have, to be honest. But he didn’t.

The WaPo/ABC poll is here with Obama’s approval ratings item #1 and Palin’s favorability numbers at item #23 on the list:

Obama
1. Net Approve 59%; Net Disapprove 37%; No opinion 4%.

Palin
23. Net Favorable 40%; Net Unfavorable 53%; No opinion 7%.

So its 37 to 53, not 50 to 53, and well outside the margin of error.

Rasmussen Reports poll numbers are very different from other major polls. Below is a list of Obama approve-disapprove spreads reported today by Real Clear Politics (RCP):

RCP Average +15.1
Gallup +18
Rasmussen Reports +1
Time +18
CBS News/NY Times +28
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl +13
Pew Research +20
NPR +11
GWU/Battleground +11
FOX News +16

RCP uses an average of major polls. Rasmussen is the obvious “outlier.” Even Fox News has a +16 for Obama, only two points lower than the Gallup Poll, and higher than NPR. By virtually every other major poll, Obama is in a good position, with respect to public opinion.

Jack Kelly, and Republican operatives, would rather we didn’t know that. When it comes to Obama, Jack’s job is to accentuate the negative.

Footnote:
Kelly enjoys column space in two major papers, the Toledo Blade, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Next post: Tony Blankley on the Diane Rehm Show pulls out a trick called “youtooism.”