Ezra Klein:
Wednesday's Wall Street Journal/NBC poll (pdf) is disappointing stuff. It's not so much that the American people have turned against Obama's health-care reform effort as they've turned against the legislative process in general. The graph at the right tells the story well: Americans disapprove of the job Obama is doing on health care. But they hate the job Republicans are doing. Which is not to say that the conservative attacks haven't been effective.
The poll tested a variety of assertions that were simply wrong -- Was health-care reform likely to include illegal immigrants? A government takeover of the system? Taxpayer-funded abortions? The government deciding when to end care for the elderly? -- to see whether the false attacks were falling flat or actually worming their way into the public consciousness. The answer? Worming. Definitely worming.
The public option, once supported by 76 percent of the poll's respondents, is now opposed by a plurality. Obama's plan still commands majority support if explained, but even that support has fallen in recent months. The poll is all bad news. The arguable exception is the devastating low numbers for the Republicans. But it's not clear they matter, really. The Republicans don't have to pass anything. They just have to kill something. A kamikaze mission is successful if it destroys the target.
There's a lesson in this for Democrats, though: Republicans have made a judgment that destroying health-care reform is a political winner regardless of its impact on their short-term popularity. Democrats, conversely, have spent a lot of time worrying about their short-term popularity rather than just muscling through a massive win on health care. The result? Their plan and their president are both a lot less popular than they were a few months ago. Caution and delay don't seem to be working out too well.
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