Article by Erik Smith. Published on Thursday, May 27, 2010 EST.
Murray Appears Vulnerable in Washington Senate Race, Rasmussen Says – Public Cynicism at All-Time High
Scott Rasmussen at Wednesday’s Washington Research Council banquet.
By Erik Smith
Staff writer/ Washington State Wire
SEATTLE, May 26.—Pollster Scott Rasmussen says the most striking trend in national political races is that Americans trust government less and less. That’s bad news for the party in power, whichever one it might be, and it’s looking tough for Democrats this year, he said. But the problem runs far deeper.
What we’re seeing in recent election results is not the rejection of incumbents that has so many political analysts chattering these days, he said. It’s a rejection of those who voted for the big bailouts of the banks, insurance firms and the auto industry – not to mention health care reform. And he said any member of Congress who voted no on those issues ought to put it in boldface type on the front page of his or her campaign brochure. Maybe 150 members can make that claim, mainly Republicans, he said – they’re the only ones who may be safe.
Rasmussen spoke Wednesday night at the 78th annual meeting of the Washington Research Council, held in the Bell Harbor conference center at Pier 66 in Seattle. Rasmussen is founder and president of Rasmussen Reports, an independent public-opinion research firm based in Asbury Park, N.J.
Rasmussen also said his reading of the tea leaves shows that U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is vulnerable. It promises to be a rollicking race for U.S. Senate, he said, now that Dino Rossi has entered on the Republican side. But the outcome will depend on national themes, rather than local ones, and it will take a Republican surge nationally to unseat Murray here. “People, especially in Senate races, tend to vote for the team, and this is going to be a tough year for the Democrats,” he said.
Public Distrust is Growing
Rasumussen said the big bailouts of the last two years have stirred public outrage that few in Congress are equipped to understand. It’s why there’s been so much chatter about the recent defeat of Republican Sen. Bob Bennett in Utah – a well-liked member of Congress who was on board with the bailouts. That’s the reason for his troubles, Bennett said, not the fact that he was an incumbent. “In Washington, D.C., they talk about that [bailout] vote as though it saved the world, and they resent the fact that people outside Washington, D.C. don’t feel that way,” he said.
Political leaders are misreading the voters and aren’t taking the long-term view, he said. What’s happening today is really the culmination of a trend more than 40 years in the making. Polling and election results since 1968 show a steadily diminishing confidence in government and public institutions. Watergate added to it, of course, and the only time public trust went up was when Ronald Reagan was in office – a Republican president who declared he didn’t trust government, either.
Every time a party wins big, he said, it’s because it has found a way to exploit that theme. The Republicans did it in 1994, the Democrats in 2006 and 2008. He said people appear to vote for the presidential candidate who most effectively articulates a message of smaller government and lower taxes.
Normally that’s a Republican argument – but voters had trouble believing the GOP in 1992 after the first Bush reneged on his no-new-tax pledge. They had just as much trouble believing Republican promises of fiscal responsibility in 2008, because of the party’s association with enormous deficits and the Wall Street disaster. Showing Democrats can take the argument and run with it, too.
And so the public keeps voting to throw the rascals out. The new ones get into office, and nothing ever seems to change.
“People have been voting and voting in one direction, and nothing ever quite seems to work,” he said. “I can’t express to you the depth of cynicism about members of Congress. They think congressmen sell their votes, and sell them pretty cheap.”
It’s gotten to the point where Americans aren’t sure what to do anymore, he said – and that’s one of the reasons for the growth of the Tea Party movement.
Bailout is Flashpoint
The reason so many Americans appear to be upset about the bailouts is that they run against their core beliefs, Rasmussen said. They think companies ought to be allowed to fail. Polls indicate that Americans believe in free markets but are dubious about capitalism – Rasmussen sees no contradiction. As capitalism is practiced in America, he said, the public thinks large corporations “keep profits when times are good and keep profits when times are bad.”
Cynicism deepened when Americans invested retirement savings in 401(k) plans and saw much of it wiped out in the Wall Street crash. They didn’t get the same deal.
“People have a frustration that if they play by the rules, it’s just not working, and the bailout just added fuel to the fire.”
Bedrock American Values
If there’s a solution, it has to begin with restoring faith in national institutions, Rasmussen said. “This is the challenge we face in this nation,” he said. “There’s not any trust. How can we fix these things?”
The public wants to feel that it has some input into the decision-making process, he said, even if it means national leaders have to give up some of their authority. The public wants to be asked. National leaders ought to consider running a national referendum on major policy changes, he said – health care reform might have been a good topic.
“If they don’t pass it, they should go back and do their homework,” he said.
And there’s at least one piece of promising information in his reading of the polls – Americans’ core beliefs are unchanged.
“The good news is that the American people believe all the things they have been brought up to believe in,” he said. “They believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They believe government derives just authority from the consent of the governed. They believe this is a nation created in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Senate Race a Tossup
With Republican Dino Rossi’s entry into Washington’s race for U.S. Senate Wednesday, Rasmussen couldn’t avoid a few horse-race questions. He said polling demonstrates Rossi’s name recognition from two previous gubernatorial campaigns makes him the strongest challenger for Patty Murray. He pointed out that oddsmakers in Ireland – where betting on races is permitted – immediately downgraded Murray’s chances from 90 percent to 65 percent when Rossi announced Wednesday morning.
Latest polling on the race gives Murray a slight advantage. Rasmussen’s latest poll, conducted before the announcement, shows Murray beating Rossi 48 to 46 percent in a head-to-head contest. Rossi does far better than Republicans Clint Didier or Don Benton in head-to-head polling.
Other polls also give Murray an advantage over Rossi – a recent Washington Poll, for example, showed Murray beating Rossi 44 to 40.
But Rasmussen cautions against reading too much into any poll before Labor Day. The race has just begun, and it’s unclear what’s going to happen on the national level.
The most important result, he said, is that no poll gives Murray an outstanding score, even against the least-known Republicans in the race.
“I actually haven’t seen all of them, but just about every poll I’ve seen gives Patty Murray somewhere between the high forties to about 50. That seems to be the most important number. At this point, the incumbent’s level of support is the most important measure.”
Many Democrats are in more trouble than she is, he said, but a score that low means she is vulnerable.Your support matters.
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