Most Americans are still highly pessimistic about the direction in which moral values in the United States are headed. Seventy-two percent say moral values in the country as a whole are getting worse, essentially unchanged from 73% last year, but improved from more than 80% in 2006 through 2008. Twenty percent now say values are getting better, and 6% say they are staying the same. [cont.]
Alyssa Brown, Gallup
… As Richard Hofstadter wrote in his seminal 1965 book, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” conspiracy theories, especially those involving meddlesome foreigners, are a favorite pastime in this nation. Americans have always had the sneaking suspicion that somebody was out to get us — be it Freemasons, Catholics or communists. But in recent years, it seems as if every tragedy comes with a round of yarn-spinning, as the Web fills with stories about “false flag” attacks and “crisis actors” — not mere theorizing but arguments for the existence of a completely alternate version of reality. …
While psychologists can’t know exactly what goes on inside our heads, they have, through surveys and laboratory studies, come up with a set of traits that correlate well with conspiracy belief. In 2010, [Viren] Swami and a co-author summarized this research in The Psychologist, a scientific journal. They found, perhaps surprisingly, that believers are more likely to be cynical about the world in general and politics in particular. Conspiracy theories also seem to be more compelling to those with low self-worth, especially with regard to their sense of agency in the world at large. Conspiracy theories appear to be a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness. [cont.]
Maggie Koerth-Baker, New York Times Magazine
The Internal Revenue Service scandal needs reframing pronto for Republicans to realize any political gains from it. The current framing is the same tired old “Republican suits versus Democrat suits in Congress” — the one that almost no one in the rest of America is interested in anymore. …
The push to reframe this scandal must begin by putting a face on the citizens whose rights to form organizations were trampled. Get the investigation back to Cincinnati and the heartland where we can see the abuses of federal power and the impacts on ordinary people’s lives. Enough with the suits in Congress. [cont.]
David Hill (Hill Research Consultants), The Hill
… GOP comparisons to Watergate reflect either poor historiography or political hackery — or both. Part of what made Watergate such a horrific scandal was the answer to Republican Senate Leader Howard Baker’s (R-Tenn.) famous questions, “What did the President know, and when did he know it?” It turned out quite a lot, quite early. …
In the cases now under discussion, there was no presidential involvement, period. The president was not involved in developing the Benghazi talking points. The president was not involved with the IRS’s audits and the president was not involved in the AP subpoena. That’s a vast and important difference. [cont.]
Mark Mellman (Mellman Group), The Hill
After a week of revelations about government spying on reporters and the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservatives, most voters feel “like the federal government has gotten out of control and is threatening the basic civil liberties of Americans.”
At the same time, a new Fox News poll finds disapproval of President Obama’s job performance is above 50 percent for the first time in a year, his honesty rating is at a new low and half of voters already think he’s a lame-duck. [cont.]
Dana Blanton, Fox News
Hillary Clinton continues to get heavily positive reviews for her work as secretary of state in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, even after renewed Republican allegations of an Obama administration related to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, last fall. [cont.]
Scott Clement, Washington Post
Recent polls: Hillary Clinton | Benghazi
… We recently conducted a survey in ten competitive congressional districts in California to gain better insight into Latino voting behavior and how Republicans might appeal to this growing sector of the electorate. The most important finding in this data – and in other data we have seen – is that the Republican Party need not abandon a conservative agenda to attract Latino voters. In fact, our results from the California survey provide a fairly clear picture of the GOP problem with those ethnic voters and it’s not based on political ideology. [cont.]
Moore Information
… One wonders how long Republicans are going to bark up this tree, perhaps the wrong tree, while they ignore their own party’s problems, which were shown to be profound in the most recent elections. Clearly none of these recent issues has had a real impact on voters yet. …
Republicans and conservatives who are so consumed by these “scandals” should ask themselves why, despite wall-to-wall media attention and the constant focus inside the Beltway—some are even talking about grounds for impeachment—Obama’s job-approval needle hasn’t moved. … At what point might the GOP conclude that it is just digging the hole a little deeper? [cont.]
Charlie Cook
Recent polls: Obama job ratings
Americans were more confident in the economy last week than in any week since Gallup began tracking economic confidence daily in 2008. The Gallup Economic Confidence Index rose to -5 last week from -11 the prior week. The current score exceeds the previous weekly high of -8 reached two weeks ago and in early February. [cont.]
Alyssa Brown, Gallup
These days, more and more Americans are inclined to judge issues from a partisan viewpoint. In March, according to a Pew Research Center survey, twice as many Republicans (53 percent) as Democrats (27 percent) said the economy was poor. Yet, from everything we know, Republicans are not suffering more economic deprivation than Democrats.
Elections today are less and less about persuasion and more and more about mobilization: You rally your supporters in order to beat back your opponents. [cont.]
Bill Schneider (George Mason U.), Reuters