Ever read authoritative reporting on which you agree with nothing -- from the expert quotes to the writer's assumptions? The Adam Nagourney piece in today's NYT comes close.  A cold look at the partisan wrestling over health-care legislation, you have lines like:

And how much are Democrats going to be willing to give up for what could be just a handful of Republican votes, and just the veneer of bipartisanship?

So what really matters here is whether the bipartisan backing looks real or not, rather than what Democrats would be giving up

As the Senate Finance Committee seeks Republican support, we are told, the tradeoff  "is particularly stark." Democrats might have to abandon the "public option" -- a government-run plan that would compete with the private insurers' offerings.  The public plan is designed to contain spending, the driving reason for health reform.

For Republican votes, be it a handful or bucketful, are Democrats willing to let reform fail its key mission? This could be the most significant piece of legislation in a generation. The gears have to mesh. It has to be good policy. (Wyoming's Mike Enzi, a Republican on the Finance Committee, has tussled with me over the bipartisan argument before.)

Nagourney goes on to explain, unconvincingly, why wide bipartisan support is as important as what that support is for -- with some help from Yale:

No less important, a partisan vote could also undercut the political legitimacy of the effort itself. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were all passed with significant support from both parties, which is one of the reasons those programs have become such an accepted part of the country's political landscape.

“Bipartisanship is a good thing in major welfare-state enterprises if they are to stick,” said David Mayhew, a professor of political science at Yale. “Otherwise, they may suffer legitimacy problems and come apart.”

You mean to say that Americans have the foggiest idea who voted for Social Security in 1935? And had it passed without significant Republican support, they'd be now questioning its legitimacy? They'd be saying: "Take away my Social Security. End this partisan nightmare."

Social Security has enormous public support because it works and provides a social safety-net Americans want.  That should be the endgame in health-care reform. Right?

The one redeeming quote comes from Obama adviser David Axelrod:

Ultimately, we are going to be measured by what we do, and not by the process. Process can't be more important than the outcome of the legislation.

Imagine that.

I've caught a fair bit of flak on my earlier post on Rasmussen's poll showing Obama upside down on his approval ratings (same result today, by the way).  I thought it was worth fleshing out my thoughts a little bit more.

The goal of my post wasn't to criticize Rasmussen's methodology or polls.  I think experience demonstrates that they are quite good and usually end up on the nose.  That said I think it was important to at least acknowledge that Rasmussen is the only pollster showing Obama upside down in the polls.

This discrepancy is what the remainder of the post is dedicated to exploring:  Why Rasmussen finds Obama upside down where others don't.  He is an outlier, but there are a couple of very good reasons that he's an outlier.  The first is that he samples likely voters, when everyone else is polling registered voters or adults.  This typically results in findings a few points better for Republicans.

There is a lively debate among pollsters about what the best "screening question" for likely voters is, and when the best time to implement that screen is.  Some think you should just ask if voters have voted in the last election, others believe that you should also ask if you plan to vote in the next election.  Obviously, attitudes toward voting in the next election are unreliable at this point, so if that is how you screen, you probably don't want to put your likely voter screen into place yet.  And regardless, there's a question of whether, this far out from an election there's any reason to divide our citizenry into likely and unlikely voters, since you're not trying to say how an election is looking as of this minute.  As a personal matter, I tend to believe it is early to screen likely voters (I go back and forth on this), but I don't think screening likely voters at this point is a bad thing, either.

The bottom line is, Rasmussen doesn't really have a skew here.  He's just testing something different than other pollsters are testing, and reasonable minds can disagree over whether its too early to test for what he's polling just yet.

The other difference for Rasmussen is his questioning.  Again, he allows for more nuanced answers, which can change the likelihood of declaring one's self "undecided," and might even change whether you give an approve or disapprove answer.  Again, we can debate the relative merits of this questioning, but you have to know its there, and that its probably one of the reasons that Rasmussen has fewer undecideds than others.

Ultimately, this exonerates Rasmussen, rather than attacks him.  If Rasmussen were polling registered voters or adults and asked more standardized questions, we'd have to wonder if his methodology was hinky.   But he isn't, and his methodology isn't.  That was the real point of my post.

Here's a transcript of Obama's surprise appearance at today's press briefing:

THE PRESIDENT: Hey, it's a cameo appearance. Sit down, sit down. I need to help Gibbs out a little bit here.

Q Are you the new press secretary?

THE PRESIDENT: If you got to do a job, do it yourself. (Laughter.) I wanted to address you guys directly because over the last day and a half obviously there's been all sorts of controversy around the incident that happened in Cambridge with Professor Gates and the police department there.

I actually just had a conversation with Sergeant Jim Crowley, the officer involved. And I have to tell you that as I said yesterday, my impression of him was that he was a outstanding police officer and a good man, and that was confirmed in the phone conversation -- and I told him that.

And because this has been ratcheting up -- and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up -- I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically -- and I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley.

I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved.

The fact that it has garnered so much attention I think is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America. So to the extent that my choice of words didn't illuminate, but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate.

What I'd like to do then I make sure that everybody steps back for a moment, recognizes that these are two decent people, not extrapolate too much from the facts -- but as I said at the press conference, be mindful of the fact that because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African Americans are sensitive to these issues. And even when you've got a police officer who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity, interactions between police officers and the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding.

My hope is, is that as a consequence of this event this ends up being what's called a "teachable moment," where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities, and that instead of flinging accusations we can all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do to contribute to more unity. Lord knows we need it right now -- because over the last two days as we've discussed this issue, I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care. (Laughter.)

I will not use this time to spend more words on health care, although I can't guarantee that that will be true next week. I just wanted to emphasize that -- one last point I guess I would make. There are some who say that as President I shouldn't have stepped into this at all because it's a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with. The fact that this has become such a big issue I think is indicative of the fact that race is still a troubling aspect of our society. Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive -- as opposed to negative -- understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio.

So at the end of the conversation there was a discussion about -- my conversation with Sergeant Crowley, there was discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House. We don't know if that's scheduled yet -- (laughter) -- but we may put that together.

He also did say he wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn. (Laughter.) I informed him that I can't get the press off my lawn. (Laughter.) He pointed out that my lawn is bigger than his lawn. (Laughter.) But if anybody has any connections to the Boston press, as well as national press, Sergeant Crowley would be happy for you to stop trampling his grass. All right.

Thank you, guys.

Rasmussen officially becomes the first poll to show the President with an upside-down approval rating.  The pollster has him at 49% approve, 51% disapprove today. Rasmussen's polls are typically spot-on in the end, but he's been a consistent outlier on the approval rating issue.

Part of this is that Rasmussen samples likely voters, while most pollsters are sampling adults or registered voters right now.  Likely voters typically skew Republican by a few points.  On the one hand, it is difficult to screen for likely voters this early on, but on the other hand, this could be something of a preview of whether things will go when other pollsters begin imposing likely voter screens.

The other thing is that Rasmussen gives for options:  Strongly approve, strongly disapprove, somewhat approve, and somewhat disapprove.  It may well be the case that, given a simple "approve/disapprove" rubric, many people who somewhat disapprove of the job Obama is doing are unwilling to give a complete "disapprove" answer.  By adding the "somewhat" nuance, Rasmussen may be nudging voters into the "disapprove" camp.

One final thought: Rasmussen typically has fewer undecideds than other pollsters.  It may be that people who somewhat approve or somewhat disapprove of the President are more likely to describe themselves as "undecided."  Pushed away from the "undecided" option, these voters may then choose the "somewhat disapprove" or "somewhat approve" option; it may be that, for now, the undecideds are leaning away from Obama.  This would make sense, given the general sense of approval that has surrounded Obama's first six months, there may be a large chunk of the populace that simply isn't willing to voice disapproval of him right now.

At any rate, an unwelcome milestone for the President.

See update here.

I'm not sure I've seen this argument in quite this form before, and if so it is likely because I'm completely off base here.  But here's a random thought on healthcare I've been toying with.

It seems the problem with the health insurance system is that we don't really have a health insurance system anymore.  Insurance, at least as traditionally understood, is a product you buy hoping you're not going to use it.  And indeed, you're not likely to use it.  In fact, you're probably better off if you don't ever use it.  As such, you are probably going to lose money in the long run.  But you spend the money anyway, because of the absolute calamity that would ensue if you drew the short straw without being covered.

Consider car insurance.  I just did some rough calculations, and I've spent about $25,000 on car insurance premiums during my driving career.  I've never caused an accident, so I've never really gotten anything out of this.  I've been hit a couple times, and my insurance kindly paid for my repairs before collecting from the other drivers' insurance.  But the total damage to my car was less than $25,000, so I'd still have been better off not buying car insurance and taking the losses when I got hit.  If I was Bill Gates, I would arguably be better off not buying any type of insurance, since I could afford any loss in the unlikely event I suffered a huge loss.

But for an economic mortal like myself, the fact is that if one day I was driving my car and got distracted by my son in the backseat and ran a redlight and hit someone, well, I could be absolutely financially wiped out without insurance.  Car insurance protects against the increasing marginal cost that comes with above-normal liability.  It spreads the risk through society of catastrophic car accidents, and even though the insurance companies' actuaries make certain that society as a whole places a losing bet financially, it prevents unlucky individuals from being wiped out, which imposes other costs on society.  It's kind of win-win.  But again, the idea is that most people will never, ever have to use their insurance.

I guess health insurance probably used to be like that.  For most things there wasn't much the doctor could do.  When Ike had a heart attack, he got prescribed morphine and bedrest.  This was the President of the United States, so I'm assuming that's the finest care we had to offer.  Insurance protected against the few catastrophic costs that were associated with health care at the time, and again, for the most part you didn't use your insurance much unless something really bad happened.

But today, almost everyone will use health insurance at some time in their life; if you're out of your twenties and have a family you probably use it several times a year.  I've had a couple of major surgeries and have a major medical procedure yearly, and I'm in my 30s.  My 2-year-old son has had two surgeries.  All of these are very expensive, including the aftercare.

In other words, we've reached the point where we don't have a system of health insurance anymore.  Having health insurance is kind of like having property tax insurance -- you're know you're going to get a big bill every year, so the idea of purchasing insurance for it is kind of silly when you come down to it.  Bill Gates stands a reasonable chance of coming out ahead by purchasing health insurance, which is part of why premiums are so high.  So I think the issue isn't so much an issue of "health insurance for all," so much as moving to a more rational health care financing scheme.  But all the talk of health insurance reform increasingly strikes me a pounding a square peg through a round hole.

I'm not certain if this is right, and I'm not 100% sure what the policy implications are -- I can think of plenty for the left and the right that would please their respective sides.  But I think this is an interesting frame of the problem, so I thought I'd throw it out there.  Thoughts?

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has released a statement saying that while he had a "strong desire" to vote in favor of Sotomayor's confirmation, he "reluctantly, and with a heavy heart," has decided to vote "no" on her nomination.

Read Hatch's full release below the jump.

(more...)

Three observations about Obama's willingness to wade into the controversy over Professor Gates' arrest.

First, four months ago in a similar setting, Obama swatted away a question from CNN's Ed Henry about why it took him so long to express outrage over the AIG bonus by saying "It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak." [Watch the clip]

On Wednesday night, however, Obama seemed to contradict that remark, eagerly wading into the Gates fray by saying, "I should say at the outset that Skip Gates is a friend, so I maybe a little biased here. I don't know all the facts, but what's been reported is..." [Watch the clip]

Not only was Obama willing to comment on the situation without knowing the facts, but he admitted that what little he did know was probably skewed in Gates' favor because of their friendship.

Second, when asked yesterday by Terry Moran of ABC News whether he regretted saying the Cambridge police had acted "stupidly", Obama soft pedaled a bit before ultimately defending the remark with this:

"But I was asked, did it make sense for it to escalate to the levels that it did? And I said, probably not, and that it would have been more sensible for everybody to just - once it was established that Mr. Gates was in his own home - that we should just settle this thing down."[Watch the clip]

But that isn't at all what the President was asked. Lynn Sweet's question was:

"Thank you, Mr. President. Recently Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in America?" [Watch the clip]

Lastly, when Moran pressed Obama a second time as to whether he thought the Cambridge police had acted stupidly, the President more or less declared the story a trumped up distraction, saying:

"You know, Terry, I think this is a classic example at a time when we're struggling about health care, energy, we've got two wars going on, that issues like this get elevated in ways that probably don't make much sense."

Except the President is the one most responsible for "elevating" the issue by commenting on it in the manner in which he did.

It's ironic that the candidate who once promised to lead a national conversation on race is now "surprised" to find himself in the middle of a controversy on the subject because he decided to weigh in and choose sides without having all the facts.

The latest Rasmussen Reports poll shows Senator Barbara Boxer leading her relatively unknown opponent, former Hewlett-Packer Hewlett-Packard (you'd think I'd have looked at my printer 20 inches away . . .) CEO Carly Fiorina, by only four points, 45%-41%.  Boxer has never been terribly popular in the Golden State, but given the conditions Democrats have enjoyed the past few years, it is surprising to see her in Elizabeth Dole 2007 territory (though in a much more Democratic state).

Poll after poll shows incumbents once thought to be safe in pretty dangerous territory.  These are the dangers of being in charge in the present economy, I guess.

Even as his job approval rating slips in poll after poll, President Obama remains a popular figure among voters. A Gallup survey out this afternoon puts the president's favorability rating at 66 percent, down just a point from May and 12 points from his pre-inauguration high. That's similar to the 65 percent favorable rating for George W. Bush in April 2001, Gallup's closest relevant comparison.

Looking at the VP, a different result. Joe Biden's favorability number has dipped below 50 percent -- coming in at 48 percent in July, down from 53 percent before the inauguration, and his high-water mark of 59 percent just after November's election. Compare the former Delaware senator's score to the past two number twos.

VP Favorability (Date
Biden: 48 / 36 (July '09)
Cheney: 63 / 22 (April '01)
Gore: 55 / 30 (July '93)

Could it be that Biden being so closely associated with the stimulus package is hurting his numbers? He has a more public profile than Cheney did, as well, and his frequent gaffes may also be at play. Either way, the gap between Obama and Biden's favorability (Obama +18) is enormous, especially when compared to the differences between Bush and Cheney (Bush +1) and Clinton and Gore (Gore +4).

But nobody messes with Joe, right?

The Democratic National Committee will begin airing a TV ad tomorrow promoting the need for health care reform and slamming Republicans for attempting to block progress.

"What's the cost of not reforming health care? Premiums rising faster than your paycheck," the announcer says. "But some leading Republicans, playing politics, have vowed to kill reform. Tell Republicans the cost of doing nothing on health care is just too high."

The ad comes as Democrats appear unlikely to get bills passed in either chamber of Congress before leaving town for a month. Speaker Pelosi indicated today that she's "not afraid of" waiting until after the August recess to complete a bill, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that's exactly what the Senate will do.

The 30-second ad will air on national and D.C. cable stations for the next two-and-a-half weeks.