GOP groupthink

[Conor Friedersdorf]

Daniel Larison on an NPR poll that doesn't reflect very well on Republicans:

It has an interesting feature that measures agreement with a series of statements with and without partisan labels. On the whole, the overall difference in support or opposition for a given position between the “partisan” and “non-partisan” respondents is not that great (the GOP’s position loses approximately 60-40 regardless of labeling), but there was one figure that caught my attention in the breakdown of the Iraq responses. When told that it was the Republican position, Republican respondents were significantly more likely to support that position than otherwise. Agreement was 69-28 in the “partisan” group and 55-38 in the “non-partisan,” so when not conditioned to respond tribally according to party loyalty Republicans were much less likely to support the party’s standard Iraq position. Put simply: when voters are considering the policy substance offered by the competing parties, the Republican position scarcely wins a majority of its own partisans and loses badly with everyone else. It will hardly be news to anyone that supporting the war in Iraq is a losing issue for the GOP, but past polling has given the misleading impression that the party is overwhelmingly supportive in such a way that makes Republican dissent difficult. Perhaps these results point towards a more evenly-divided GOP that would tolerate more open opposition to the war.

These results certainly point to Republican voters who ought to be more independent-minded, whatever conclusions they reach.

Comments

This is a pretty moronic post. Knowing that a position is the party's preferred position can be an important piece of information affecting one's judgement on the desirability of the position. On many issues, a voter may be rationally ignorant and would be smart to take into account the views of people who are better informed and who they trust.

On Iraq specifically, I don't have the same type of information as those who get briefed on classified matters and who listen directly to Petraeus et al. If the people I trust on foreign policy take a position on a foreign policy issue, that certainly affects my view of the issue. But I guess people like Larison don't let the views of more informed people affect their own views. I didn't think my opinion of Larison could get any lower, but it did. And I don't know this Conor Friedersdorf at all, but am really looking forward to Megan's return.

Posted by Al | May 30, 2008 8:33 AM

Al makes a good point - giving the benefit of the doubt to the opinion of someone you trust that is better-informed overall is not necessarily illogical.

In addition, knowing which side supported a vague policy statement might give one a better understanding of the actual proposal. I didn't see the precise wording of the questions (and one can never get a good understanding of the answers without first seeing the actual questions), but in nearly all surveys I've participated in, the questions or proposals were vague and hard to interpret. Knowing which side supported a certain policy might change one's interpretation of that vague, general statement.

In other words, it's not surprising that a different information set might lead to a different response.

Last, "an NPR poll that doesn't reflect very well on Republicans" surely describes pretty much every poll they've done in the last few years. I used to trust NPR, but it's gotten so biased! Facts that don't support its agenda simply get left out completely. And for months now, all of their coverage that I've heard seems to be about the economic depression/calamity/disaster we're in. Listening to NPR, one would have to conclude that out of every 3 people in the US, one just lost their job, one just lost their house, and the third person hasn't ever been lucky enough to have a job or a house.

Posted by Ann | May 30, 2008 9:57 AM

I'm not convinced the poll tests the parameters claimed. Take a look here:

http://joshkahn.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/npr-national-may-08.pdf

If Dem postions are 50% more likely to be favored, the probability of a Dem changing position is pretty much zero (as the "study" found). And it's no surprise that Dem postions are favored by the public - even as a pretty right wing libertarian type, I'd certainly prefer "some people would to send our troops to the North Pole and force Santa to give you free gas and health insurance" to "we need to let the market set prices and work things out", and would probably say so if polled. If proposals were identified by party, I'd regard it as more of a real-world poll, and respond accordingly.

Posted by J | May 30, 2008 10:28 AM

this poll shows nothing but the ability of a partisan pollster to influence the results by a manipulation of the questions asked. full stop

Posted by ike | May 30, 2008 11:17 AM

What's equally stunning is that Democrats, told that a position is a Democratic position, run the other way.

Who's got the branding problem? (And who's got the policies that even Republicans favor?)

I crunched the numbers down a bit into a table:

http://trueconservative.typepad.com/trueconservative/2008/05/pubs-and-dems-brands-and-beliefs.html

Posted by Steve Roth | May 30, 2008 5:09 PM