The Chronicles of Partisanship: The Brand, The Product and The Label.

Hat Tip to Conor subbing at Megan McArdle

The American Conservative has an article up about partisanship and the difference in how it affects views on ideas when presented with or without partisan "cues", which generally are more likely to trigger a predictable answer.

The basis of the article is an NPR Poll of 800 likely voters. After some preliminary and predictable stats on things like: the country is extremely pessimistic, Bush's approval is below the level of Hades and Congress not being far behind and the top two issues (by far) being Iraq and gas prices, goes into some interesting points on voter attitudes on issues.

Says the American Conservative on issues of war:

This NPR poll (via Krieger) 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.

IOW, GOP voters are not as pro-war as one would think. I'll go a step further and venture to say that the activist base that dominates primaries are not on the same page as the average GOP voter who is less engaged. The "pro-war, hawkish image may even be cowing such voters to be supportive than really are inside.

Partisanship was a bigger factor in Republican responses. Democrats were only slightly more likely to choose their party’s position when given a “partisan cue”–agreement was 80% in the “partisan” and 76% in the “non-partisan” group. Independents were slightly less likely to agree with the Democratic position when it was associated with the Democrats by name...There does seem to be some small resistance to the Democratic position on Iraq simply because of that party’s ”brand” image among independents, and this resistance naturally grows much stronger among Republicans. It is actually Republicans who make up this 14-point difference who bother me the most, since it seems that these are the people who don’t really believe what the party leadership is offering but go along out of herd instinct. It is not entirely surprising that party loyalty (or antipathy) would shape how people respond to these questions, but the gap between Republicans who agreed with the substance of the position and those who seem to have felt compelled to agree with the party line is quite remarkable.

I found that bold print line interesting but not surprising. Dems still have an image problem with non-partisan independents. Will that change with Obama? We will see. Obama, elsewhere in the report, was shown to be stronger with independents than Clinton.

In short:

The Republicans have a policy problem. It’s the Democrats who seem to have a brand or image problem.

In fairness, it must be said however that question on Iraq, upon which this is based, is pretty simple to read into and perhaps not the most charitable way to present the GOP position. Unlike economic issues, intent and policy are tightly linked and usually pretty easy to read into without being tricked or confused by complexity and murky matters of cause and effect.

Consider (I'll leave out the partisan label):

?/Some people say there has been military and political
progress in Iraq, and that to withdraw now would cost more in lives
and create more instability in the Middle East. Just recently, Osama
bin Laden said, "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to
liberate Palestine." Iraq is the central battleground in the war against
radical Islamic extremism, and because there have been no terrorist
attacks in the United States for seven years, it is a war America is
winning. The war in Iraq will be over soon, and the insurgency
should be handled by Iraqis instead of Americans. But, we need to
rely on the judgment of our military commanders in Iraq, instead of
the politicians in Washington on when to withdraw American troops.

and

?/Other people say the war in Iraq has cost us trillions of
dollars while our economy has weakened, and has made America less
secure. We must strengthen America's security by starting to reduce
our troops in Iraq in a responsible way, force the Iraqi government to
use its oil money to pay for reconstruction and work with other
nations to bring stability. We need to restore our military, deal with
Afghanistan and begin to invest in our own country.

Of course, I don't think the GOP hawks could word that in any way that would make me supportive of their position...but that's just me. ;)
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