Even now, the Obama administration clearly doesn't get it.
89% of the voters said "efforts at health care reform" were an important factor in their vote (56% said extremely important, 33% said very important). Health care was a more important factor for Brown voters than for Coakley voters. (Next in order of importance came "the economy and jobs.") You can check for yourself the reasons those voters gave for why health care was an important factor to them. The biggest reason by far among Brown voters was the political process (deal making, closed doors, lack of transparency), followed by general opposition to the current bill.
And then there's this major disconnect from the spin. 65% of Brown voters (who, let's recall, were the ones who carried the election) said their vote was intended to express opposition to the Democratic agenda. And 75% said they were dissatisfied and/or angry with the Obama administration's policies. How do you spin that as a vote of confidence?
Fully 75% of Brown voters said Senator Brown should, in general, "work with the Democrats to try to get some Republican ideas into legislation" (as opposed to mainly work to stop the Democratic agenda). So Axelrod is right on the obstructionist thing as far as it goes (though he neglected to mention the part about getting Republican ideas into legislation). But only 48% of the Brown voters said the same when it came to working with Democrats on their current proposals for changes to health care. 50% said they'd like to see him stop those changes from happening. This is as close as it gets to the spin, and even so, other responses seem somewhat inconsistent.
For example, 65% of Brown voters said they and their families would be worse off if the President and Congress passed health care reform. 72% said the country as a whole would be worse off! And 64% said Massachusetts would be worse off. Now, again, these are just Brown voters. But it's the Brown voters who are sending their candidate to Washington. So I think they're the ones who count when determining why they're sending him there.
Mr. Alexrod? Mr. Gibbs? I do not think this poll says what you seem to think it says.
White House senior politcal adviser David Axelrod countered critics that believe Scott Brown's win in the Massachusetts special election for Senate Tuesday was a blow to Democrats' efforts to reform health care by saying that polls show the opposite sentiment.Was it? See also, Pres Sec Robert Gibbs on Fox News Sunday.
"I must tell you that, if you look at the polling in the Washington Post yesterday on the Massachusetts race, it's very clear, people don't want us to walk away from health care," Axelrod said. "They want us to address their concerns with the program, and they want Brown to come and work with us and not be obstructionist. That was very clear in the polling."
WALLACE: But, Robert, Scott Brown had a clear platform. Let's lay it out. Stop health care. Cut taxes. End backroom deals with special interest and don't give terrorists Miranda rights. It wasn't the same thing that swept Barack Obama into office. Scott Brown explicitly campaigned against the -- campaigned against the Obama agenda.At least they're keeping their spin straight. But let's look at that WaPo poll they keep talking about. The one that supposedly shows that the message on Tuesday was to keep pushing ahead with the Democrats' health care agenda at all costs. The poll was conducted, by phone, among a "random sample of 880 voters in the Massachusetts special election" (or so they told the pollsters) and "242 Massachusetts adults who did not participate in the election." The latter were excluded, obviously, from the questions on what influenced their vote.
GIBBS: That may be what he campaigned on but that's not why the voters of Massachusetts sent him to Washington. If you look at exit [sic] poll, done by the ""Washington Post"" --
89% of the voters said "efforts at health care reform" were an important factor in their vote (56% said extremely important, 33% said very important). Health care was a more important factor for Brown voters than for Coakley voters. (Next in order of importance came "the economy and jobs.") You can check for yourself the reasons those voters gave for why health care was an important factor to them. The biggest reason by far among Brown voters was the political process (deal making, closed doors, lack of transparency), followed by general opposition to the current bill.
And then there's this major disconnect from the spin. 65% of Brown voters (who, let's recall, were the ones who carried the election) said their vote was intended to express opposition to the Democratic agenda. And 75% said they were dissatisfied and/or angry with the Obama administration's policies. How do you spin that as a vote of confidence?
Fully 75% of Brown voters said Senator Brown should, in general, "work with the Democrats to try to get some Republican ideas into legislation" (as opposed to mainly work to stop the Democratic agenda). So Axelrod is right on the obstructionist thing as far as it goes (though he neglected to mention the part about getting Republican ideas into legislation). But only 48% of the Brown voters said the same when it came to working with Democrats on their current proposals for changes to health care. 50% said they'd like to see him stop those changes from happening. This is as close as it gets to the spin, and even so, other responses seem somewhat inconsistent.
For example, 65% of Brown voters said they and their families would be worse off if the President and Congress passed health care reform. 72% said the country as a whole would be worse off! And 64% said Massachusetts would be worse off. Now, again, these are just Brown voters. But it's the Brown voters who are sending their candidate to Washington. So I think they're the ones who count when determining why they're sending him there.
Mr. Alexrod? Mr. Gibbs? I do not think this poll says what you seem to think it says.
