|
Updated: 08:45 AM EST
Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER, The New York Times
After enduring a brutally fought election campaign, Americans are optimistic about the next four years under President Bush, but have reservations about central elements of the second-term agenda he presented in defeating Senator John Kerry, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
At a time when the White House has portrayed Mr. Bush's 3.5-million-vote victory as a mandate, the poll found that Americans are at best ambivalent about Mr. Bush's plans to reshape Social Security, rewrite the tax code, cut taxes and appoint conservative judges to the bench. There is continuing disapproval of Mr. Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, with a plurality now saying it was a mistake to invade in the first place.
While Democrats, not surprisingly, were the staunchest opponents of many elements of Mr. Bush's second-term agenda, the concerns extended across party lines in some cases. Nearly two-thirds of all respondents - including 51 percent of Republicans - said it was more important to reduce deficits than to cut taxes, a central element of Mr. Bush's economic agenda.
The poll also found pervasive concern about what Americans view as the corrosive effect Hollywood and popular culture have on the nation's values and moral standards. Seventy percent said they were very or somewhat concerned that television, movies and popular music were lowering moral standards in this country.
While this sentiment was voiced by supporters of Mr. Bush and of Mr. Kerry, it appears that the concern about a decline in values is becoming another point of polarization in American politics. Mr. Bush's supporters were more likely to cite it than were Mr. Kerry's voters, and it was an issue that had particular resonance in the South and among weekly churchgoers, rural voters and women.
The poll found that 55 percent of Mr. Kerry's supporters said that Mr. Bush's supporters did not share their views and morals; 54 percent of Mr. Bush's voters said the same thing of those who voted for Mr. Kerry.
In addition, 70 percent of Mr. Kerry's supporters said they were more worried about candidates who "are too close to religion and religious leaders" than about political leaders who "don't pay enough attention" to religion, after a campaign in which Mr. Bush repeatedly spoke of God and his faith. By contrast, 52 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters said they were more worried about public officials who "don't pay enough attention to religion and religious leaders."
Still, in a telling contrast with the 2000 election, 82 percent of respondents said that Mr. Bush legitimately won on Nov. 2. Just before Election Day, 50 percent of respondents said they considered Mr. Bush's defeat of Al Gore in 2000 a legitimate victory.
And even after this tense and vituperative campaign, 56 percent said they were generally optimistic about the next four years under Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush's job approval rating has now inched up to 51 percent, the highest it has been since March.
The Times/CBS News poll was taken from Thursday through Sunday, after a three-week period in which some pollsters questioned some findings of the survey of voters leaving polling places on Election Day. The nationwide telephone poll of 855 adults has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
The poll reflected the electoral feat of the Bush campaign this year. He won despite the fact that Americans disapproved of his handling of the economy, foreign affairs and the war in Iraq. There has been a slight increase in the number of Americans who believe the nation should never have gone into Iraq. A majority of Americans continue to believe the country is going in the wrong direction, traditionally a warning sign for an incumbent.
Across the board, the poll suggested that the outcome of the election reflected a determination by Americans that they trusted Mr. Bush more to protect them against future terrorist attacks - and that they liked him more than Mr. Kerry - rather than any kind of broad affirmation of his policies. As such, the result was reminiscent of the state of play Ronald Reagan found in 1980, when he defeated President Jimmy Carter.
Even as two-thirds of respondents said they expected Mr. Bush to appoint judges who would vote to outlaw abortion, a majority continue to say they want the practice to remain either legal as it is now, which was Mr. Kerry's position, or to be legal but under stricter limits.
Americans said they opposed changing the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, which Mr. Bush campaigned on in the final weeks of his campaign. A majority continue to support allowing either same-sex marriages or legally recognized domestic partnerships for gay people.
The public appears ambivalent about the two proposals that Mr. Bush has identified as his major domestic initiatives for a second term: rewriting the Social Security system and reshaping the tax code, including more tax cuts.
On the tax code, administration officials are discussing plans that would, among other things, lower the tax rate on higher-income Americans and eliminate some deductions. In the poll, more than 6 in 10 of the respondents said people with higher incomes should pay a greater proportion of their income in taxes; 3 in 10 said all income groups should pay the same proportion.
About one-third of the respondents said the tax cuts passed in Mr. Bush's first term had been good for the economy; but nearly a fifth said they had done more harm, and just under half said the tax cuts had made little difference.
"I don't mind cutting taxes to some extent, but I think we've cut them quite a bit," Ron Clark, 63, a Republican from Livingston, Mont., said in a follow-up interview. "I'm not really against making the current reductions permanent, but I don't think we need to go beyond where we've gone, because I do worry about the deficit. It's gone up a heck of a lot in the last couple of years."
On Social Security, 45 percent said a proposal to permit people to invest their Social Security withholding money in private accounts was a bad idea; 49 percent said it was a good idea. The poll also found little confidence among Americans that Mr. Bush would assure the future solvency of the program: 51 percent said that Mr. Bush was unlikely to "make sure Social Security benefits are there for people like me."
Among the disputed results of the Election Day survey of voters was the finding that moral issues were critical in determining the outcome.
That survey found that 22 percent of respondents called it the most critical issue in making their decision. Some pollsters criticized the way the question was asked because it was presented as a general category, without any kind of explanation, along with a list of six other specific issues, including Iraq and health care.
In this poll, when allowed freely to name the issue that was most important in their vote, 6 percent chose moral values, although smaller numbers named issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. On a separate question in which voters were given a choice of nine issues, 5 percent chose abortion, 4 percent chose stem cell research and 2 percent chose same-sex marriage.
The top issue was the economy and jobs, which was cited by 29 percent of respondents.
That said, there is a little question that Americans have grown increasingly unhappy with the influence of popular culture on daily life, and that was a significant dynamic in this election. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said that Hollywood was lowering the standard of popular culture. And 70 percent said that all popular culture - music, movies and television - was lowering moral standards in America.
The poll also found, though, that Americans were evenly divided on whether television, movies and books were including too many gay themes and characters.
The poll and follow-up interviews found that Bush supporters and Kerry supporters were in different camps on these issues, eyeing each other with suspicion.
"I think they're driven by hatred and homophobia and vitriol," said Paul Cuthbertson, 53, a Democrat from Atlanta. "The Republicans in recent years have turned 'liberal' into a dirty word, which it isn't. I'm a liberal and proud to be so. This so-called Christian ideal of being against gay marriage is neither American nor Christian. I think it's un-American to discriminate against fellow citizens, and God does not call upon Christians to be vigilantes to punish people that they perceive him not to like.''
Pat Gilbert, a Republican from Battle Creek, Mich., said, "The two sides will be as far apart as can be forever.''
"I'm sure there are different pockets of voters who voted for Kerry, but I think they believe more in society in general - if you're not hurting anybody it's all right to do it," Ms. Gilbert said, adding: "I don't think they have a firm belief system that they base decisions off of. It's whatever today's climate is. In the long term, you'll have a society of chaos."
By 48 percent to 40 percent, respondents said they believed four more years of a Bush presidency would divide the nation more than it would unite it.
For all the attention paid to the effort Mr. Bush made to increase his support from religious supporters, 31 percent of respondents said they thought that evangelical Christians had too much influence over the administration. By contrast, 66 percent said they thought big business had too much influence over the administration.
Finally, in one bit of presumably good news for a party that is looking for it, Americans now have a better opinion of the Democratic Party than of the Republican Party: 54 percent said they had a favorable view of Democrats, compared with 39 percent with an unfavorable view. By contrast, 49 percent have a favorable view of Republicans, compared with 46 percent holding an unfavorable one.
Fred Backus contributed reporting for this article.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
