Every so often PBS' The Newshour is tremendous

Posted March 27th, 2008 by Prometheus 6

Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press was on, giving the results of their polling on the economy and Sen. Obama's recent "ordeal". I got it on video but the transcript and audio links are up now.

On the economy: people are worried about the exact items that were removed from the inflation figures to create the "core inflation rate"...a statistic specifically created to allow policy makers to ignore the inflation that is most painful to the working class.

ANDREW KOHUT: It's pretty lopsided, as that chart shows. It's prices. It's inflation, 49 percent rising prices, and 20 percent jobs. Relatively few are talking about the financial markets.

Unless you talk to people who earn more than $100,000 a year, you don't get a registration very much on anything other than rising prices, fuel, food, that sort of thing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So it's inflation that remains what people -- the things that they buy.

ANDREW KOHUT: It's inflation. Sure, absolutely.

But that's not what you're interested in, is it?

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, let's talk more broadly. You asked people on the campaign, you asked people to look at the so-called match-up between the two Democratic candidates for president and John McCain.

ANDREW KOHUT: Yes, and the Democrats have been campaigning hard against each other, but yet we get the same relative lead for both Barack Obama in that chart, 49 percent to 43 percent. That's about what we had back in February. And there's no diminution of support for Barack Obama.

And if we look at the next chart, which is Hillary Clinton, 49 percent to 44 percent, small lead, surprisingly small given all the advantages that the Republicans have, but no smaller...

JUDY WOODRUFF: That the Democrats have?

ANDREW KOHUT: That the Democrats have, but no smaller than what we saw a month ago. So the Democrats -- the two leading candidates aren't hurting the Democratic chances by their campaigning, is the import of that trend.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, what about when you asked people to choose between the two Democrats?

ANDREW KOHUT: There we get again no change from what we had a month ago. We get a 10-point lead for Barack Obama. And the overall conclusion of this poll is that Barack Obama has weathered the Wright storm, the Wright controversy.

THERE you go.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Over the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his former minister?

ANDREW KOHUT: And there was a great outpouring of negative reaction, an extraordinary amount of attention to this. Fifty-one percent said they had heard a lot about Wright's sermons; 54 percent said they had heard a lot about Obama's speech; and you get 80 percent saying they'd heard something about these things.

And this is the number one campaign event that we've seen in the news interest tracking that we've been doing over the past year.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Number one?

ANDREW KOHUT: Number one. No story, the red telephone, none of that stuff has resonated like the Reverend Wright sermons and Obama's response.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Still, as you said, half the people said they haven't heard that much about it, but over 50 percent have heard a great deal.

ANDREW KOHUT: A big number in a political poll.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You also asked, Andy, about Senator Obama and how he was handling this controversy.

ANDREW KOHUT: Yes, I think what this survey shows is that, as a consequence of the way he's handled it, his speech, he assured his own supporters: 84 percent of them said in that chart he did an excellent or good job.

But significant numbers of his opponents' supporters, 43 percent of the Clinton people said he did an excellent or good job and 33 percent of the Republicans. Judy, when was the last time we heard 33 percent of Republicans saying something good about a Democratic candidate?

He answered a lot of the questions that arose as a consequence of the Wright controversy, and we don't see any significant movement in the numbers as a consequence.