Wednesday, May 06, 2009
RubeWatch: How many affluent Obama voters have buyer's remorse?
Via Glenn Reynolds, Politico observes that "Obama bites the rich hands that fed him." According to polls, the president's approval is declining among the real rubes affluent:
“A person making $250,000 isn’t wealthy,” said Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “They still have to work for a living.”
These people may be fickle.
When asked in January if they approved of the way Obama was handling his transition, 74 percent of the respondents earning more than $100,000 approved, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
When asked in March — shortly after Obama’s budget plan was released — if they approved of the job he was doing as president, only 48 percent of them said yes, according to the NBC/WSJ poll.
It was the only income bracket that didn’t give Obama a solid approval rating, a weakness that takes on added significance as the percentage of upper-income voters grows and shows tentative signs of becoming less Republican.
“Are they important? They are members of the chattering class. They were important donors. And they were probably the single-biggest growth area that he brought to the Democratic Party,” said Penn.
Two related thoughts leap into my lunch-addled brain. The first is that the left has long argued that the "rich" have undue influence in American politics. If the experience of the rich in the last year is any indication, that theory may be less correct than popularly supposed. The second is that we will have an opportunity to test the influence of the "rich" as a class over the next couple of election cycles. Either there will be a strong reaction against the Democrats or there will not be. If there is not, then either the "rich" cannot be said to influence politics to any particularly great degree, or their influence is diffused by varied and conflicting preferences within their economic class. That would certainly be ironic, for it would mean that Barack Obama and his allies in the Congress would have arguably refuted a cherished nostrum of the left and a core justification for taking from the rich in the first place.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed May 06, 01:34:00 PM:
... imagine how those polls will look as those 'rich' lose their jobs? or, what the answer would be if they asked about whether the working man was seeing any of that 'hope and change'?
So far all we see is a big bill, with a declining rank of payers. Just wait until the note starts coming due, the tax rates go up, and the threshhold of who is on the take/give changes. I'm thinking those middle-class who cared less because some 'rich' guy was paying will let out a scream when they realize they're rich under the One's brave new world. You know... part of the 'you people' Michelle said needed to learned to live on less of their own money.
By 
JPMcT, at
Wed May 06, 06:38:00 PM:
The framers had it right...only property owners should be able to vote.
If you don't play the game, you shouldn't make the rules.
I would feel MUCH better about paying higher taxes if those who voted were the same one's who feel the pain.
By The Conservative Wahoo, at
Wed May 06, 08:42:00 PM:
Tigerhawk--my intro to this blog (to which I now link on mine, proudly) came as a result of your video on exactly who "the rich" are in today's society. It was riveting and spot on. There are a significant number of taxpayers in this country who have never seen an income tax hike--now they'll have that opportunity. I hope the statistic you shared is the leading edge of a coming trend.
By , at
Thu May 07, 04:00:00 AM:
a weakness that takes on added significance as the percentage of upper-income voters grows and shows tentative signs of becoming less Republican. Since when have upper-income voters been even majority Republican? From what I've seen, money makes you more liberal, not less, and the ultrawealthy are often outright socialists (like Buffet).
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu May 07, 07:48:00 AM:
"Since when have upper-income voters been even majority Republican?"
About 80 years ago, I think?
By , at
Thu May 07, 01:48:00 PM:
About 80 years ago, I think?Then your experience is way different than mine. Working and middle class people vote Republican, poor and upper-class people vote Democrat. Even public-company CEOs, whom liberals frequently accuse of being Republican, are most often Democrats. Why? As frequent targets of vicious calumnies tossed at them by liberals, it's simply easier on the spirit for the upper-income person to become or to be liberal. It's easier to sacrifice profits that rightfully should go to your shareholders than it is to say no and keep saying no to whatever thing they're trying to extort from you. Resistance is exhausting, and liberals seem to have endless energy for attacking.
By JPMcT, at
Sat May 09, 12:00:00 PM:
randian is correct. It's particularly interesting when one looks at the Wall Street mess. The media paints these guys as being right wing pigs...when in fact most of them eagerly voted Democratic and are more than a little put off by the hound they have unleashed.
