Spreading the Wealth, Wooing the Base
Reader B.L. got Gallup to give him the partisan breakdown behind their recent polling that shows most voters want to spread the wealth around. This chart compares the number of people saying they “feel that the money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed”:
Granting that you can’t demonstrate causation based on correlation, but what seems to have happened here is that McCain started articulating an unpopular, anti-egalitarian message. But his endless repetition of the message “taught” a significant number of self-identifying Republicans than their previous egalitarian views were “wrong” and brought them around to the orthodox conservative position. A small number of independents seem to have gone along for the ride as well, which isn’t surprising since we know many independents are covert partisans and there’s also the possibility of statical noise. And Democrats didn’t move at all. But in essence, McCain’s message seems to be persuading his base to change their minds about an issue, rather than persuading undecided voters to turn against Obama. The underlying oddity is that both before and after McCain seized on the idea that spreading the wealth around is bad, the public appears to be broadly supportive of the idea of spreading the wealth more equally.
25 Responses to “Spreading the Wealth, Wooing the Base”
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October 31st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Do you really mean December 2007 and April 2008? That wouldn’t show anything about McCain’s recent shift in message or indeed anything about his campaign period.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Still, it seems to me that there is difference between the Gallup question (in the abstract, should wealth be spread more evenly) to the government should spread wealth around, to a government controlled by the party I don’t like should spread wealth around. The Gallup question is completely lacking in any suggestion of what or even if the government would be acting.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:34 pm
somewhat in line with johnde, i think you are confusing an ought-to-be with an ought-to-do.
i can believe that it ought to be the case that things are different in some way, without believing that anyone ought to do something about it.
(that is, i do not have to believe either that
there are some people such that they ought to make that change
or
there is some change such that it ought to be that some people make it).
i may feel that the present state of affairs could be improved, but also feel that any conscious attempt to improve it will lead to the unintended consequence of it being made worse.
so i think the poll asked about an ought-to-be: ought it to be the case that wealth is more evenly distributed?
but you are inferring from that they would agree with an ought to do: ought the govt. to do something about it?
they’re just distinct issues. or at any rate, it’s very hard to write a bridge-law between them that will hold up in the right way.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Wait, how is he polling in December? it’s still October, or have I been inside too long?
October 31st, 2008 at 4:53 pm
The chart makes no sense with the rest of the blog post Matt! Please make it right or explain!!!
April? December? Wahhh?
October 31st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
The chart has got to be mislabeled. I’m very confused.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Is this a graph from the future? Also, can you tell me what I’m getting for Christmas?
October 31st, 2008 at 5:14 pm
“December” should read “October”. More specifically, April 6-9, 2008 and October 23-26, 2008.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
“December” should read “October”
sure; it’s because october is the tenth month, and ‘december’ is latin for ‘tenth month’, and matt naturally thinks in latin, so it’s a easy mistake to make and all.
right?
October 31st, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Assuming B.L. is correct, I think the issue is really how people think wealth should be more evenly distributed. By the government taxing the wealthy and sending checks to those less successful or by other means?
October 31st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
A theory about the shift in attitudes toward “redistribution of wealth.”
Mikhail Bakhtin, in his book “Rabelais and his World” referred to obscenity’s role in everyday discussion by saying that the pejoratives became dissociated from their actual meaning, and became a whole phrase on its own; basically, it became an expression rather than an actual phrase, rooted in the meanings of the word.
I think that’s what happens to talking points: a phrase in the language becomes something ideological, and therefore the words get uprooted from their meaning. Between April and October, McCain has taken the phrase “redistributing the wealth” and turned it into a euphemism for socialism–itself, in the US, a euphemism for dictatorial oppression and big government. So the question is heard by the listener, and it means something completely different now than it did five months ago, if you subscribe to McCain’s euphemism.
I don’t think attitudes have changed. I think McCain has shifted how we use language.
(Another example of this: McCain is firmly against the ideologically charged “regulation” but in favor of the ideologically neutral “oversight.”)
October 31st, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Assuming “December” should read “October”, this chart is yet another example of a phenomena that Matt’s been continually good about noting (and the MSM not so much). The electorate will rather quickly learn to echo the slogans of the candidate they support.
This same phenomena was readily apparent during the primary, when we heard the whole “change” versus “experience” schtick over and over. Clearly people who voted for Hilary also wanted change in Washington, but saying that you valued “change” in a poll was basically code for “I support Barrack Obama”.
It would be interesting to see a how people’s preference for change vs. experience changed once McCain started emphasizing his Maverickness more and more.
I’m also skeptical how deep this whole message echoing phenomena really runs. Do you think people who answer no to “Do you think wealth should be more evenly distributed?” would also answer no to “Do you favor greater tax cuts for median income americans over those making over 1 million dollars a year?”
October 31st, 2008 at 8:02 pm
In other posts, Matt is correct that wealth is currently being spread around (prior to a possible Obama presidency).
But I’m still not a fan of using government to spread the wealth. Earlier this year under Bush and the Democratic Congress, economic stimulus checks were mailed to families making under $150k per year. My family did not receive a check because I was laid off in December and received a 4 month severance check from my employer at that time. I know families who received the govt stimulus check, many of whom I consider to be better off than me.
So in essence, my income taxes were given out as checks to other families for an economic stimulus that apparently didn’t do jack sh*t to jump start the economy. And now they’re starting to talk about doing it again…
October 31st, 2008 at 11:23 pm
kid bitzer@9: Honestly, I make that mistake every other day, but with OCTober being the eighth month. I think they put some alcohol in my decanting jug…
November 1st, 2008 at 12:54 am
OK, Matt’s careless mistakes really do make this blog unreadable sometimes. I stared at this chart for several minutes trying to figure out what December meant. I guess or hope the commenters are right that Matt means October, and not not December 2007.
November 1st, 2008 at 1:03 am
Jon, I can barely understand it myself. What the heck is Matt doing? I guess he’s just trying to slime the Republicans without worrying about having a coherent site.
November 1st, 2008 at 6:40 am
Virginia Voter: I truly, honestly, completely don’t give the slightest sh*t that some of your income taxes didn’t come back to you as a rebate check, and that it went to others that you feel were better off than you, and whether or not you think it’s redistributive or socialist. And if that sounds insensitive, well, you can really shove it up your a**.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:59 am
Virginia Voter, if you disapprove of the stimulus checks, that’s your business. But if you can’t see that some of this kind of stuff should be means tested and that therefore there will be some borderline cases where slightly less deserving families will get checks over slightly more deserving families, well, you’re pretty much hopeless then. Compare your family to the average median family in the US. Yeah, there’s no comparison, thanks for playing.
EERac is absolutely right. MY has done a great job highlighting this point. But because of this effect, I think it’s really unfortunate that McCain has decided to pursue this line of attack. It’s not going to help him win the election, but it is going to predispose Republican voters against more progessive taxation. It also encourage Republican politicians to do the same. I absolutely believe this effect will be small but noticeable in policy-making.
November 1st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
…and matt naturally thinks in latin…
I guess Harvard instituted a “back to basics” curriculum while he was there.
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