Kohut on the Political Lay of the Land

Fact #1: Everything about the mood of the country (we want change!), the partisan identification trends (Dems. 50- Repubs. 35), and the issue environment (government should do more to help those who can’t help selves…) favors the idea that 2008 should be a very good year to run for office as a Democrat, says pollster Andrew Kohut.

Perhaps most promising, from a long-term perspective: Kohut said that for the first time in 20 years, younger voters (ages 18-24) are showing a significant partisan difference from the older groups in the electorate, and that difference is that they are more heavily Democratic. (I’ll list a few more of Kohut’s specific poll-findings below to back up this view, which is certainly conventional wisdom, that the 2008 political climate is Dem-friendly.)

But then there’s Fact #2: trial matchups that pit between the leading Democratic presidential candidates against the leading Republicans (Hillary Clinton vs. Rudy Giuiliani, for example, but the same thing for most of the other likely pairings) range from statistically insignificant leads for the Dem to statistically insignificant leads for the Repubs.

Kohut, of the Pew Resarch Center for the People and the Press, gave a talk at noon at the Humphrey Institute’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. Drawing on years and volumes of polling, Kohut gave his hypotheses about what explains the apparent disconnect between Facts #1 and #2. It went like this:The apparent Dem advantages are less about widespread public enthusiasm for the Dem candidates or their ideas and more about their lack of enthusiasm for the Repubs.

(Impressive poll result: comparing 2007 with 1994, the percentage of Americans who expressed a favorable view of the Republican Party fell from 67 to 41 percent. The percentage who held a favorable view of the Democratic Party is exactly the same, at 56 percent.)

The declining view of Republicanness is mostly about the unpopularity of Pres. Bush and what he has stood for. Americans are hungry for change more than for any particular change, Kohut said.

At the moment, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney (Kohut seemed less sure about Fred Thompson) have succeeded in presenting themselves to change-hungry independents and swing voters as representing some kind of change. i.e. They’re Not Bush.

All of the pro-Democratic winds do not guarantee the election of the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008 if the Republican nominee is perceived by the public as a credible agent of change, Kohut said.

But then he shifted the challenge back to the GOP candidates. In their quest for the nomination, the Repub candidates are all running hard to the right, embracing positions that make them look more and more Bushie.

Kohut specifically cited this Ron Brownstein column about how closely the Repub contenders are clinging to Bush’s positions on Iraq, taxes, health care etc.

Kohut predicted that it will be difficult for the Repub candidates to do what they think they need to do to get the nomination and then continue to present themselves to swing voters as representing a change from Bush.

I’m posting now, but will continue writing to give you some of those poll results I promise up top.