There has been a variety of polling on wiretapping over the past two months. This post will summarize that polling, and is written directly for the benefit of Democratic Senate staffers who, form what I have learned, apparently believe the polling on this issue is bad for us. It isn't.

First, I will look at a recent CBS poll on the subject: CBS News Poll. Feb. 22-26, 2006. N=1,018 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults).

"APPROVE OF BUSH AUTHORIZING WIRETAPS TO FIGHT TERRORISM?"
(Approve / Disapprove)
All: 51 / 47
Reps: 83 / 16
Dems: 33 / 63
Inds: 42 / 57

APPROVE OF BUSH AUTHORIZING WIRETAPS?
All: 46 / 50

"Regardless of whether you approve of the President authorizing the wiretaps, do you think the President has the legal authority to authorize wiretaps without a court warrant, or doesn't he?"
Has: 41
Doesn't Have: 52 There are a couple of key things to notice here. First, the different way the wiretap question is phrased leads to different results. When the question is phrased in the manner the Bush administration would like it to be phrased--that Bush authorized warrant-less wiretaps to "fight terrorism," a slightly majority of the country approves of that decision. However, when terrorism is not mention in the question, a slight majority of the country opposes the program. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone--we all know that different questions produce different results.

The second key point in this poll is that while the approval of Bush on this issue is mixed, a fairly clear majority of the country does not think he has the legal authority to do what he did. In other words, the majority of the country believes that Bush broke the law on this one. Here is the partisan breakdown on that question: 68% of Americans who approve of the President authorizing wiretaps without a court warrant in order to fight terrorism also believe he has the legal authority to do so. Conversely, only 7% of those who disapprove of the practice think he has the authority to conduct such wiretaps.

63% of Republicans - as opposed to 28% of Democrats and 43% of Independents - believe that the President has this authority in order to fight terrorism. I am glad that CBS offers partisan breakdowns of their questions, because what Democrats on the Hill should remember is that we are not going to get any Republican votes this time around. Our swing will come from "Indycrats." A recent Gallup poll that gave Democrats a large, 14 point lead on Republican in the generic congressional ballot still indicated hat only 3% of Republicans were going to vote for the Democratic candidate. Our overall lead came from an enormous, more than twenty-point advantage among independents. If we aren't getting Republican votes when we are up 15 points in the congressional ballot and when Bush's approval rating is hovering in the mid-thirties, we are not going to win any Republican votes come November. Thus, for the purposes of elections, when any Democrat is looking at a poll, we should pretty much only look at Democrats and Independents.

In the CBS poll, among Democrats and Independents, approval of Bush's warrant-less wiretapping is well below 40%. Looking at the legality question, where only 41% of the country thinks what Bush did was legal, only about one-third of Democrats think that what Bush did was illegal. Importantly, only 63% of Republicans think that what Bush did was legal. Keeping the issue focused on legality has the great potential to keep the majority of the country on our side.

The notion that polling is really bad for Democrats on this issue is false. Of course, looking at other results in that same CBS poll, it is easy to see why some Democrats would rather focus on other matters. The ports deal, for example, had only 21% approval nationwide, including a piddling 31% among Republicans. Politicians love those 80-20 issues, where there is basically no way they can lose. With Bush in the mid-thirties, and an 80-20 issue staring them right in the face, I can only imagine that some Senate Democrats don'' even want to touch an issue where we have the majority opinion, but the majority just isn't large enough. If there really are people who think this, and who are unwilling to attack Bush unless it is on an issue where we hold the super-majority opinion, I don't think you deserve to be in power. If you can't stand up for the beliefs of a small majority when faced with Republican attacks, what the hell are you going to do the next time Democrats are in control of the Senate?