The first part of this study looked at the CBS poll on wiretapping, which is one of two public polls released in the past month with wiretap questions. This part will focus on last week's Quinnipiac poll, which also has a wiretapping focus. Here were the Q-poll questions:

48. President Bush says the government can use wiretaps to listen to telephone calls and read e-mails between suspected terrorists in other countries and some people in the United States without a court order. Others say such wiretaps require a court order. Which comes closer to your view?

      Required    Not Required
All       55           42
Rep       25           72
Dem       74           22
Ind       59           38

49. To combat terrorism, do you think the government should or should not use wiretaps to listen to telephone calls and read e-mails between suspected terrorists in other countries and some people in the United States?
Should Wiretap: 76%
Should not: 19%

50. How concerned are you that the Bush administration's use of these kinds of wiretaps without a court order could be misused to violate people's privacy: extremely concerned, quite concerned, not really concerned, or not concerned at all?

      Extremely     Quite    Not Really   Not At All
All       30          27         24           19
Rep        9          18         36           35
Dem       42          34         14            9
Ind       34          28         23           16

51. Do you believe such wiretaps by the Bush administration have prevented some acts of terrorism?

       Yes     No
All      54     33
Rep      79     11
Dem      48     38
Ind      49     35

52. Some members of Congress have made an issue of this Presidential wiretapping program. Who do you think will win the political fight; the President or the critics?

      President    Critics
All       56          33
Rep       73          17
Dem       45          44
Ind       52          38

There are some important numbers to look at here. First, like in the CBS poll, the majority of the country believes that what bush did was illegal. Second, the country also clearly wants the government to engage in wiretapping, but they want them to do it legally. Third, the country, especially Democrats and Independents, the only people who have a chance to vote Dem, are very worried that Bush will use the problem to violate people's right to privacy. Fourth, independents believe that what Bush has done has prevented terrorism.

The last finding is perhaps the most worrying to any Democrat who has considered the political ramifications of censuring Bush. Whether they think the program was legal or not, whether they approve of the program or not, a significant majority of the country gives Bush credit for taking positive action. If I was worried about political fallout from censure, and there was one polling result I would hang my hat on to explain why, that would be it.

However, I would also like to point senate Democrats to the fifth and final question I quoted from the Q-poll: not even the majority of your own party thinks that you can beat Bush. The is a pretty massive level of demoralization. I know that you probably all read the Washington Post and the New York Times, and you are probably concerned with a column in there today about censure firing up the Republican base. What you should be far more concerned with, however, is something that you can control: keeping your own base energized. If less than half  of Democrats think that you can beat Bush on this issue, you have clearly failed to inspire confidence in your abilities among the Democratic rank and file. You cannot control whether or not the Republican base is fired up or not, but you can control whether your base is. How many Democrats do you think will vote in November if they don't believe they have a chance to win? How many Democrats do you think will vote in November if they don't even think you can defeat Bush when you have a majority in Congress? How many Democrats do you think will vote in November if you don't show them that you actually share the same hopes and dreams that they do? Even apart from wiretapping polls, a hope more than a few of them remember this poll from last year:

Americans Want an Opposition Party

"American want Democrats to stand up to Bush," the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire reports. "Fully 60%, including one-fourth of Republicans, say Democrats in Congress should make sure Bush and his party 'don't go too far.' Just 34% want Democrats to 'work in a bipartisan way' to help pass the president's priorities."

People want you to stand up to Bush, but even members of your own party don't believe that you can do it with any success. No matter what people think about you on terrorism, you are never going to get enough votes to take control of congress unless you can actually convince people that you can win your battles against Bush. That isn't going to happen unless you show people that you want to win them.

Stand up, damn it. Look around the blogosphere, which contains the core of your activist base. Read the comment threads and diaries. The frustration and dejection is widespread. This should really concern you. We are doing whatever we can to support people who are wiling to hold Bush accountable for illegally spying on Americans. The last thing you should be doing, even though I am pretty sure you are doing it, is dismissing what Senator Feingold and Senator Harkin (and maybe what Senator Kerry, Senator Boxer, and Senator Menendez) are doing as "grandstanding." Throw the people whose hopes and drams you carry a friggin' lifeline. Help us--for crying out loud, help yourselves. We all need to believe that we can win--everyone needs to believe we can win. Do something that will help spread that belief. At least show us that you want to win.

There's more...

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?