Back on Sept. 9, I predicted that President Obama's speech to Congress on health care was "not likely to change much in terms of public opinion" based on previous political science research. A few days later, I noted weak and inconsistent evidence of an effect (a claim that was disputed by Nate Silver). University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin subsequently weighed in, finding that "Opposition [to health care reform] has grown but is now slowed to a near halt" while "[s]upport reversed its decline sometime in August and has begun an upturn" which was "probably driven by the speech."
So how do things look today? Here are estimated trend lines for public opinion from Pollster.com on Obama job approval and support for health care reform:
To maximize the likelihood of seeing an effect, I've restricted the date range to July 1-October 5 and used the most sensitive trend line estimator. Nonetheless, the effect of the speech on Obama's job approval is minimal -- the graph shows a small upward blip after the speech but the series quickly returned to its previous trajectory. There was a small bounce in support for health care reform after the speech, but part of the effect dissipated. Meanwhile, estimated opposition to reform, which dipped in the wake of the speech, quickly rebounded toward previous levels and is now greater than it was before the speech. When Charlie Rangel said before the speech that "this level of involvement from the president could well be a game-changer," I don't think these were the results he had in mind.
I'm emphasizing this point because there's a misperception among journalists that the president can easily move public opinion. As we've seen again and again over the years, it's simply not true, but the lack of followup by the press means that the lesson is never learned. (At most, a failure to move poll numbers is blamed on some specific aspect of president's message or strategy.) So we repeat the same cycle over and over again.
(Cross-posted to Pollster.com)
Without the background of a statistician, I guess I'm confused about how the second graph isn't evidence that the speech did change the game.
Prior to it, opposition to the health care plan was skyrocketing and approval was plummeting...granted, it didn't completely reverse the earlier trajectories...it did stop the decline, right? Why isn't that a game changer (or to keep up the sports analogies, a layout d by a soccer goalie or an over-the-fence home-run stopping catch)?
Posted by: Brandon | October 05, 2009 at 12:08 PM
Proponents of Democratic health care proposals may find solace in the idea that previously approval was "plummeting" but the President's speech did "stop the decline." That's rather cold comfort, given that the proposals are still approved by a minority of respondents. It also seems to suggest that, absent the President's speech, approval would have continued to decline at a steady rate--until, presumably, the approval rate reached zero. That kind of extrapolation makes no sense at all. (Surely there's some level of hardcore support for Obama's plan, if only among the 11% of Democrats who think he may be the anti-Christ but support him anyway.)
Posted by: Rob | October 05, 2009 at 01:01 PM
The comments by Rob and Brandon show why political science is barely a science. Political science does use numbers and graphs and statistical formulas, but controlled experiments are generally not possible. There's no way to know what would have happened if Obama hadn't given the speach.
Also, other events were taking place at the same time as the speech. There's no way to separate the effect of Obama's speech from those other events.
Still, the kind of dispassionate, objective analysis provided by Brendan is superior to some reporter using the POOMA method.
Posted by: David | October 05, 2009 at 02:36 PM