In flawed comparison with Pelosi, LA Times article cited Gingrich's current poll numbers
In a June 12 article on a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, the Los Angeles Times compared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) approval rating with respondents' recollection of their opinion of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) when he served as speaker in the mid-1990s. The Times asserted Pelosi has "failed to impress many Americans. Only 36% approve of the way she is handling the job, the poll found. In contrast, 46% of Americans in the current poll said they approved of the way Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia handled the job after he led the GOP into the majority in 1994." However, the Times article did not report a key fact noted in the poll analysis: "[I]n his days as Speaker, Gingrich never got past 30% in overall favorable ratings."
The Times/Bloomberg poll, conducted June 7-10, asked respondents, "As you may know, Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House in the mid 1990's. Did you approve or disapprove of the way Newt Gingrich handled his job when he was Speaker of the House?" Forty-six percent of respondents said they approved strongly or somewhat of Gingrich's performance as speaker.
According to the poll analysis:
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, has a net negative rating -- 41% to 37%. In a January Times/Bloomberg poll, Pelosi received an overall positive impression from the public, 34% to 21%. In comparing Pelosi to former Speaker and Republican Newt Gingrich, who was Speaker in the mid 1990's, he received a 47% job approval rating, compared to 36% disapproving. But in his days as Speaker, Gingrich never got past 30% in overall favorable ratings.
A June 12 Bloomberg article on the same poll did report that Gingrich's approval rating did not exceed 30 percent when he served as speaker:
Even Republican Newt Gingrich, a widely criticized speaker in the 1990s, scored higher than Pelosi in the poll. Forty-six percent said they approved of the way Gingrich handled his job, and 34 percent disapproved, according to the survey, which had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Gingrich received favorable ratings of 30 percent or less in Los Angeles Times polling while he was speaker.
Who cares about Gingrich, he is irrelevant.
Who today thinks Newtie did a good job? It's not like he actually came through with that phony contract for america now...
It's that good ol' american inventiveness, Snoop. That extra 16% who glorify him now but disliked him back then fantasize how wonderful life was in the 90's, with the happy danceable sound of Newt 'n' the Neos and their hit "Contract on America". Nostalgia just has a way of gilding old tin.
Here's hopin' Gingrich* does jump into the Presidential race - he would complete the set of liars in the Repugnant field, providing democracy and Democrats fullest expression.
*(I was going to use "Grinch", but that is already tired.)
MM is deflecting from the main point of the article. Look at the headline: "Approval of Congress lowest in a decade." It's not a 'Pelosi vs. Gingrich' article, as MM implies. It's about Congress.
Relax, guys. The LA Times loves Democrats. You've got nothing to worry about. Whoever the nominee is, the LA Times will be there for you all the way.
Well, it was a Pelosi vs. Gingrich poll, and it was disingenuous for the LAT to compare after-the-fact musings to current opinions about a standing speaker.
It was also informative, for the only way Gingrich could have such a high nostalgia factor in this poll would be if there were an over-abundance of conservatives in the pool. That would explain the wierd general results.
The LAT Democratic? Give me a break. It fixates on right-wing issues, and it's also incredibly anti-union. Not a week goes by that some article blames unions for problems, such as yesterday, where "public contracts" were blamed for high health care costs!
Shoe is correct...and you would know that if you had read the report. It's 17 pages...covering many aspects...it is NOT a Gingrich vs. Pelosi poll.
If you had read the report...you wouldn't have to ask about the sample size and demographics...it's plainly stated...even 35% of democrats approved of his performance.
Unions? Mostly overpaid and under performing...that will usually spark criticism.
"Unions. Mostly overpaid and underperforming..."
Really? Unions and CEOs; perfect together.
I couldn't agree more...both are millstones around the neck of the business community.
Well, I've gotta agree in general with you, though I still do believe there are some areas in american business that should have some form of union protection. My list is small, though...
Certainly...there are some good union operations and some good CEOs...but my list would be pretty short as well.
What was Gringrich's rating when he was caught ripping off money from the taxpayers.
We know the Republican Party voted down party line to spare Gingrich from being impeached.
Would you want to elect a proven criminal as your President? Wait you already did. You re-elected war criminal Bush who just gave the People the middle finger the other day.
Republicans demoralizing America.
This is not conservative misinformation...or any misinformation at all.
The LATimes devoted only one sentence to Gingrich. They clearly stated that his rating came from the current poll...which was a look back at his performance.
What is crystal clear is the political pandering by mmfa. They are trying to deflect the bad news of the plummeting approval ratings of the democrat controlled congress...hell, even 58% of the democrats think congress is doing a crappy job.
The LATimes story had nothing to do with Gingrich...and everything to do with the public's dissatisfaction of the idiots in congress. The democrat controlled congress is proving itself just as impotent as the previous republican congress...
Career political hacks and power mongers in Washington better wake up fast...a viable third party is looming.
The report can be mostly right and still have conservative misinformation within it.
That darn black-n-white thinking got you again. It's not all or nothing, or good vs evil. The report is a distortion of what was actually in the polling data.
The POLL had to do with Gingrich, and that's what MMFA is talking about. The poll results.
Listen the Congress' rating is lower than any Congress in a decade.
If the Republicans ever got this low, we'd be hearing about it every ten min.
Now MMFA is saying it is meaningless. I'm laughing.
They did, you didn't hear about it huh?
We all know about it and that is not what the article is saying.
Any poll that gives such a nostalgic view of Gingrich is skewed. And thhe article was misleading-- it insinuates that Pelosi is less popular than Gingrich, and that's false, Good work MMFA! You nailed the LAT.
Methodologically this comparison between Pelosi and Gingrich is not worth anything. This comparison would not follow methodological standards. There is an improper comparison. Higher ratings for Gingrich have a lot of issues. These issues deal with memories of the nineties, and general issues of the person being questioned trying to sound intelligent. In any case the numbers mean different things. A slight side comment more people claimed to have voted for Kennedy in a poll after his death than actually voted for him. This differnce was staistically significant and demonstrates problems in after the fact polling.
Could liberals quit the shell game already. Everytime they want to detract from the poor job that Nancy Pelosi is doing they bring up Newt Gingrich. The fact is that under Pelosi's leadership, Congress has only passed 26 pieces of legislation so far this year, 16 of which renamed federal buildings. Under Gingrich, the Congress and the Clinton Adminstration balanced the budget for the first time in 40 years, paid down $500 billion in national debt, reformed welfare, and reduced the amount of regulation on businesses. I guess I am one of the 46% percent that think Newt did a great job as Speaker.
"...the Congress and the Clinton Adminstration..."
I think you might be on to something here.