NY Times' Seelye falsely claimed Clinton favorable ratings "never climbed higher" than 50 percent
SUMMARY: In a post on the New York Times blog The Caucus, Katharine Q. Seelye falsely claimed that Hillary Rodham Clinton's "favorable ratings reached a peak of 50 [percent] in 1998 during her husband's impeachment. They have never climbed higher, as measured by The Times and CBS." In fact, a January 1999 CBS News poll found that Clinton had a favorable rating of 55 percent. Additionally, other polls from the same period found Clinton's favorable rating rising as high as 67 percent, and polls from other organizations show her favorable rating has topped 50 percent in 2007.
In an August 16 post on the New York Times political blog The Caucus, reporter Katharine Q. Seelye falsely claimed that Hillary Rodham Clinton's "favorable ratings reached a peak of 50 [percent] in 1998 during her husband's impeachment. They have never climbed higher, as measured by The Times and CBS, meaning that at no point since her emergence onto the national stage has more than half the public viewed her favorably." In fact, a January 1999 CBS News poll found that Clinton had a favorable rating of 55 percent. Additionally, other polls from the same period found Clinton's favorable rating rising as high as 64 percent (ABC News/Washington Post, August 1998) and 67 percent (USA Today/Gallup, December 1998). Moreover, in polls by other news organizations -- including USA Today/Gallup and ABC News/Washington Post -- Clinton's favorable rating has exceeded 50 percent in 2007.
In her post, Seelye noted White House senior adviser Karl Rove's claim about Hillary Clinton that "[t]here's nobody who has ever won the presidency who started out in that kind of position." To rebut this claim, Seelye wrote: "In fact, Mrs. Clinton's husband was in that very position and did win." But in rebutting Rove, Seelye understated Hillary Clinton's favorable ratings, in part by relying on a Times/CBS polling report that omitted the results of the January 1999 poll. Seelye also ignored the results of other polls, from which the Times' polling results differed significantly. Seelye noted that "the two news organizations [The New York Times and CBS News] began polling about Mrs. Clinton in 1992" and referred to a recent Times/CBS polling report that included a selection of Clinton's favorable ratings dating back to 1992, none of which were higher than 50 percent. The report appears to reference polls conducted jointly by the Times and CBS, plus polls conducted by either the Times or CBS. The polls that were conducted by just one organization appear to be denoted by a "NYT" or "CBS," respectively. The front page of the report states, "All trends are from New York Times/CBS News polls unless otherwise noted."
The Bulletin's Frontrunner, a publication that summarized media reports on politics, noted on January 6, 1999, that a CBS News poll of 1,175 adults conducted Jan. 3-4, 1999, (+/-3 percent) showed: "55% have a 'favorable' opinion of Hillary Rodham Clinton; 20% said 'unfavorable'; 17% were undecided; 7% 'haven't heard enough'; 1% refused to answer." These results are also highlighted on the polling website PollingReport.com, under CBS News polling on Hillary Clinton.
Polls from other news organizations show that Hillary Clinton's favorable rating has topped 50 percent in 2007 and has topped 60 percent at other points in her public life:
- According to a Newsweek poll conducted July 2-3, 56 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Clinton.
- According to USA Today/Gallup polling, Clinton's favorable rating was at 58 percent in February 2007, 54 percent in March, and 53 percent in May. According to earlier USA Today/Gallup polling, Clinton's favorable rating was in the 60s throughout 1998 -- reaching 67 percent in December 1998.
- According to a Diageo/Hotline poll conducted March 29-April 1, 53 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Clinton.
- According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted January 16-19, 54 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Clinton. According to ABC/Washington polling from 1998, Clinton's favorable rating was in the 50s and 60s throughout that year -- reaching 64 percent in August 1998.
Who cares.
Right Now Hillary Clinton will be the nominee, but she will lose to Rudy.
I'm going to love it when the liberals say the election was stolen from them.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/in_surge_giuliani_now_tops_clinton_by_seven_points
Your point in relation to this subject?
that rasmussen report also said that rudy had also strengthened against both obama and edwards. so it's not hillary alone.
Copius,
What was Bush Sr.'s polls in relation to the pack of Democrats this far before the '92 election, when he had something like a 90% rating?
Anybody who believes a poll this far ahead of the actual election is an idiot by definition!
hahahahahahahahahahaha!
Rudy G. was failure as mayor, left in a disgrace, is hated by the fire fighters and police in NYC, is too cozy with gays, fought for tougher gun laws, oh the list is endless!
Oh wow, thank you. that was a great laugh. Wait till everyone outside the city and state who already hate him learn about this guy. Please, I pray that Rudy if the Republican Nominee. He'll carry what, Idaho? Hahaha. oh whew. good one!
Bing, I got a kick out of that one too!
Especially when you consider that if Rudi is the Republican nominee, a "real" conservative will probably mount an independent campaign.
And then if Bloomberg gets in, well - I would say at least Rudi's family will vote for him, but no...
You mean who cares because bloviators should be able to LIE whenever they want to? Or only when it suits YOUR agenda? As for your mindreading or prognosticating, its worthless.
Bush's ratings are so low he can lie on his back and still touch my "rod of punishment" with his lips - while I'm standing! =0)
Snoopy, do I have to remind you again what the punishment is for bad dogs?
(I hope so, because I love that so much!)
We liberals see two-right wing parties and their candidates, who will attack our parties to keep us off the ballot. They FEAR us. They fear the masses learning there are other ways, other paths they can travel. Democrats even go out of their way to force Green Party candidates off ballots because they know we will free their liberal slaves and add them to our numbers. The rank-n-file Republican reaction to Ron Paul has been very promising. A large section of that party is also socially liberal, and feeling constrained by the fascists that run things. With the right nudges, we could see a real liberal revolution at the ballot box.
The big question is....would we see a Nationalist coup ala the Spanish Civil War if the fasctist elements are defeated at the polls? Would they go that far to maintain conservative/corporate rule?
earth to red. a large part of the republican party is "socially liberal"? are those the ones you can't see?
"I'm going to love it when the liberals say the election was stolen from them."
I'm going to be sad if another election is stolen, even if it's stolen from some lame-assed Dem like Hillary Clinton. I guess that's the difference between you and me. I think the integrity of our elections should be actively protected, while you couldn't care less.
notice how the right wingers are trying to talk the democrats out of nominating hillary. if she was such a "fatally flawed" candidate as karl rove called her, why would he be saying that on the rush "i only have republicans on" limbaugh show? wouldn't they just be quietly licking their chops? gingrich was the one who has been saying they are seriously underestimating her. maybe they aren't now. i think they fear her the most.
by the way, rove will be on meet the press sunday. suggested questions: why were you discussing with reporters the classified identitiy of an undercover cia operative when you were forbidden from doing that without knowing her identity was classified? why did you allow the white house to deny that you had been "involved" in this episode when you obviously knew you were? how can you expect contacts in other countries to trust our undercover agents to shield their connections to the cia, when that cia agent can be revealed in the american press with no repercussions to the parties who revealed her identity?
There's a few conservatives who want Hillary to be noninated. Karl might be one of them.
maybe he is. but why would such a "brilliant strategist" as he be calling her "fatally flawed" as a candidate? they spun the she can't win line in 2000 and she ran away with the senate race.
Bashing Hillary won't work anymore. What more can people hear to turn them off from her? She was right when she said in Chicago she had been fighting the GOP smear machine for years. She's not my first choice by any means, but the Republicans are mistaken if they think they can use the same tactic of swift boating. People can only hold on to irrational hate for so long before they grow tired of it.
It would be worth nominating and electing Hillary just to watch reich-wingers' heads explode.
What a sorry state of affairs when all that we can expect from professional reporters at our most prestigious publications is the equivalent of the ravings of a Fox News-watching drunk at the local tavern!
It seems that no amount of fact-checking, logical refutation or truth can shame these disturbed hacks into simply doing their jobs,
I've given up any hope of ever seeing mainstream corporate journalism rehabilitate itself. Thank you Media Matters for your fortitude and stomach for this noble fight.
Wait a minute. So 67 is more than 50? Maybe Seelye's just not that good with numbers.
Fuzzy math, remember?
Or maybe, like Karl Rove, Seelye has the "real math," and the real math says that 67 is less than 50.
More lies to smear the Clintons
None of the links provided by MMFA lead to the 1999 favorability poll being discussed. The Pollingreport link goes up to July 1999.
Here is one alternative:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/10/17/opinion/main66826.shtml
Maybe Seelye is from Europe and uses a different system than percent. Like a mathematical equivalent of Celsius or Kelvin, where a complicated formula is needed to figure out that 50% is 19%.
I think Seelye's intention was to write a favorable article about Hillary. If you read her article, you will see this.
She made a mistake based on a omission by the NYT/CBS poll database. She should have been more careful and MMFA did an excellent job in noting this mistake; but don't be too harsh on her.