On Spending, Even Many Democrats Don’t Think Democrats Are Reasonable…

The Hill published some interesting poll results today. Its main finding — that “A plurality of likely voters believes Republicans have been more reasonable than Democrats in the negotiations over spending cuts” — is hardly surprising. After all, most voters aren’t stupid.

But this struck me as quite interesting:

A new poll conducted for The Hill showed 41 percent polled said the GOP had been “more reasonable,” while 29 percent said Democrats had been more sensible. Twenty-two percent said neither party was more reasonable than the other, and 7 percent were not sure.

But the survey also found that, despite the favorable view of Republicans’ tactics, respondents said it wouldn’t change their votes from last year.

Forty-five percent of respondents said they voted for a Republican last November, and 47 percent said they would do so if the election were held now. Forty percent of respondents said they voted for a Democrat, and 42 percent said they would do so now, according to the March 31 survey of 1,000 likely voters.

Since 40% of the respondents voted Democratic last November and 42% would do so now but only 29% think the Democrats are more reasonable than Republicans on spending, it’s clear that many Democrats plan to vote for the party they believe less reasonable on that issue.

Of course, the deficit of deficit-concerned Democrats is not inherently unreasonable. Many Democrats, after all, support Democrats because of their stands on other issues, such as:

  • Obama’s attack on Libya, or his retreat from Libya;
  • Obama’s determination to close Gitmo and try terrorists in federal court in New York, or his decision to keep Gitmo open and try terrorists in military tribunals there;
  • Obama’s embodiment of and rhetorical commitment to post-racialism, or his strong support for continuing racial preferences throughout American life;
  • The not-hostile takeover of the Democratic Party by public employee unions leading to its still-unannounced re-naming as the Democratic Labor Party.

This last reason may be the most important, since the less reasonable the Democrats are on spending, the more they serve the self-interest of the unions.

Say What?