TIME Poll: The Foley Sex Scandal Has Hurt G.O.P. Election Prospects

[DeepModem Mom]

TIME Poll: The Foley Sex Scandal Has Hurt G.O.P. Election Prospects
Two-thirds of those aware of the scandal believe Republican leaders attempted a cover-up, according to a new survey
By TONY KARON
Posted Thursday, Oct. 05, 2006

Two-thirds of Americans aware of the congressional-page sex scandal believe Republican leaders tried to cover it up — and one quarter of them say the affair makes them less likely to vote for G.O.P. candidates in their districts come November. Those are among the findings of a new TIME poll conducted this week among 1,002 randomly-selected voting-age Americans.

The poll suggests the Foley affair may have dented Republican hopes of retaining control of Congress in November. Among the registered voters who were polled, 54% said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress, compared with 39% who favored the Republican — a margin that has jumped by 11 points from a similar poll conducted in June. That increase may be fueled by the rolling scandal over sexually explicit e-mails sent to teenage pages by Republican Representative Mark Foley. Almost 80% of respondents were aware of the scandal, and only 16% approve of the Republicans' handling of it. Those polled were divided, however, on whether House Speaker Dennis Hastert should resign over his handling of the Foley affair, with 39% saying he should resign and 38% saying he should not....

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1543199,00.html?cnn=yes

[aquart]

1. Poor widdle underdogs.

Don't you feel tewibwy sowwy for them?

[MissWaverly]

3. No, all I have to remember is the Super Dome

and all those people begging for water when the reporters were walking
across the bridge every day.

[aquart]

10. Yup. Americans begging for water on American streets.

Damn, I just can't quell my bloody, vengeful thoughts tonight. I have all of FEMA in a mental Gitmo and I'm not being nice.

[MissWaverly]

13. and what about the old people that drowned in a nursing home

drowned in their beds, alone, forgotten, a story of a thousand duties neglected.

[aquart]

14. And the hospital workers, begging for help on craigslist.

After Katrina, I never understood how they could still mention 9/11. No terrorist ever destroyed a city.

[MissWaverly]

15. And the worst thing, the very worst thing

is we have a government that does not deal, today, the population of New Orleans is less
than half of what it was before the storm. We have people from the storm that are living
in exile in Texas while their home remains in disrepair. I don't know of a time in America
where we would have done this except for now. And ground zero remains a hole in the ground.
And there are still dead people being found who have been lying uncared for and unburied for
over a year in New Orleans. How did we ever get to this? And we are surprised to hear
that they did not deal with a on-line predator. When do they deal? They have not dealt
since they came in to office, they were warned about Osama, they were warned about Iraq,
they were warned about Katrina and they were warned about Foley. They don't deal and
they have the nerve to ask us to TRUST them.

[Gman]

2. As we learned 30 years ago

it's not the scandal that does the most damage, its the coverup.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. NPR did a whole thing about how this would have no effect.

They interviewed a bunch of gop fundies & other half-wits who said that it didn't matter.

[brentspeak]

5. The problem with Time and Newsweek polls

is that they get their opinions mostly from upper-middle-class yuppie types -- ie. same social class as Time and Newsweek reporters. The people who write for these magazine haven't a clue what goes on beyond their respective gated communities.

[Teaser]

9. uh...do you know what you're talking about?

You are suggesting that Time and Newsweek's random sample is biased.

How, exactly, would that happen?

[Sapere aude]

6. What makes this worse for the repukes is that it is about sex which sells

More people will pay attention to this story than one about any other kind of political scandal because it is the kind of thing that gets ratings on news shows. It fits the news magazine form of show perfectly. If the MSM turns it down they will lose a lot of viewers. So they almost have to run it over and over to get as much money out of it that they can and the hell with the fact that it hurts the repukes. Too bad for the repukes that they are such a bunch of sleaze buckets.

[Anakin Skywalker]

7. Aww. Poor NeoCONS. Whatcha Gonna Do?

[carpe diem]

8. reminds me of the old quote from a politician (Huey Long I think) about

not losing the election unless he gets caught with a "dead girl or a live boy"...the R's have gotten caught with a bunch of live boys...

[AX10]

11. kick

[mitchum]

12. Now, if those lowlife motherfuckers would just kill themselves...

I would be a very happy man

[Lasher]

16. And the poll also says...

Iraq, meanwhile, is continuing to be a problem for the Republicans. Only 38% of respondents in the TIME poll now support President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, down from 42% three months ago. A similar number believe that the new Iraqi government will succeed in forming a stable democracy, while 59% believe this is unlikely. Almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war, while 54% believe he "deliberately misled" Americans in making his case for war — a figure that has increased by 6 points over the past year. President Bush's overall approval rating, according to TIME's poll, now stands at just 36%, down from 38% in August.

Emphasis mine.