Kriner Douglas L, Reeves Andrew
Boston University.
Washington University in St. Louis.
J Health Polit Policy Law. 2014 Aug;39(4):717-49. doi: 10.1215/03616878-2743015. Epub 2014 May 19.
We examine the contours of support for the Clinton and Obama health care plans during the 1990s and 2000s based on our own compilation of 120,000 individual-level survey responses from throughout the debates. Despite the rise of the Tea Party, and the racialization of health care politics, opinion dynamics are remarkably similar in both periods. Party ID is the single most powerful predictor of support for reform and the president's handling of it. Contrary to prominent claims, after controlling for partisanship, demographic characteristics are at best weak predictors of support for reform. We also show that Clinton and Obama did not "lose" blacks, seniors, or wealthy voters over the course of the debate. The small and often nonexistent relationship between these characteristics and support for the plan are constant over time. Instead, the modest fluctuations in support for reform appear to follow the ebb and flow of elite rhetoric. Both mean levels of support and its volatility over time covary with elite partisan discourse. These findings suggest that presidents courting public opinion should seek consensus among their own party's elites before appealing to other narrower interests.
我们基于自己汇编的来自整个辩论过程中的12万份个人层面的调查回复，审视了20世纪90年代和21世纪头十年人们对克林顿和奥巴马医疗保健计划的支持情况。尽管茶党兴起，且医疗保健政治出现种族化现象，但两个时期的舆论动态却惊人地相似。党派认同是支持改革以及总统处理改革方式的最有力单一预测指标。与一些突出观点相反，在控制党派因素后，人口特征充其量只是支持改革的微弱预测指标。我们还表明，在辩论过程中，克林顿和奥巴马并没有“失去”黑人、老年人或富裕选民。这些特征与对该计划的支持之间微弱且往往不存在的关系随时间保持不变。相反，对改革支持率的适度波动似乎跟随精英言论的起伏。支持率的平均水平及其随时间的波动都与精英党派话语相关。这些发现表明，争取公众舆论的总统在诉诸其他更狭隘的利益之前，应该先在自己党内的精英中寻求共识。
