CNN tried to downplay poll results it released on Wednesday which indicated continuing opposition to ObamaCare, while emphasizing how the poll also found "growing support" for the President's call for increased federal regulation of the financial institutions. The network and its partners at Opinion Research also took two weeks to publish the results of only two questions from the poll.
The unsigned article about the poll on CNN.com's Political Ticker on Wednesday spent the first six paragraphs focusing on the favorable results for the Obama administration. But as Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com noted on Thursday, the anti-ObamaCare figure didn't show up until the eighth paragraph.
Two of President Barack Obama's top legislative initiatives - health care reform and financial regulation - are getting different reactions from the American public, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that a growing number of Americans support increased federal regulation over Wall Street banks and other financial institutions. Six out of ten people questioned in the poll say they favor the legislation, with 38 percent opposed. Support for the bill is up seven points from March, and opposition is down five points.
"Higher-income Americans appear more likely to support the bill than those who make less than $50,000 a year. Stricter financial regulations are popular with Democrats and Independents; a bare majority of Republicans oppose that legislation," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
The legislation aims to stop bailouts, shines a light on complex financial products and strengthens consumer protection. The bill would establish a consumer financial protection regulatory agency that could write new rules to protect consumers from unfair or abusive mortgages and credit cards.
It would also create a council of regulators that would sound an alarm before companies are in position to trigger a financial crisis. The bill would also establish new procedures for shutting down giant financial firms that are collapsing.
The House, last year, and the Senate, last month, passed different versions of the legislation. Lawmakers from each chamber will try this month to work out the differences in the bills. The goal is to send the final legislation to the president before the July 4 recess.
The poll suggests that most Americans continue to oppose the passage of the health care bill which Obama signed into law in April, although the public may be slightly more optimistic about the bill's ultimate effect on the country.
According to the survey, 56 percent of the public disapprove of the passage of the bill, with 43 percent approving of the new law.
The article linked to a document with "full results," which actually only contained the figures from three of the questions from the poll. Morrissey also pointed that CNN only took three days to release figures showing overwhelming support for the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law, which were from the same survey, conducted from May 21-23 by the network and Opinion Research.
Later in the article, the unnamed author further quoted from CNN's Keating Holland, who stated that "opposition [to ObamaCare] is highest among men, older Americans, and people who make more than $50,000 a year." But the actual demographic breakdown of the 1,023 "adult Americans" surveyed by the network has yet to be released, "especially the partisan split in the sample," as Morissey pointed out near the end of his Thursday blog post on Hot Air. He concluded, "After almost two weeks, one has to wonder why." Indeed.
