The New York Times really knows how to tilt its campaign coverage with its own polling questions. The front-page headline on Tuesday was “Most Republicans Say '16 Race Is Embarrassing." Online, it was "Most Republicans Feel Embarrassed by Campaign, Poll Says.”
They found 60 percent of Republicans are mostly embarrassed by the GOP presidential campaign and 27 percent are mostly proud. Back when Bill Clinton admitted lying under oath about sex with an intern in 1998, the Times did not commission a poll asking how embarrassing that spectacle was for the Democrats.
Patrick Healy and Megan Thee-Brenan began the new article:
Alarmed by the harsh attacks and negative tone of their presidential contest, broad majorities of Republican primary voters view their party as divided and a source of embarrassment and think that the campaign is more negative than in the past, according to a New York Times/CBS News national poll released on Monday.
The dismay has not set back their leading candidate, however. While about four in 10 Republican voters disapprove of how Donald J. Trump has handled the violence at some of his rallies, Mr. Trump has also picked up the most support recently as several rivals have left the race. Forty-six percent of primary voters said they would like to see Mr. Trump as the party’s nominee, more than at any point since he declared his candidacy in June. Twenty-six percent favored Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and 20 percent backed Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.
Fully three-quarters of Republican primary voters expect Mr. Trump to be their party’s nominee.
Compared with Republicans, far more Democratic primary voters see their side as unified and say the campaign has made them feel mostly proud of their party.
Among Democrats, 82 percent were proud of their party’s campaign, and only 13 percent were embarrassed. They were a little more specific in this paragraph:
Anxieties run higher among Republicans in large part because of the ferocious and at times juvenile nature of the insult-laden campaign, which has featured taunts over character and even manhood as much as serious policy debates. About six in 10 Republican primary voters say the overall tone of their party’s nomination fight has been more negative than in past campaigns, while only one in 10 Democratic primary voters hold the same view of their party’s campaign. And 60 percent of Republican primary voters said the campaign had made them feel mostly embarrassed about their party, while only 13 percent of Democratic primary voters expressed that opinion.
The Times (and CBS News) pollsters also asked if voters would be “scared” of President Trump or President Hillary:
Half of all voters said they would be scared if Mr. Trump were elected president, and another 19 percent said they would be concerned. Mrs. Clinton does not fare much better: Thirty-five percent of all voters said they would be scared if Mrs. Clinton won in November, and 21 percent said they would be concerned.
By contrast, this was the New York Times take on Bill Clinton after he admitted lying for more than half a year about a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. They didn’t do a poll about whether Democrats were embarrassed by their party leader.
The front-page headline on August 22, 1998 was “HIGH MARKS GIVEN TO THE PRESIDENT BUT NOT THE MAN.” Adam Nagourney and Michael R. Kagay boosted Clinton on page 1:
President Clinton continues to draw high ratings from the American public for his job performance, but his acknowledgment of a relationship with a White House intern has produced signs of a darkening public view of both the President's moral character and his overall personal image, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll shows.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is now viewed more approvingly by the American public than her husband, according to the survey, which was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday. Overwhelmingly, respondents said they admired how Mrs. Clinton had stood by her husband since he admitted his relationship with the intern, Monica S. Lewinsky, even as most people said they did not believe the First Lady's assertion that she first learned of her husband's infidelity last weekend.
The poll was conducted in what has surely been the most tumultuous week of Mr. Clinton's political career and suggested once again the nation's profound ambivalence about this President.
By varying measures, respondents said they were bothered that Mr. Clinton had had an affair and lied about it and were narrowly inclined to believe that he had encouraged Ms. Lewinsky to lie about it under oath. They also were inclined to believe he had sexually harassed Paula Corbin Jones, his denials notwithstanding. And the number of Americans who said Mr. Clinton did not share their moral values was as high as it had ever been.
Yet rising concerns about Mr. Clinton's conduct and character do not seem to have tarnished the public view of his performance as President. The percentage of Americans who applauded Mr. Clinton's handling of foreign policy, 68 percent, and of the economy, 70 percent, was as high as it has been at any point in his Presidency. His overall job approval rating is at 65 percent.
In addition, Mr. Clinton does not appear to have been particularly hurt among the Americans who have been among his strongest supporters: women. The poll found that men and women generally viewed Mr. Clinton and the scandal similarly, and what differences there were tended to be small, with women slightly more supportive of him....
Mrs. Clinton was viewed favorably by 50 percent of respondents, compared with 25 percent who viewed her unfavorably. The figure matched her previous record-high standing of February, when she was at the forefront of defending Mr. Clinton in the Lewinsky matter. "It's her stamina, really," said Edward Sullivan, 52, an engineer from Norwood, Mass. "She's quite smart and durable. I suppose I admire her for putting up with all this stuff."
Ms. Wolynski said that Mrs. Clinton was in "a very difficult situation and she's handling it very well."
"If I was her," Ms. Wolynski said, "I would have given him the boot many years ago."
The depth of support for Mrs. Clinton these days suggests that she might be helping her husband yet again -- that her own popularity might be providing him with something of a lift.
Even as they rallied behind Mrs. Clinton, Americans seemed not to believe all she said: 2 in 3 said they believed she had known the exact nature of her husband's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky before last weekend, a statement by her office notwithstanding.
For the most part, Mr. Clinton seemed to fare as well among women as among men. For example, 73 percent of women, compared with 64 percent of men, said they wanted Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, to drop the investigation. There was, though, one subject on which women took a sterner view of Mr. Clinton: 30 percent said they were bothered a lot by the very fact of Mr. Clinton's relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, compared with 22 percent of men.
....About half of those questioned said it was understandable that Mr. Clinton had lied to the public about the nature of his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky when asked about the allegations in January. And about 2 out of 3 respondents said they believed that the inquiry should be dropped. Nearly 40 percent of the respondents said the issue was of "very little importance" to the nation.
Mr. Starr continued to suffer from his public exposure: only 19 percent viewed him favorably, compared with 43 percent who did not. Mr. Starr might find some solace in Ms. Lewinsky's position: only 5 percent of Americans viewed her favorably this week, compared with 54 percent who viewed her unfavorably.
