Bob Schieffer led Tuesday's CBS Evening News by heralding “bad news for the Republicans”in a new CBS News/New York Times poll and suggesting the new poll portends “a dramatic shift in the political landscape” with approval of Congress at only 23 percent, its lowest since 20 percent in 1994. But reporting on that low number 12 years ago, just six days before Republicans took control of the House and Senate, Bob Schieffer didn't see disaster ahead for Democrats. Back then he maintained: “It's hard to gauge who'll be helped or hurt by all this gloom come Election Day.”This year, Schieffer led with the bad news for the GOP poll: "Well, are we about to see a dramatic shift in the political landscape? If the findings of a new CBS News/New York Times poll are accurate, the answer may well be yes. President Bush's ratings have hit another all-time low” at “only 31 percent” approval “and the Republican-controlled Congress gets even lower marks, an approval rating of only 23 percent. That's just a little better than 1994 when dissatisfaction was running so high that Republicans wrested control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years from Democrats.” Gloria Borger chimed in with how “our new poll shows just why Democrats are starting to believe, as opposed to simply hope, that change is in the air. By wide margins, the public says Democrats would do a better job of handling most all issues” and, “overall, Democrats are viewed favorably by 55 percent of Americans. Just 37 percent favor Republicans. That's a complete turnaround from 1994 when Republicans dominated public opinion just before taking control of the Congress."
Reporting the survey back in 1994, however, Schieffer did not inform viewers of how the GOP "dominated" issues, never referred to the Congress as “Democrat-controlled” and didn't bother to mention how 54 percent viewed Republicans favorably, ten points above the 44 percent who viewed Democrats favorably. (Transcripts from Tuesday and 1994 follow.)
Twelve years ago, the CBS News/New York Times poll people waited until the very end of October to assess how the public viewed Congress and the Wednesday, November 2 CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Connie Chung -- six days before the election -- waited until after the first ad break to get to the results.
Dan Rather dampened GOP excitement: “Republicans expect a big triumph. The latest CBS News/New York Times poll out tonight indicates many voters are confused and definitely in a volatile mood. No surprise there. But what may surprise you is what the people in our poll indicate they'll do to act on their frustrations on Election Day.” Instead of zeroing in on the rejection of the Democratic Congress, Bob Schieffer, unlike this year, avoided partisan culpability as he explained how “only one voter in five gave Congress a favorable rating” and “many have apparently concluded it doesn't matter all that much who serves in Congress.” What the public would do less than a week later escaped Schieffer: “Overall, people have a higher opinion of Republicans than Democrats, but Republicans seem to be failing in their effort to make these elections a referendum on the President” and “so it's hard to gauge who'll be helped or hurt by all this gloom come Election Day.”(That same newscast included then-reporter Eric Engberg's hit job on Newt Gingrich, whom he castigated as “bombastic and ruthless.” Engberg maintained: "Newton Leroy Gingrich, former history professor, came to Congress in 1979. From the start, modesty was not his style. Rejecting the House's gentlemanly ways, he waged such constant guerilla war against the Democrats he was attacked for McCarthyism.” Engberg scolded, “It's a record filled with contradictions: The family values candidate who divorced his ailing first wife, the avowed enemy of dirty politics who bounced 22 checks at the House bank and runs a big-dollar political action committee that won't disclose its contributors.” Full transcript below.)
Back to this week. As usual, the CBS News/New York Times poll surveyed more Republicans than Democrats. The PDF of the full results lists 344 Republicans polled compared to 433 Democrats, numbers which were then weighted to give Democrats an even higher percent of those counted: 453 Democrats, but only 313 Republicans.
CBS Evening News with Bob Schieffer, May 9, 2006. Schieffer's tease:
"I'm Bob Schieffer. Bad news for the Republicans, as the President's approval rating falls to a new low, and public dissatisfaction with Congress is even worse. We'll start with what it may portend for the fall elections. Then, we'll cover these stories."Schieffer led his newscast with the poll, transcript corrected against the closed-captioning by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth:
Gloria Borger on Capitol Hill, with numbers on screen: "Bob, our new poll shows just why Democrats are starting to believe, as opposed to simply hope, that change is in the air. By wide margins, the public says Democrats would do a
Rep. Rahm Emmanuel (D-IL): "Enough is enough-"
Borger: "Congressman Rahm Emanuel runs the campaign committee for House Democrats, and he's got his talking points."
Emanuel: "People want change. They want new priorities. They're tired of the stewardship of government by one party that rubber-stamps the President's policies."
Lois Murphy, Democratic Congressional candidate to man at gas pump: "I wonder how you find the gas prices today?"
Man: "Oh, man. They're outrageous."
Borger: "Lois Murphy is a Democrat running to unseat Republican Jim Gerlach in suburban Philadelphia. She hopes that issues like gas prices translate into a national election."
Murphy: "It's time for a change, and I think people know that."
Borger: "But before Democrats get too giddy, it's a different political world than it was in 1994. While the Democrats need just 15 seats to win back the House, there aren't as many seats up for grabs because members have made sure most of their districts are safe. Republicans say the Democrats have no agenda."
Ed Gillespie: "American voters want to know what are you for."
Borger: "Ed Gillespie helped write the Republican Contract with America, the party's 1994 call to action."
Gillespie: "If we'd simply run against the Democrats in Congress and against Bill Clinton, we would not have won 52 seats in 1994."
Schieffer pushed McCain's candidacy: "You know, Gloria, one of the interesting things to me in this poll is that the major Democrats -- Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore -- all have unfavorable ratings that are more than their favorable ratings, just as George Bush and Dick Cheney do. Now, one Republican whose favorables are higher than his unfavorables are John McCain, but that may be because many Americans simply don't know enough about him yet to have an opinion."
Borger: "Yes. In fact, 53 percent said they don't really have an opinion of him. What this says to me, Bob, is that this is, of course, a wide-open race. And watch for the anti-establishment candidate to do very well."
Schieffer: "I think all incumbents should be nervous about this, Gloria. Thank you very much."
Now back to 1994. From Washington, DC on the Wednesday, November 2, 1994 CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Connie Chung, Rather introduced the poll story right after the show's first ad break:
“Here on Capitol Hill, no one needs reminding that it's less than a week to Election Day. Republicans expect a big triumph. The latest CBS News/New York Times poll out tonight indicates many voters are confused and definitely in a volatile mood. No surprise there. But what may surprise you is what the people in our poll indicate they'll do to act on their frustrations on Election Day. CBS News Chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer has the details.”
Bob Schieffer explained, over stock video of people and then numbers on screen:
“President Clinton's approval rating remains where it was when he was elected -- 43 percent -- but confidence in other officials continues to fade. Only one voter in five gave Congress a favorable rating [20 percent]. Only one in three [28 percent] knew his or her member of Congress by name. And many have apparently concluded it doesn't matter all that much who serves in Congress. Only 37 percent of the people we questioned thought their member of Congress deserved re-election, yet nearly half [48 percent] the people in our poll said they intended to vote for their member of Congress anyway.
“Overall, people have a higher opinion of Republicans than Democrats, but Republicans seem to be failing in their effort to make these elections a referendum on the President. Most people told us that what they think of the President will not influence their vote for other offices. So it's hard to gauge who'll be helped or hurt by all this gloom come Election Day, but one thing's sure, the optimism that marked the electorate two years ago when Bill Clinton won has evaporated. This time people are really in a sour mood. Bob Schieffer, CBS News, at the Capitol.”
Despite hiding the good news for Republicans in the poll, CBS producers must have realized what it meant since later in the half hour CBS aired a fairly derogatory profile of Newt Gingrich. Connie Chung set it up:
“Most Americans alive today had not yet been born the last time Republicans controlled the House of Representatives. Now, the GOP has its best shot in years to become the majority party. That could give Congressman Newt Gingrich the Speaker's gavel and send Democrats running for cover. Eric Engberg looks at the man who would be Speaker in tonight's Eye on America.”
Eric Engberg: "Meet Newt Gingrich, the Republican who is President Clinton's walking worst case scenario of what could happen in next Tuesday's elections."
Newt Gingrich, Republican Whip, to crowd: "I think the odds are better than even money as of today that we will have a majority and that we will have the first Republican Speaker in 40 years."
Engberg: "If he is reelected and the Republicans win the House, the Speaker's chair will belong to Gingrich who treats Democrats like a disease."
Engberg to Gingrich: "There are many of them that personally hate you. Why is that, why has it gotten so personal?"
Gingrich: "I think because they're unused to the idea that we would actually fight for control of the House. They want Republicans to be patsies. I think they are so arrogant and so out of touch, and so used to dominating, that they can't imagine a world in which they get to be in the minority for a change."
Engberg: "As Speaker, he could order investigations into every corner of the administration."
Gingrich: "Because the fact is, the Democrats in Congress have been covering up for this administration for two solid years."
Rep. Mike Synar (D-OK): "Newt Gingrich has spent the better part of the last decade trying to convince the American public -- and successfully to a degree -- that this is a place of corruption and scoundrels."
Engberg: "It was Gingrich who built the ethics case that toppled Jim Wright. That got Gingrich the number two job in the House Republican leadership, where he plotted to overthrow the Democrats."
Engbergto Gingrich: "Here is Gingrich on Gingrich: `I am the most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times,' as quoted in USA Today."
Gingrich: "'In Washington.'"
Engberg: "Oh, in modern times in Washington. How can you support that?"
Gingrich: "Look at my record."
Engberg: "It's a record filled with contradictions: the family values candidate who divorced his ailing first wife, the avowed enemy of dirty politics who bounced 22 checks at the House bank and runs a big-dollar political action committee that won't disclose its contributors. Gingrich now has a cable TV lecture series -- sort of Newt's World. [clip of Gingrich before his class] He has called the President the enemy of normal Americans but now he says he could work with the White House, could be a compromiser. Off the record, many Republicans doubt that and Democrats say it out loud."
Synar: "He's strictly been the political bulldog that the party has really rallied around over the last decade. And the question is whether or not he can move out of the political bulldog arena into the governing arena."
Engberg to Gingrich: "Why do you want to be the Speaker?"
Gingrich: "You can't sustain civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS, and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can't read. Now that's where we're at and so I think from the stand-point of renewing our civilization, we need very dramatic changes. I don't think you can get those changes with the same Democratic Party team that's been in charge for 40 years.
Engberg: "And Gingrich himself -- bombastic and ruthless -- would be the most dramatic change imaginable, a change the administration can only dread. For Eye on America, this is Eric Engberg in Roswell, Georgia."
