A lot of people like what Obama does until they are told that Obama is doing it. Then they hate it.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

Just saw this article in the Atlantic today discussed a survey about Obama’s stance on immigration:

the survey also found strong evidence of the power of partisanship at work among rank and file Americans. The survey split the sample into two demographically identical groups. The first group simply received the executive action on immigration and DREAM Act policy questions; the second group received the same verbatim questions, with a twist—the proposal was identified as “Obama’s policy.” The findings show a significant “Obama Effect” across both questions.

Helpful Chart

When there is no mention of Obama, two-thirds (67 percent) of Republicans favor allowing illegal immigrants who are parents of those with legal status to avoid deportation if they meet certain requirements. But when Obama is linked to the policy, support among Republicans drops 16 points to 51 percent. Support among independents also falls 13 points when Obama is linked to the policy, from 77 percent to 64 percent. Among Democrats, there is no statistically significant effect in support.

The “Obama Effect” is even more pronounced in attitudes about the DREAM Act. When Obama is not identified with the policy, six in ten (60 percent) Republicans favor allowing illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to gain legal resident status if they attend college or join the military. Once Obama is identified with the policy, Republican attitudes invert: Support plummets 23 points to only 37 percent, while opposition rises to nearly 6-in-10 (58 percent).

This mirrors what happened with the Affordable Care Act which people liked unless they called it ObamaCare:

MorningConsult polling found that there was widespread support for expanding Medicaid across the political spectrum. Seventy-one percent of respondents said it was a good idea, including a slim majority of Republicans. The pollsters asked, “Do you think all states should offer Medicaid to low income adults who make below the federal poverty line?”

But when they asked a slightly different question — “Do you think all states should expand Medicaid as encouraged under the Affordable Care Act?” — the response was quite different. Democrats still liked the idea, but with the mention of the ACA, Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment, support among Republicans and independents fell by 15 and 13 points, respectively.

While polls show that “Obamacare” and the “Affordable Care Act” are not popular with the public, Kaiser’s tracking poll has consistently shown that when the law’s individual provisions are explained, all but one — the individual mandate — enjoy broad popular support. And the most popular provisions are those that the fewest people are aware of.

Helpful Chart Here

Moyers & Company

Even when his actions in Iraq were polled, the Washington Post asked “Why is Obama’s foreign policy now polling like Obamacare?”

if one digs into the NYT/CBS poll, one finds that majorities of Americans support the specific steps that the Obama administration is proposing on Iraq. Fifty-one percent support sending in advisers to the Iraqi military, 56 percent support the greater use of drones, and 77 percent do not support sending in ground troops. Nevertheless, 52 percent of Americans disapprove of the overall Iraq policy. Indeed, the striking pattern is that when Americans are asked about concrete policies, majorities tend to support the administration’s position. When asked about overarching policy towards Iraq, or towards the rest of the world more generally, majorities now tend to dislike what the administration is doing. In other words, foreign policy is the new Obamacare when it comes to polling.

There seems to be a rather striking disconnect here. I don’t recall this phenomenon occurring before either - was there similar results when it came to any past Presidents where their political positions polled so markedly different just because the guy’s name was invoked?

Can anyone come up with any theories why President Obama can have ideas and political positions and actions that are generally liked - until you say that it’s his idea and then they change their minds?

[Little_Nemo]

Consider a flip side to this.

Here’s a recent thread about a paper that was issued on sentencing reform. And a lot of people here liked the proposals. But they were suspicious of the author, Charles Koch.

[adaher]

One flaw in that kind of polling is that it’s not actually asking about every individual aspect of his policies. It’s cherry picking a few. One could have asked during the Bush years, “Do you support Bush’s policy on AIDS in Africa? Do you support Bush’s programs to help the homeless? Do you support NCLB? Do you support the middle class tax cuts? Do you approve or disapprove of the Bush administration?”

Things look positive until you get to the last question.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

So you have a cute that this happened to Bush?

[adaher]

No, it did not happen to Bush. I’m not even sure it’s really happening to Obama. I just think that some pollsters are making some rather fundamentally wrong assumptions.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

I showed three separate surveys from three separate issues and all off then say the same thing. So yeah, I’m pretty sure it happens to Obama.

[adaher]

Only if you think the pollsters accurately described EVERY part of his policy that the public opposes in general but supports in pieces.

I like cheese, I like crust, I like sauce, but that doesn’t mean I like an anchovy pizza.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@adaher

Only if you think the pollsters accurately described EVERY part of his policy that the public opposes in general but supports in pieces.

I like cheese, I like crust, I like sauce, but that doesn’t mean I like an anchovy pizza.

Your analogy sucks and once again, there are three separate polls about three separate subjects. And you cannot provide evidence that this happened to any other president. So once again, your objections are easy to dismiss.

[TonySinclair]

@John_Stamos_Left_Ear

Can anyone come up with any theories why President Obama can have ideas and political positions and actions that are generally liked - until you say that it’s his idea and then they change their minds?

Sure — Fox News and right-wing radio. They have a huge audience, and they demonize him 24 hours a day. So anything he’s for must be bad.

Conversely, they rarely report on anything good about his actions or programs, so their audience is unaware that something that sounds good to them is one of his policies.

[Velocity]

It’s the usual “Policies are good, politicians are bad” mindset.
Bush policy - yay!..oh wait, it’s a Bush policy? never mind.
Obama policy - yay!..oh wait, it’s an Obama policy? never mind.
The same will probably happen to whoever is our next president.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@adaher

One flaw in that kind of polling is that it’s not actually asking about every individual aspect of his policies. It’s cherry picking a few. One could have asked during the Bush years, “Do you support Bush’s policy on AIDS in Africa? Do you support Bush’s programs to help the homeless? Do you support NCLB? Do you support the middle class tax cuts? Do you approve or disapprove of the Bush administration?”

Things look positive until you get to the last question.

The experiment is asking the question with and without linking it to Pres Obama. It’s irrelevant how much or little of the policy is explained. The results, showing a drop in support by polled Republicans when Obama’s name is mentioned, is the point, not the details of the policy.

[adaher]

“Do you think all states should offer Medicaid to low income adults who make below the federal poverty line?”

“Do you think all states should expand Medicaid as encouraged under the Affordable Care Act?”

These are not the same policies. The Medicaid expansion applies to Americans making up to 133% of the poverty line. Pollster error.

if one digs into the NYT/CBS poll, one finds that majorities of Americans support the specific steps that the Obama administration is proposing on Iraq. Fifty-one percent support sending in advisers to the Iraqi military, 56 percent support the greater use of drones, and 77 percent do not support sending in ground troops. Nevertheless, 52 percent of Americans disapprove of the overall Iraq policy. Indeed, the striking pattern is that when Americans are asked about concrete policies, majorities tend to support the administration’s position. When asked about overarching policy towards Iraq, or towards the rest of the world more generally, majorities now tend to dislike what the administration is doing. In other words, foreign policy is the new Obamacare when it comes to polling.

Cherry picking aspects of the policy and then asking about the overall policy.

The DREAM Act is the only example where attaching Obama’s name to it drops support, but that could be because he enacted the policy in the absence of a law allowing it.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

Adaher is such an expert on pollsters. Him and President Romney.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@Velocity

It’s the usual “Policies are good, politicians are bad” mindset.
Bush policy - yay!..oh wait, it’s a Bush policy? never mind.
Obama policy - yay!..oh wait, it’s an Obama policy? never mind.
The same will probably happen to whoever is our next president.

So you have evidence that it happened to Bush then?

[Buck_Godot]

@adaher

Cherry picking aspects of the policy and then asking about the overall policy.

No its not.

The question wasn’t,
“Are you in favor of allowing 26 year-olds to stay on their parents heath insurance”
vs.
“Do you like Obamacare”

It was

“Are you in favor of allowing 26 year-olds to stay on their parents heath insurance”
vs
“Are you in favor of Obama’s policy of allowing 26 year-olds to stay on their parents health insurance”

All cherry picking of policies, if any, occurs in both groups, and so won’t effect the results. That said, I find this result about as surprising as learning that football players tend to disagree with Ref calls that are against their team more than Ref calls that are in favor of their team.

[Hampshire]

@TonySinclair

Sure — Fox News and right-wing radio. They have a huge audience, and they demonize him 24 hours a day. So anything he’s for must be bad.

Pretty much this.
“So, what do you think of this new policy?”
“Looks good to me.”
“What if I told you it’s Obama’s policy?”
“Oh, now I hate it.”
“Why? What don’t you suddenly like about it?”
“I couldn’t say. But your not being fair to me.”
“Why am I not being fair?”
“You haven’t given me chance to find out why Fox News hates it.”

[Eonwe]

This just in: human beings who like to think they are rational and make decisions based on their smrts and free will are, in fact, just animals who believe all sorts of things that release the happy chemicals in our brains, and justify those with reasoning after the fact.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

During the 2008 election campaign, Howard Stern ran in piece in which one of his people went out and interviewed black people on the streets as to why they supported Obama. His questions were “Do you support Obama because of his position X?” and so on, for a number of policies, and got enthusiastic responses - “yes I support Obama because of his support for this or that position”. Catch was that all the positions that were attributed to Obama and accepted as reasons to support him were actually positions held by McCain, and opposed by Obama. (No doubt the responses that got on the air were cherry-picked, but at any rate the phenomenon exists.)

FWIW, I don’t see the drops in support cited in the OP as particularly dramatic. (Especially since there’s some wriggle room in that many times the issue depends on further details which are assumed to be one way or the other based on who is driving the issue.)

[steronz]

People don’t make rational decisions all the time. This is not a partisan statement, nor should it be controversial. My response to this post and the articles posted by the OP is, “Wow, that sucks that people do that. Do I do that? I bet I do that. Surely, I do, and Little Nemo even posted an example right off the bat. I should try not to do this stupid, irrational thing.”

And then other people attack the data. Those other people are conservatives. Coincidence?

[YogSothoth]

This is why we know Obama’s a great president. Even people who don’t like him like his policies.