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Dramatic New Poll Results On Affirmative Action

One thing you can?t say about the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress: that they govern by the polls. They pushed through Obamacare, even though a substantial majority opposed it. They are suing Arizona over its attempt to protect itself from illegal immigrants, even though a substantial majority supports the Arizona law. And they are about to pass and sign the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, which as I discussed last week (The Coming Quota Tsunami) will create a massive new federal bureaucracy to impose ?diversity? on the financial sector of our economy even though a substantial majority opposes affirmative action.

Yes, ?affirmative action.? In the past most surveys found that pluralities approved of ?affirmative action? but opposed virtually all affirmative action policies when those policies were described. In a dramatic new survey, however, pollster Scott Rasmussen finds strong popular opposition even to ?affirmative action,? not simply to preferential treatment.

Here are his two main toplines:

1. Do you favor or oppose Affirmative Action programs?

32% Favor
46% Oppose
22% Not sure

2. Okay, do you favor or oppose government programs that give special treatment when hiring to women and minorities?

29% Favor
55% Oppose
15% Not sure

Treating people differently based on their race would be wrong even if it were popular. Perhaps politicians can?t be expected to act on differences between right and wrong, but you?d think they would care more than Democrats seem to these days about what most people believe. Indeed, Rasmussen finds a stark divide between what he defined last January as the ?political class? and mainstream voters, and in his affirmative action survey he found ?striking? differences. ?Seventy-one percent (71%) of the Political Class favor affirmative action, but 55% of Mainstream voters oppose it.?

On affirmative action, the Democrats and their enablers in the NAACP are definitely not in the mainstream.

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 15, 2010 (boomark / email).