The national phone survey of 772 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent, found that 52 percent believe government action would do more harm than good, and the remaining 48 percent supported change.

The poll showed a distinctly partisan split, as government action was preferred by 54 percent of Democrats, compared to only 40 percent of Republicans.

Women were far more likely to support health care reform. Nearly 58 percent of women would like to see change, compared to only 41 percent of men. The majority of both Republican and Democratic women supported reform (65 percent and 54 percent, respectively). Most Democratic men also supported reform (60 percent), but most Republican men did not (37 percent support).

“Women tend to align with the Democratic Party and its initiatives more so than men,” said Frederick Boehmke, associate professor of political science in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and faculty adviser for the Hawkeye Poll. “Fifty-three percent of women in our sample voted for Obama, compared to only 34 percent of men.”

Just over half of individuals with a high school education or less, some college, or a college degree believed health care reform would do more harm (51 percent, 52 percent and 53 percent, respectively). Those with advanced or professional degrees were most in favor of reform, with 54 percent agreeing that change is needed to control costs and expand coverage.

Respondents under age 35 appeared to be most opposed to health care reform, with 61 percent indicating that it would be a bad move, but the polling team cautioned that the number of respondents in this group was small. Adults ages 55 to 69 were most supportive of reform, with 53 percent saying they prefer it.

The poll also found that 52 percent of respondents disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing, a number that doesn’t surprise pollsters.

“It appears that Americans are frustrated by the lack of tangible legislative results, particularly on health care reform, and the lack of significant turnaround in unemployment since Obama took office,” said Nathan Darus, a UI doctoral candidate in political science. “New presidents are inexperienced as national-level executives. As they learn the ropes, they experience policy failures that play into disapproval.”

Of the 772 respondents, 46 percent were women and 54 percent were men. Twenty-nine percent were Democrats, 40 percent were independents, and 31 percent were Republican. Nearly 64 percent considered themselves moderate, while 20 percent were liberal and 16 percent were conservative. Reported results are weighted by state population.

“I don’t think it’s a referendum on Obama,” the Republican lawmaker said in a conference call with reporters. “I think it’s a — it’s a referendum on some of his programs — not that his programs are not well-intentioned, but are they working and, in some instances, are they going too far?”

Republicans won governorships in New Jersey and Virginia Tuesday night, two states Obama carried in 2008. The lesson of 2009 is that the GOP must court the independent voters who supported Obama but are not solid Democrats, Grassley said.

“You haven’t seen Republican numbers go up. You haven’t seen Democrat numbers go down,” Grassley said. So the real battle is for independents, and that is where the GOP can be victorious.

Grassley said he’s heard voters express a lot of fear in recent months, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect an anti-Obama mentality.

“I never hear anything bad about Obama,” Grassley said. “Now, maybe — maybe you can read a lot into ‘I’m scared’ as being anti-Obama, but nobody brings up that, you know, the Obama name very often, compared to the words ‘I’m scared.’”

Steve King

The Kiron Republican told Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV that he wants to be a part of the national debate over how to “refurbish the pillars of American exceptionalism.”

Whether he decides to join the GOP primary to take on President Obama in 2012, the party needs numerous candidates offering distinct visions on how to improve the country, with the winning candidate being able to “sort those visions and bring the best one forward.”

“We’re going to need a lot of help in 2012, and being in Iowa and from Iowa, representing Iowa in a strong district in Iowa gives me a platform to be able to articulate those arguments, and I tend to do that,” King said.” And we’ll see what happens.”

King’s presidential aspirations were first brought up by Minnesota’s controversial U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who told the Sioux City Journal’s Bret Hayworth that King “has been mentioned” as a potential candidate for president in 2012.

Bachman’s endorsement of a King candidacy came as no surprise to those familiar with the congresswoman’s political career, as she has repeatedly described as “stunning.”

Below is the video of WHO-TV’s interview with King. He discusses his presidential aspirations at 3:25.

According to a story in the Washington, D.C.,-based Roll Call, Grassley’s letter that a button on the site asking visitors to “state your support” for passing heath insurance reform this year could constitute a violation of rules against government-funded propaganda.

In a letter sent to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Tuesday, Grassley warned that “any possible misuse of appropriated funds by the executive branch to engage in publicity or propaganda in support of an Administration priority is a matter that must be investigated and taken seriously,” noting that in 2005 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) argued that “the use of official funds for similar activities were ‘underhanded tactics’ and that these tactics ‘are not worthy of our great democracy.’”

HHS spokesman Nick Papas told Roll Call that the agency looks forward to discussing the matter with Grassley.

According to The Des Moines Register:

Chinese communists swept to power in the last century without mentioning plans to nationalize businesses or institute forced abortions, Republican gubernatorial candidate Christian Fong told supporters of the Iowa Minuteman Civil Defense Corps on Saturday.

“They came in promising hope and change,” Fong said. “Sound familiar?”

This line of attack against the president is nothing new for some elements of the Republican base, but so far Fong has managed to strike a more moderate tone in his campaign, especially when discussing immigration.

In an interview with the Carroll Daily Times Herald earlier this month, Fong warned his party to be careful to “not sound so angry” when discussing immigration. And later in his speech to the Minutemen, Fong, the child of an immigrant from China and a woman from Nebraska, said the party’s message must be tempered with an acceptance of those who come into the country legally.

When he first entered the campaign in July, some of his positions were seen as potentially controversial to to Iowa’s conservative Republican base. He was even attacked by some in the social conservative movement for not openly condemning homosexuality as evil.

Insinuating that Obama will “nationalize businesses or institute forced abortions” appears to be Fong’s attempt to reach out to his party’s base and quiet down any criticism that still lingers about his political beliefs.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Photo: Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.com)

In an interview with Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer, Grassley said even if his other concerns, including insuring illegal immigrants and funding abortion, are soothed, the individual mandate is still a deal breaker.

Several Republican senators have raised concerns of late about the individual mandate, which require all Americans to carry health insurance or face financial penalties, though waivers or discounts would be provided for lower-income Americans.

Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen said Grassley is offering “principal-free opposition” and said “we’re well past the point of expecting intellectual seriousness or consistency from Sen. Chuck Grassley.”

“Why is ‘bipartisan’ health care reform impossible?” Benen asks. “Because leading GOP lawmakers like Chuck Grassley oppose the measures they support.”

Reform advocates say Grassley’s staunch opposition to individual mandates does not match his public rhetoric throughout the health care debate.

During a June 14 interview with Fox News, Grassley said there is a “bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates.”

“There isn’t anything wrong with it, except some people look at it as an infringement upon individual freedom,” Grassley said. “But when it comes to states requiring it for automobile insurance, the principle then ought to lie the same way for health insurance, because everybody has some health insurance costs, and if you aren’t insured, there’s no free lunch. Somebody else is paying for it.”

In August, during the height of health care debate around the country, Grassley told Nightly Business Report that individual mandates would foster individual responsibility, “and even Republicans believe in individual responsibility.”

Grassley spokeswoman Beth Pellett Levine said the senator has raised concerns about the individual mandate all summer in “senior-level, principal discussions” between the so-called “group of six.” She pointed an amendment offered by Grassley during the Finance Committee mark-up of health care legislation last month that would have let states opt out of the individual mandate, an amendment that was defeated on a party-line vote.

“The bottom line is that we should return to first principles when it comes to the freedoms that we enjoy in America,” Grassley said in a statement on Sept. 22.  “And consistent with that, certainly individuals should maintain their freedom to choose to whether to purchase health insurance coverage. And the individual mandate is not necessary. We can make this work without it. It may be what the powerful insurance companies demanded for obvious reasons but we don’t have to do it the way insurers want it done. All the reforms of insurance can be done with a reinsurance system instead of the individual mandate.”

Pellett Levin was also quick to point out that President Barack Obama campaigned as an opponent of the individual mandate. Last year, Obama said “if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house.”

Pellett Levin said Grassley’s summer interviews where he appears to support an individual mandate were simply the senator describing it, “as it was part of discussions over a possible bipartisan bill which would have required compromises on both sides.”

Martin, who has studied how the media covers labor and middle-class issues, was contacted by Dr. Peter Dreier, a professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles who has studied politics and urban issues, and asked if he would consider helping research how a little-known organization became such a magnet for media criticism.

“He asked me if I was aware of what was going on with ACORN, that there were allegations of them engaging in voter fraud during the election,” Martin said. “I told him that I had heard about it, but that I didn’t really know a lot about ACORN.”

In that respect, Martin wasn’t too different from most Americans. Prior to 2008, according to the study Martin co-authored with Dreier, few Americans had any real knowledge about the activities of ACORN, although it was the largest community organizing group in the nation with chapters in 110 cities in 40 states. And although the organization was founded and continues to organize around issues of interest to low- and moderate-income Americans — issues such as affordable housing, veterans’ rights, predatory lending, school lunches, public transportation and living wages — the vast majority of the the news reports on ACORN focused on allegations of wrongdoing.

“The more we looked into it, it just seemed like these allegations may have been unfair,” Martin said. ” [The allegations] were happening in the mainstream media, but it seemed like they may have been coming from more conservative sources.”

Martin and Dreier found that despite ACORN’s involvement in a wide variety of activities throughout the country, the dominant focus of news reports about the organization was “voter fraud.” During 2007 and 2008, 55 percent of the 647 news stories published about ACORN in 15 mainstream outlets focused on alleged voter fraud. In October 2008 alone, 76 percent of the stories about ACORN were negative, also focusing on allegations of voter fraud. Notably, more than 80 percent of those news reports failed to provide all the facts: That actual voter fraud is very rare; that ACORN itself reported the voter registration irregularities to authorities as they were required to do by law; that ACORN was acting to stop incident of registration problems by temporary staff member; and that Republicans had been targeting ACORN registration efforts because most of the urban and ethnic individuals registered by the organization were registering as Democrats.

“The Republican Party has been working against ACORN,” Martin said and then gave a quick self-conscious laugh. “I know it sounds like some crazy conspiracy, but it actually became very clear in August when released records showed that there was meddling during the [George W.] Bush administration in the Justice Department.”

The 5,000 pages of White House and Republican National Committee e-mail messages and transcripts of closed-door testimony, referenced by Martin, were released by the House Judiciary Committee on Aug. 11. The documents revealed that Karl Rove, former Bush senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, played a central role in the firing of David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, for failing to help Republican election prospects by prosecuting alleged instances of voter fraud by ACORN. And, while nearly every major news outlet reported on the documents, the study authors discovered that none of the news outlets mentioned that Rove was specifically focused on attacking ACORN for its voter registration efforts.

The allegations launched against ACORN and unceremoniously regurgitated by the mainstream media were not, however, limited to Republican Party talking points.

“We describe in the study how the stories about ACORN emerges in two prongs,” Martin said, indicating that there were both Republican and business interests taking aim at the group.

“There are business groups that have funded efforts against ACORN over the past several years. They haven’t liked ACORN because ACORN has endorsed things like living-wage campaigns and raise-the-minimum-wage campaigns in service industries like restaurants. So, there have also been groups working against ACORN that way.”

Were this simply an isolated example of media complicity (witting or unwitting) with political organizations, the attack on ACORN would be interest only to ACORN, its allies and detractors. But this case has wider implications.

Our analysis of the narrative framing of the ACORN stories demonstrates that — despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas — the news media is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story.

“I think the mainstream media in many cases is overly sensitive to the charge of ‘liberal media,’” Martin said. “They go out of their way to avoid being seen that way. What was clear in our study was that the mainstream media took many of the same frames from the conservative media and the Republican Party and put those out the exact same way without any additional fact-checking or commentary.”

In the study, Martin and Dreier lay out their case that the stories about ACORN were crafted and tested within the right-wing echo chamber before being pushed into the mainstream media during October 2008, just weeks ahead of the November presidential election. It was a classic “October Surprise” that Martin and Dreier believe would have garnered more traction had it not been for other stories considered more pressing by the public and media, particularly the economic downturn.

The study also asserts that when faced with the reality that the economy was going to drive news cycles, conservative “opinion entrepreneurs” sought to blame ACORN for the decline.

“ACORN has become this huge, kind of proxy for going after [President] Obama,” Martin said.

“I don’t think there would have been the same connections if Hillary Clinton had been the Democratic nominee … You had these long-standing attacks against ACORN, and they really tried to target Obama with allegations that he was a socialist, a radical and connected to groups like ACORN that they had already managed to paint with those same types of words. And actually, his connection is fairly minor. They’ve tried to suggest that he is almost leading the entire organization, but it just wasn’t anything to that degree.”

Martin and Dreier also note that while other controversies surrounding Obama’s candidacy have faded in the wake of the presidential election and inauguration, attacks on ACORN and even the misplaced links between Obama and ACORN have remained consistent. In May 2009, for example, the GOP launched a Web site that specifically targeted ACORN and, earlier in the year, Republican elected officials falsely claimed that billions in stimulus money was earmarked for ACORN. In fact, just last week, Iowa’s own U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) stood before the House of Representatives with a Soviet-styled poster of Obama behind him and proclaimed the president is “the star of ACORN.”

“He is the lead, chief organizer,” King asserted while using a metal pointer to poke at the depiction of the president. “He is the person who told the people at ACORN, ‘I will invite you in — and we will be setting the agenda for America,’ even before he was inaugurated as president of the United States. This is the man who worked for ACORN.”

The congressional action in relation to ACORN, which has been mostly regulated to Republicans railing against the organization and funding cuts, began shortly after undercover videos were published by a conservative blogger that portray ACORN employees offering illegal advice to a prostitute and a pimp.

“Our study was completed in August, and we just released it as this was happening,” Martin said. “The current controversy follows the same formula that we document in the study. That is, the attacks on ACORN begin within the Republican Party and the right-wing echo chamber, where they frame ACORN as this radical, left-wing, corrupt organization.”

The videos, like all of the allegations that have been made against ACORN, are of questionable origin and have not been vetted or fact-checked by credible sources. For instance, to what extent the videos have been edited is only known to the persons who created them — individuals who did not necessarily go out with the intent of reporting what is happening, but with the intent of creating a story that would serve as an indictment of the organization they secretly filmed.

“Having said all of this, neither one of us is an apologist for ACORN,” said Martin, speaking for both himself and study co-author Dreier. “Clearly there are some bad things that happened with ACORN employees, but there isn’t any evidence of a top-down, ACORN-wide conspiracy to do fraudulent tax returns or anything like that.

“I’m not trying to say that there isn’t some truth to those [videos], but I think we need to have the whole story and much more context as to what is going on in those videos. People are drawing the conclusion that ACORN is a completely bad organization because of these videos, and I think that is the wrong conclusion. All those videos show is that ACORN may have some problems in terms of hiring and training employees at certain locations. They have more than 100 chapters across the country, and I don’t think these videos indict every single one of these chapters or the national organization.”

As the nation’s largest network of community organizers, ACORN is able to tackle local, state and national issues simultaneously on behalf of populations that are too often unable to advocate for themselves. If conservative efforts are successful and ACORN is dismantled, Martin fears that there is no other group in a position to advocate for the same causes on the same scale.

“If ACORN was completely decimated, it would be difficult. There would be a real void,” he said.

If the organization survives the onslaught and continues to impact future elections through its voter registration program, Martin believes the attacks will continue, because its opponents are not going anywhere.

“I think the attacks on ACORN have been part of trying to take out an organization that the Republicans see as being beneficial to the Democratic Party. Not that ACORN is partisan, but they organize and register voters in mostly urban areas who tend to be mostly Latinos and African Americans who tend to mostly vote Democratic,” he said. “From the [Republican] Party’s point of view, that’s what they don’t like about ACORN. They would be happy to take ACORN out. They tried to do that in 2006. They tried to do that in 2008. I’m sure we’re going to see that again in 2010 and 2012.”

Politico reports that the letter is being circulated with the hopes of encouraging Wilson to “reject all demands for additional redress,” saying the push for further disciplinary action by Democrats is nothing but a partisan attack since he has already apologized and President Barack Obama has already accepted it.

While King says Wilson showed a “lack of civility” and was correct in apologizing, he said he was also correct in his statement that Obama was lying about whether health care legislation would cover illegal immigrants. The claim that proposed health care legislation would cover individuals who are in the country illegally has been widely discredited.

Here is the letter, from Politico, along with the message King sent to members of Congress:

Joe Wilson is taking a lot of heat and some of it is coming from Republicans. He may be the subject of a disciplinary resolution on the House floor as early as Tuesday. We all know Joe for the officer and gentleman that he is. I have penned a letter to him that urges him to stand his ground. It also points out that President Obama accused “prominent politicians” of lying in the sentence just prior to Joe’s outburst.

Just answer my e-mail with “put me on” and I will do the rest. Joe needs you now.

Thank you,

Steve King

********************************

Dear Joe [or Dear Rep. Wilson],

We, your colleagues in the House, stand beside you. During the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress, we had just heard President Obama declare “prominent politicians” to be liars for disagreeing with him on healthcare. You, and we, knew his statement that healthcare legislation would not fund illegal immigrants was not supported by the facts, especially in light of two House committee votes, the Congressional Budget Office, and a Congressional Research Service report. However, we agree with your statement on your lack of civility and with your response.

Your immediate call and apology to the White House was the appropriate and an adequate response, especially because your apology was immediately accepted. No further action is required. We urge that you hold your ground against those who seek partisan advantage and reject all demands for additional redress. When the President of the United States accepts an apology, no observer has an additional claim. Like you, we will not be muzzled and we will work together to ensure that Americans have full access to the truth about the proposals before Congress.

Sincerely,

‘XXXXX

As Obama delivered his live address today, hundreds of school board members and candidates were trying to win elections across the state.

Most students here will not be deprived of the chance to see the nation’s first black president address their concerns directly. In 80 years, they will be able to tell their grandchildren that they remember the moment, even if they end up disagreeing with all of Obama’s political beliefs. But some students will be denied the opportunity, as school districts have accommodated conservative parents by making the speech optional. In some districts, only students whose teachers are willing to risk backlash by showing the speech on a tape delay will see it.

It’s as if parents think that today is the only day that President Obama’s name will be uttered in public school classrooms — that the identity of the leader of the free world remains a secret to schoolchildren on every other day.

That’s ridiculous. Students read age-appropriate newspaper articles that quote the president all the time in the course of their studies. Many schools likely aired the president’s inaugural address in January without objection.

But, because school board elections are held at this time of year in many states across the country, today’s speech sparked a political firestorm.

It’s no secret that the fringe conservative groups who have spearheaded the recent movement to prevent students from seeing Obama’s speech consider school boards an important battleground. In Iowa, many school districts claim members who oppose teaching students about evolution, a fairly basic tenet of biology. Some districts have refused to enact measures to end bullying of students based on sexual orientation, even after the state legislature required them to do so. One district in Iowa has gone as far as to implement a Bible studies curriculum in public schools.

Fights that you might think the Supreme Court settled decades ago are still being waged in many corners of the Hawkeye State, and the number of parents choosing to homeschool their children continues to increase (pdf). Though a strong public education system is perhaps the most important tool for achieving equality and upward mobility in the United States today, professional educators and school board members who want to keep their students on the same page as students in other districts across the country often find themselves battling uphill.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that at least some of the conservative groups lining up to oppose Obama’s speech are hoping that it will translate into votes for their candidates on the ground. School board elections are usually low-turnout affairs, in which the results reflect the preconceptions of the few citizens who take the time to vote rather than a broad consensus of all members of the community. Even in traditionally liberal parts of the country, a riled conservative base can swing a race from one candidate to another.

In Iowa, school districts have bent over backwards to allow parents to shield their children from the president, so the impact may not be so dramatic. But I wonder, if Obama’s speech was scheduled for next month instead of today, whether the opposition would have been as vitriolic.

Gross, who served as a top aide to former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad and was his party’s 2002 gubernatorial nominee, has been releasing the results of his latest round of surveys, conducted July 23-26, this week. Today, he released favorability numbers (pdf) for Gov. Chet Culver, former governors Tom Vilsack and Branstad, and a slew of Republicans who could be on the gubernatorial primary ballot next year.

While Branstad’s numbers look good, the rest of the GOP gubernatorial field continues to languish in relative obscurity. Culver, the incumbent, still appears to be in a decent position ahead of next year’s election.

The results, compiled by Republican pollsters at Hill Research Consultants, peg Culver’s favorability rating among likely Iowa voters at 52 percent. 38 percent view the current governor unfavorably, with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.

Branstad, who was governor for four terms during the 1980s and 1990s and is rumored to be considering a return to politics, is viewed favorably by 68 percent and unfavorably by 15 percent of likely voters.

In between Culver and Branstad are Vilsack, who is viewed favorably by 55 percent and unfavorably by 25 percent, and President Barack Obama, who is viewed favorably by 56 percent and unfavorably by 38 percent.

Culver, Branstad, Vilsack, and Obama all enjoy high name recognition. Vilsack is known by 89 percent of likely voters, Branstad is known by 90 percent, Culver is known by 96 percent, and Obama is known by 99 percent.

None of the other names that the poll asked about — state Rep. Chris Rants (R-Sioux City), social conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats (R-Sioux City), state Sen. Paul McKinley (R-Chariton), Poweshiek County Attorney Mike Mahaffey (R-Montezuma), state Rep. Rod Roberts (R-Carroll), and business executive Christian Fong (R-Cedar Rapids) — has the same level of name recognition. Vander Plaats comes closest with 60 percent, followed by Rants and Mahaffey, who are hovering near 40 percent. None of the other candidates crack 30 percent. For that reason, the favorability numbers for those candidates probably don’t mean a lot, since voters still have a lot to learn about all of them.

Moreover, based on the way the question was phrased, I suspect all of the name recognition numbers are slightly inflated, because poll respondents had to volunteer the fact that they didn’t recognize a name while answering the favorable/unfavorable question in order for a “no” to register.

What is interesting, I think, is that Culver and Obama both achieve similar numbers in the poll. Obama seems to elicit more passionate responses from likely voters, as illustrated by the higher numbers of “very favorable” and “very unfavorable” opinions expressed by respondents, which is to be expected at a time when the country is focused on the national health reform debate rather than on state-level issues. Notably, both figures are rated favorably by more than 50 percent of the electorate, which is good news for Democrats.

It’s true, Branstad’s favorability numbers eclipse Culver’s (and everyone else’s), but that isn’t much of a surprise. When a four-term governor leaves politics for 11 years, voters’ memories can become pretty selective. In 1990, ten years after Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 presidential election, the Georgia Democrat enjoyed a 67 percent favorability rating nationwide, compared to 62 percent for Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter and served two terms. Does that mean that Carter would have won if he had run again in 1992? Probably not.

In state-level politics, name recognition is arguably the most important indicator of a candidate’s strength, not favorability.

If a candidate like Fong, whose name recognition is at 26 percent, wins the primary and hopes to close the gap with Culver, he will have to buy a lot of expensive statewide advertising just to introduce himself. Culver, who doesn’t need to introduce himself to voters, will be free to spend his advertising budget defining Fong negatively to the three fourths of the electorate that does not yet know him.

This dynamic puts lesser-known candidates at a significant disadvantage, and it may help explain why incumbents win re-election so often.

Of course, the election is a long way away, and a lot can change in a year. But as things stand now, Culver’s chances of winning a second term don’t look so bad. Branstad is Culver’s biggest threat simply based on name recognition, but opinions of him are likely to shift over the course of a protracted Republican primary.