PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT RIDICULOUS IMPEACHMENT!

There's a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll on impeachment, and NPR's spin is that it's a big waste of time.

Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Say Impeachment Hearings Won't Change Their Minds

The country is witnessing one of only a handful of times in its history that Congress has gone through with public hearings on whether to impeach a president. And yet, the overwhelming majority of Americans across parties say nothing they hear in the inquiry will change their minds on impeachment, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

An "overwhelming majority" can't be swayed? You mean, 90% or more of Americans are dug in?

No, not exactly.

... 65% of Americans say they can't imagine any information or circumstances during the impeachment inquiry where they might change their minds about their position on impeachment. Just 30% say, yes, it's possible.

So NPR wants to imply that this is pointless because all of America is stuck in partisan bubbles, even though nearly a third of Americans are persuadable, including nearly 4 in 10 independents?



I guess we can't let the facts ruin a good narrative.

I said it last week and I'll say it again: Remember Trump's 2016 margin of victory in key states.

Michigan: 0.23%

Pennsylvania: 0.72%

Wisconsin: 0.77%

Florida: 1.20%

It wouldn't take much persuasion to change the outcome in 2020.

****

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is doing what it regularly does -- selling its spin to the media as straight news -- and both Politico and Axios have taken the bait to varying degrees. The headline of Politico's story, "Trump Backers Test How to Eke Out a Post-Impeachment Victory," suggests that the campaign knows that the candidate is in trouble, but Politico's reporter, Gabby Orr, who retransmits a lot of the campaign's spin, mostly tees it up the way the campaign wants it teed up.

“It’s a waste of money.” “To say you don’t support it means you don’t think any president should be investigated for any problems.” “I’m not a Trump supporter by all means, but I totally disagree with what they’re doing.”

Those were among the reactions to the first week of public impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump when a group of swing voters agreed to provide their candid feedback to a pollster in Pittsburgh last Thursday. Their responses came during one of 18 focus groups conducted by America First Action since late October....

Notice that we get one quote favorable to impeachment, lest you think Orr has been fed nothing but data favorable to the Trump side -- although the other two quotes are anti-. In fact, the raw material Orr got to see was screened by the campaign.

(A POLITICO reporter viewed video clips and readouts that were pre-selected from more than 30 hours of footage gathered from the sessions — including some that contained anti-Trump comments from participants, who were all disclosed only with first names and last initials.)

So maybe we're getting a representative sample -- or maybe we're getting the most pro-Trump responses, with just enough anti-Trump response to keep it plausible. For instance:

In a focus group conducted after House Democrats took their impeachment inquiry public, participants were asked if they thought Trump should be impeached. Not a single person raised their hand, including a woman who later expressed broad disgust with the president’s behavior.

Yes, but you said there were 18 focus groups. What was the response to this question in the other 17?

We get a lot of reactions like this:

“I don’t like everything that he says. I think he’s an ass. I think he can be a sexist. I think he degrades women in how he talks to them, and African Americans, and everyone else. But at least he’s being up front with us,” said Jennifer S., a Clinton voter from Pennsylvania.

Others described the impeachment process as “a waste of time” or too complicated to digest. Two people in the Pittsburgh group perceived impeachment as an admission by Democrats that their party lacks electable candidates heading into the 2020 presidential contest....

“Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of stuff that I do not agree with around Donald Trump, but at the same time ... I feel as though the Democratic party — none of the people who are running are strong enough to take him on. That’s the problem,” said Tosha L., another Clinton voter.

The campaign did allow Orr to see pro-Elizabeth Warren and pro-Joe Biden statements from respondents (as well as one statement favorable to Tulsi Gabbard), but the spin is clear:

When participants were asked to weigh in on Trump, one clear theme emerged: the substance of his presidency was far more palatable than his governing style. It’s a trend consistently captured in polling of the 2020 race — particularly among suburban women who have recoiled at the president’s inflammatory race-related rhetoric, coarse language and trademark bravado — and one that his campaign team is no longer attempting to conceal.

“We recognize that 11 months out from the election, we are not going to get these voters to think that the president is a teddy bear,” said the America First official, adding that the super PAC’s goal is not “to rehab the president’s image.”

Instead of making next year’s election a personality contest, the president’s political team plans to overwhelm critical swing voters and independents with information about both his accomplishments and the positions embraced by the Democratic primary field.

“It’s going to be substance over style and we believe on the substance points, it’s a clear winner and that will overcome the president’s style,” the official said.

In fact, the campaign's message -- as seen in an ad run during the World Series -- is that Trump's alleged accomplishments are the result of his unpalatable personality. "He's no Mr. Nice Guy," the ad says, "but sometimes it takes a Donald Trump to change Washington."

pic.twitter.com/z0I7wBsgTP

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2019

Orr never explicitly says that the preponderance of focus-group evidence shows that swing voters oppose the impeachment process. An Axios story just says that flatly, offering no more evidence than the campaign's word:

The pro-Trump group America First says focus groups show that suburban swing voters — even some who strongly dislike President Trump — remain skeptical about impeachment.

Why it matters: These early findings will help shape Republican messaging about impeachment and Trump's top Democratic rivals.

The big takeaway from impeachment so far is that swing voters think Trump did things they don't like — but nothing impeachable, said Wes Anderson, co-founder of OnMessage Inc. and one of the pollsters who conducted the focus groups.

So there you go: Impeachment could still conceivably change a lot of minds, but Republicans are doing what they always do -- arguing that Democrats are at odds with what the American people want -- while the elite media is arguing that what Democrats are doing is not so much wrong as pointless. Let's hope Democrats and the impeachment process itself continue to counter the right and centrist spin.