T H E E X A M I N ER12 W EDN E SDAY, J U LY 8 , 2009
T
he financial system collapsed. Hous-
ing prices cratered. Unemployment is
at a record high for the last quarter-
century. The Democratic president
has a solidly positive job rating.
And yet we Americans have not suddenly
become collectivists. The economic distress
of the 1930s led Americans to favor less reli-
ance on markets and more on government. The
economic distress of the 1970s led Americans
to favor less reliance on government and more
on markets. It doesn't seem unreasonable to
expect, as many political liberals have been
predicting, that the economic distress of the
late 2000s will produce a shift in the 1930s
direction. But it doesn't seem to have hap-
pened yet.
Or so the polling evidence tells us. Last
month's Washington Post/ABC poll reported
that Americans favor smaller government with
fewer services to larger government with more
services by a 54 percent to 41 percent margin
-- a slight uptick since 2004. The percentage
of independents favoring small government
rose to 61 percent from 52 percent in 2008. The
June NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reported
that, even amid recession, 58 percent worry
more about keeping the budget deficit down
versus 35 percent worried more about boosting
the economy. A similar question in the June
CBS/New York Times poll showed a 52 percent
to 41 percent split.
Other polls show a resistance to specific
Democratic proposals. Pollster Whit Ayres
reports that 58 percent of voters agree that
reforming health care, while important, should
be done without raising taxes or increasing
the deficit. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports
that 56 percent of Americans are unwilling to
pay more in taxes or utility rates to generate
cleaner energy and fight global warming.
It's interesting that on these issues and
many others, independents are responding
more like Republicans than Democrats. That's
the opposite of what we saw up through 2008,
when independents were almost as critical of
the Bush administration and Republican poli-
cies as Democrats.
This apparent recoil against big-government
policies has not gone unnoticed by Americans.
Gallup reported earlier this week that 39 per-
cent of Americans say their views on political
issueshavegrownmoreconservative,whileonly
18 say they have grown more liberal. Moderates
agreed by a 33 percent to 18 percent margin.
Voters continue to think pretty highly of
Barack Obama. But these numbers suggest
that they are responding more negatively to
Democratic proposals that have a chance at
passage than they did to Democratic platform
planks that were, until the 2008 election, only
political rhetoric. The $787 billion stimulus
package, the cap-and-trade bill's utility rate
increases, the public health insurance package
-- all these seem to generate more apprehen-
sion than enthusiasm.
So does the prospect of doubling the
national debt, as the Congressional Budget
Office estimates, from about 40 percent of
gross domestic product to about 80 percent.
That's about where it ended up after World
War II. Americans evidently regard our cur-
rent economic situation, though negative, as
not enough to justify the magnitude of deficit
spending that was appropriate in an all-out
world war.
I have been pleasantly (and others have been
unpleasantly) surprised by our fellow citizens'
unwillingness to embrace bigger government
in a time of economic distress. American his-
tory -- the New Deal -- has disposed us to
consider such a shift natural. But it was not
universal even in the 1930s. In that decade vot-
ers in Britain, Canada and Australia preferred
parties opposed to bigger government, even as
voters in the United States, France and New
Zealand went the other way. And polling sug-
gested that Americans by the late 1930s had
become wary of the New Deal.
I think the shift in reliance from markets
to government in the 1930s or the other way
around in the 1970s was not fully completed
until the next decades, when Americans saw
the success of big-government policies during
World War II and the unexpected economic
boom that resulted from low taxes in the 1980s.
Those successes were also successes of Ameri-
can policy in the world -- the defeat of Nazism
in 1945, and the fall of communism in 1989.
It's still possible for American attitudes to
shift, if the Democrats' economic policies are
passed and are seen to revive the economy.
But it hasn't happened yet. Instead Americans
seem to be recoiling against big government
when it threatens to become a reality rather
than a campaign promise.
Getting cold feet over Democratic proposals
Defends decision
to step down
By Dan Joling
The Associated Press
KOTZEBUE, ALASKA � Sarah Palin says
she's not a quitter, she's a fighter, but
adds that, politically speaking, "if I
die, I die. So be it."
Sporting fishing waders and a T-
shirt, Palin defended her decision
to resign as Alaska governor in half
a dozen interviews broadcast and
published Tuesday morning. The
former vice presidential candidate
invited media outlets to Dillingham,
an Alaska town of about 2,500, where
she was fishing with her husband,
Todd, and children.
Palin wouldn't rule out a 2012
presidential run, and told CNN that
"all options are on the table" for her
future.
"I don't know what doors will be
open or closed by then," the Repub-
lican told Time magazine. "I was
tellingToddtoday,Iwassaying,`Man,
I wish we could predict the next fish
run so that we know when to be out
on the water.' We can't predict the
next fish run, much less what's going
to happen in 2012."
But she told ABC's "Good Morn-
ing America" that she recognizes
she might not have political staying
power after her surprise resignation
Friday, which came just as she had
been expected to elevate her national
profile ahead of a possible 2012 GOP
presidential run. "I said before ... `You
know, politically speaking, if I die, I
die. So be it,' " she said.
"I'm not going to take the com-
fortable path. I'm going to take the
right path for the state," she said of
her resignation, which she character-
ized as a matter of progressing in an
unconventional way.
"That caught people off guard. ...
It'soutoftheboxandunconventional.
That's what we are as Alaskans and
certainly how I am as a public ser-
vant."
Palin criticized President Barack
Obama, a possible sign she's looking
toward the 2012 presidential race.
"President Obama is growing
government outrageously, and it's
immoral and it's uneconomic, his
plan that he tries to sell America,"
Palin told Time. "His plan to `put
America on the right track' eco-
nomically, incurring the debt that
our nation is incurring, trillions of
dollars that we're passing on to our
kids, expecting them to pay off for
us, is immoral and doesn't even make
economic sense."
The outgoing Alaska governor
told the Anchorage Daily News she
stepped down because ethics com-
plaints against her and her squabbles
with lawmakers would have para-
lyzed the 18 months she had left in
office.
"Especially when all these law-
makers are lining up for office," she
said. "Their desire would be to clob-
ber the administration left and right
so that they can position themselves
for office. I'm not going to put Alas-
kans through that."
She told the paper she believes
her replacement, Lt. Gov. Sean
Parnell, who will take office on July
26, will defuse the controversy that
surrounds her. "With Sean in the
governor's seat, it won't be the poli-
tics of personal destruction, I don't
believe," Palin said.
She added she wasn't sure what
her next step would be.
"I can't predict the next fish run
much less what's going to happen in
a few years," she told the Daily News.
"I don't know what I'm going to do.
I'm going to keep working hard for
Alaska."
Palin: Politically speaking, `If I die, I die'
NEWSMAKERS
Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political
analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washing
tonexaminer.com. His column appears Wednes-
day and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts
appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
MICHAEL
BARONE
President Barack Obama's job
approval ratings reached a new
all-time low of 52 percent with a
new all-time high for those strongly
disapproving of his job performance
at 36 percent. Meanwhile, the down-
ward trend for approval of the state
of the nation continues.
PRESIDENTIAL
RATING
Approve
Disapprove
Undecided
(RASMUSSEN REPORTS)
STATE OF NATION
RATING
Approve
Disapprove
Undecided
(GALLUP)
APPROVAL RATINGS
% 1 WK AGO
54
46
1
% NOW
52
47
1
% 1 WK AGO
31
61
4
% NOW
29
68
3
POLITICS
MARCO RUBIO
The former Florida House speaker took in only
$340,000 in second-quarter fundraising in his race
for the 2010 Republican Senate nomination against
establishment pick Gov. Charlie Crist. Despite the
ardent support of many social and fiscal conserva-
tives, such as former presidential candidate Mike
Huckabee, financial backing for Rubio has failed
to materialize, underscoring his status as the
underdog. Crist raised $3 million in just six weeks
after announcing his candidacy for the seat retiring
Republican Sen. Mel Martinez will be vacating.
MARK SANFORD
The South Carolina Republican Party helped
Gov. Mark Sanford's bid to stay in office fol-
lowing the revelation of a lengthy affair with
an Argentine businesswoman by voting to
censure the governor, officially registering their
disapproval, but falling short of a vote to call
for his resignation. The state GOP executive
committee issued a statement saying Sanford
breached "the public's trust and confidence."
The committee added that the censure vote
would by the party's last word on the matter.
ROB PORTMAN
The former GOP congressman is in striking
distance of his likely Democratic opponents,
trailing by less than four points in the 2010 Ohio
Senate race for the seat of retiring Republican
Sen. George Voinovich, according to the latest
Quinnipiac poll. Though Portman might prefer
to be in the lead, he can take heart that the
same poll revealed President Barack Obama's
approval rating in the key battleground state
has plummeted 13 points since May to 49 per-
cent, the lowest point since his inauguration.

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