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April 13, 2009
Evidence that about a quarter of political party members are partisan hacks*
Ben Bernanke is pretty much the same guy in 2009 that he was in 2008 and doing a similar sort of job. Yet we see that approximately 25% of both Republicans and Democrats has switched their confidence in the man from favorable to unfavorable or vice versa as the President he serves with has changed.
Percent Expressing Great Deal/Fair Amount of Confidence in Ben Bernanke:
Democrats Independents Republicans
2008 40 43 61
2009 64 44 36
The Partisan Public (Exhibit #14612)
How many of these people really think that he's doing a worse job now then he was last year? Since only 43 percent of American adults can name at least one justice who is currently serving on the nation’s highest court., and fewer than one in five know who the Senate Majority leader is and three out of ten can't name the Vice President, I'm skeptical that most of these people even know that Bernanke is the same guy who served under Bush, let alone have an informed opinion on how well he is doing his job. The best explanation is as Five Thirty Eight suggests, simple partisanship.
*- Not really, just evidence that 25% of the members of these two parties changed their opinion on a political official when the president changed even though that new president had nothing to do with that politician's appointment.
Posted by OneEyedMan at April 13, 2009 5:31 PM
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