Public Policy Polling, the first national pollster to start asking about Occupy Wall Street, finds the movement’s image suffering as the Tea Party’s image marginally recovers. Here’s the new poll; here’s the poll from October 13. The trends:
Do you support or oppose the goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement?
Support: 33% (-2)
Oppose: 45% (+9)
Do you have a higher opinion of the Occupy Wall Street movement or the Tea Party movement?
Occupy: 37% (-3)
Tea Party: 43% (+3)
Bad enough for liberals; worse is an overall rise in enthusiasm for conservative projects.
Do you support or oppose the goals of the Tea Party movement?
Support: 42% (+3)
Oppose: 45% (+0)
Do you think the Republicans are doing a better job than the Democrats did while in charge of the House of Representatives, a worse job, or about the same?
A better job: 37% (+5)
A worse job: 41% (-4)
About the same: 21% (-1)
PPP doesn’t go into the reasons for the drop in Occupy support and rise in conservative support, but I think we all remember the 1960s, don’t we? This is a classic reaction to scenes of Occupiers clashing with cities and police who want to clear them out. It’s a reflection of a steady thrum-thrum of viral Internet articles and local news reports about the dark side of Occupation – Kalle Lasn’s crazy anti-Jewish rant from 2002, the popular Fox News stories about ACORN running the movement, reports of sexual assault, etc. Hey, this is why the chin-stroking left (which includes AdBusters!) is talking about moving beyong camps.
