In the light of the results of yesterday’s special selection in Massachusetts, the fate of the healthcare bill recently passed by the Senate appears to be uncertain. Pending the seating of the newest senator from Massachusetts, Democrats have lost their 60 vote supermajority in the Senate, which limits their ability to use cloture against Republican filibuster. Thus, it appears that any route to passing the healthcare bill that involves the Senate has a significantly lower chance of accomplishing its goal.

Many have argued that House leadership should pass the healthcare bill that already passed Senate unchanged and work out some of its weakness later using reconciliation. These analysts have usually taken the position that passing the healthcare bill will benefit the Democrats in the long run, regardless of how unpopular that might be at this particular moment. On the other hand, some have argued that the decline in Democrats’ unpopularity is a result of pushing an unpopular healthcare bill to begin with, so actually passing it would make things worse, not better, for the Democrats.

What do you think will happen to the healthcare bill? Do you think the House will vote for the Senate bill and do you think it will pass it? Do you think political consequences of passing the bill would be for the dynamic between Democratic and Republican party?

Zeljka future, health, politics

President Obama has recently proposed taxing the largest financial institutions with the goal of recovering some of the costs of the bank bailouts of the past years. As usual, this has elicited mixed reactions. Many, including some notable economists, have supported the idea. However, many of those more critically inclined dismissed it as transparent political ploy constructed to enhance the government’s popularity by attacking highly unpopular business.

What is your view of the President Obama’s proposal? Do you think the proposal will help lower the deficit? Do you believe that TARP program saved us from disaster or do you think we would have been better off without it?

Zeljka future, politics

According to our the Zogby Interactive survey of 2,789 likely voters nationwide, president Obama’s approval is at 47%. This marks a fourth consecutive month with the president’s Obama approval rating below 50%.

What factor do you think was the most significant factors in the loss of popularity he experienced since his inauguration. Do you think his approval rating will rebound or fall in 2010?

Zeljka future, politics

After almost two weeks of discussion, the Copenhagen conference on climate change is over. A discussion over what it accomplished is still ongoing.

Commentators can be roughly divided into those who think that the conference accomplished something significant and those who think it didn’t. Within each group, however, there is a considerable disagreement regarding whether that is a good or a bad thing. As a result, one can find those with radically different views of climate change agreeing that the Copenhagen conference accomplished very little.

What is your view of the Copenhagen run-down? Do you think it accomplished what it set to accomplish and did you approve of what it set to accomplish in the first place? Do you think that the next conference will accomplish more or less in its goal of limiting carbon emissions?

Zeljka environment, future, international

As the Copenhagen conference heats up, a new proposal has been brought to the table: a planet-wide limit on the number of children people can have. The rather straightforward rationale, as explained by both a Chinese official and a Canadian journalist, is that smaller human population could significantly reduce greenhouse emissions. Needless to say, this has sparked considerable controversy.

In our work on socio-economic intutions, we have discovered that liberals and conservatives have a very different understanding of the role that rising population plays in wealth creation. Specifically, progressives and liberals are much more likely to endorse a Malthusian view that growing number of humans decreases  mankind’s wealth, while conservative and very conservative voters are much more likely to follow a Hayekian conclusion that increasing number of humans leads to greater wealth for all. Here are the results, based on a Zogby Interactive poll of almost 5,000 likely voters.

Zeljka economics, environment, future, global issues, ideology, international

Last week a number of sources have reported that thousands of emails as well as some computer codes from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University have been hacked and made public. The email correspondence among some of the leading climate scientists appears to show that they have tried to prevent dissenting opinions from appearing in peer-reviewed journals and prevent their data from becoming public.  The computer code used to analyze the data has also increasingly been subjected to scrutiny and some have raised doubts that data have been massaged to fit the preconceived message rather than assess the truth of the matter. Even a congressional investigation is not out of question.

However, some commentators have stressed that correspondence has been obtained illegally and argued that the thesis that global warming exists and is caused by human activity is not in danger. According to this view, the science in support of global warming is based on theoretical and empirical arguments that are broader and deeper than those of data and papers coming from CRU.

What is your view of the events surrounding revelation of emails and code at the CRU? Our March survey showed majority of Americans supporting the broad outline of the President’s environmental agenda. Do you think recent events will influence this support and did it influence your own? Do you believe that they will have a consequence for the climate science specifically and scientific research more generally?

Zeljka environment, future, global issues, international, science

We at Zogby have noticed that it is not uncommon for political analysts to treat moderate and independent voters as equivalent. However, in our recent Huffington Post article, we show that these two groups, while overlapping, are not the same. And in the case where main parties are strategizing to attract more voters, this distinction can be important.

Moderates are an ideological group that sits in the middle of ideological continuum between conservatives and liberals. On the other hand, independents are a group of people that doesn’t belong to the two main parties. Many of them are ideologically moderate, but important numbers of them aren’t, and the overall ideology of independents is tilted towards the right.

This fact is relevant for the discussion of whether Republican Party should become more or less conservative. On one hand, its members clearly want it to be more conservative, and this could attract some independent conservatives. On the other hand, if it moves too far, it will alienate independent moderates, a crucial swing-vote.

So the answer is, in a sense, that it should be both. This might sound impossible, but look at the Democrats! They have managed to capture both moderates and liberals.  Such a large coalition is not always the easiest thing to manage but it is the only way for either party to be in power.

Zeljka future, ideology, politics ideology, war, zogby

The November election is fast approaching and multiple races are gaining steam. One of those battles is a special election in our own neighborhood, New York’s 23th Congressional District, where a three-way race features Democrat Bill Owens, a Republican Dede Scozzafava, and one Doug Hoffman, who failed to secure Republican nomination and is now running as a Conservative Party candidate. However, this congressional race raises  a lot of passion all over the country as well, with prominent Republicans, such as Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin taking opposing sides, and many notable commentators weighing in.

According to some commentators, the race is important because it might be a sign of things to come in the next election. The congressional seat in question has been in Republican hands for over a hundred years. If it turned blue, it would, at the very least, diminish some Democratic anxieties regarding the next election. However, many commentators also see the race as a gauge of the strength of conflicting strategic and ideological currents within Republican Party, with one side arguing for moderation and a move to the center, and the other side arguing for less compromise on principles and more ideological clarity. However, the interpretation of this election as a clash of visions has also been challenged.

Are you following this race? Do you think it will be a reliable sign of the things to come in 2010? Which  strategy do you think would bring Republicans more power: moving towards the center or articulating a clearer ideology at the cost of moving away from the center? Do you think the importance of that narrative has been exaggerated?

Zeljka future, ideology, politics ideology, race, war

During the past several months, the dollar has experienced renewed decline against other major currencies and there’s plenty of talk about it.

Some economists, such as Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, have argued that the weak dollar is a net benefit that is necessary to put the economy on track by making American exports cheaper abroad. Others have argued that a weak dollar leads to a loss of capital resulting in a net job loss. In addition, the falling dollar raised fears of inflation and the loss of the dollar’s world prominence.

Are you worried about inflation? Have you personally taken any steps protect yourself from it? Do you think that the American dollar will remain the world’s most important currency?

Zeljka economics, employment, future, global issues, international economy

To the surprise of many, President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The reaction at home has been mixed, with criticisms being raised not only by conservative but also liberal writers. Reactions abroad appear to be following the same line, with some writers suggesting that the president should not have accepted the prize.

Why do you think the President was awarded the Prize? Do you believe that it enhances the prestige of the President and/or the prize? Do you think it helps sustain and enhance the world’s peace?

Zeljka future, global issues, international, peace, politics Obama, peace, war