Based on what you know, should Gov. Mark Sanford remain in office?

Remain in office – 34 percent
Resign - 60 percent
Not sure – 5 percent

Strikingly, the gap between white and black opinion is larger than the gap between female and male opinion. Fifty-six percent of all men want Sanford to resign, compared to 64 percent of all women. But only 53 percent of whites want Sanford to quit, compared to an incredible 81 percent of black South Carolinians.

I think this underscores just how controversial Sanford’s anti-stimulus politicking had become in his state even as it was transforming him into a national conservative hero. Twenty-nine percent of South Carolinians are black, slightly more than the 27 percent sample they made up in this poll. And in February, after Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) called Sanford’s antics “a slap in the face to black Americans,” Sanford pushed back and a lot of conservatives defended him.

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Do you think it is the federal government’s responsibility to provide health care coverage to all Americans, to provide health care coverage only to those who cannot afford it on their own, or not provide health care coverage to anyone and leave it up to individuals to provide their own health care coverage?

Thirty-one percent of people said the government should provide “coverage for all” and 35 percent said “coverage for those who can’t afford it.” Only 29 percent said health care coverage should be entirely left to individuals. Among Republicans, 46 percent chose one of the first two options to 51 percent who chose the laissez-faire option.

The poll tests several possible messages for the 2010 election, many of them with tough partisan phrasing, and the public option isn’t as controversial as Republicans might like. Message A:

Americans need a public health insurance plan administered by the federal government to expand choices and control costs by competing with private health insurance companies.

Message B:

A government-run health insurance plan will use taxpayer subsidies to undercut private insurance rates, and force private companies out of business, resulting in everyone going into a  government-run plan.

The public option wins out, 47-44, with the only bright spot for Republicans being the preference of independents; 51 percent of them support B, the generic conservative message.

Another message test: Message A:

The problem with health care costs is greedy insurance companies and drug companies charging way too much for the services they provide. If the government regulated what they could charge, health care charges would be a lot more reasonable.

Message B:

Government regulation of  health care prices will lead to less innovative treatments, lower quality health care, and fewer health care providers. Government price controls have never worked.

The first message, the populist one, wins out by 55 to 39 percent; independents support it 51 to 38 percent.

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The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan — something like Medicare for those under 65 — that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.

Republicans have almost universally been attacking the Democrats’ public plan proposal, arguing that it would have unfair advantages over private insurance plans, encroaching upon (and eventually eliminating) the private marketplace. Those sentiments were encapsulated Sunday by syndicated conservative columnist George Will, who warned of the Democrats’ “stealth single-payer agenda.”

Assurances that the government plan would play by the rules that private insurers play by are implausible. Government is incapable of behaving like market-disciplined private insurers. Competition from the public option must be unfair because government does not need to make a profit and has enormous pricing and negotiating powers. Besides, unless the point of a government plan is to be cheaper, it is pointless: If the public option conforms to the imperatives that regulations and competition impose on private insurers, there is no reason for it.

That the American people seem more concerned with their own health than with the health of the insurance industry doesn’t appear to have crosssed Will’s mind. In the wake of the new poll numbers, we’ll see if he and other conservatives still feel the need to protect 72 percent of Americans from their own thinking.

The poll was conducted between May 20 and 25 — while President Obama was heaping praise on Dodd for his work authoring the credit card reform bill, signed into law last week.

Dodd must be concerned when the popular president goes to bat for him and he still sees polling numbers like this:

Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd is gaining on former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a possible Republican challenger, and now trails 45 – 39 percent in the 2010 Senate race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 50 – 34 percent Simmons lead in an April 2 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.

And this:

Connecticut voters disapprove 53 – 38 percent of the job the Democratic incumbent is doing, compared to 58 – 33 percent April 2, his lowest approval rating ever.

And this:

Connecticut voters say 49 – 35 percent that Dodd is not honest and trustworthy and say 47 – 42 percent that he does not care about their needs and problems.

Despite those poor reviews, the pollsters say Dodd “appears to have stopped the bleeding” since news broke that he had inserted a provision in the stimulus bill that paved the way for the AIG bonus scandal, all while being the top recipient of campaign contributions from AIG employees since 1989.

Quinnipiac University Poll Director Douglas Schwartz said he “Dodd is an exceptionally skilled politician, and he has plenty of time. He is lucky to get this early warning more than a year before the election.”

If this is luck, I’m guessing Dodd’s opponents want none of it.

For the first time in our research, Democrats are at full parity on perceptions of which party would best manage national security, while they have moved far ahead of the GOP on specific challenges such as Afghanistan, Iraq, working with our allies, and improving America’s image abroad.

How bad is it?

Given their approval of the president’s performance on foreign affairs, voters flatly reject the claims from former Vice President Cheney and other Republicans that Obama’s policies put America at risk. By nearly a 2 to 1 margin, Americans say that President Obama is doing better, not worse, than his predecessor, George W. Bush, when it comes to national security.

This survey signals a possible generational shift in attitudes that could have broad electoral consequences, depriving Republicans of one of their last remaining advantages just when their image has dropped to an all-time low relative to the Democrats.

Given a choice of three options, just 24 percent of voters can correctly identify the cap-and-trade proposal as something that deals with environmental issues. A slightly higher number (29 percent) believe the proposal has something to do with regulating Wall Street while 17 percent think the term applies to health care reform. A plurality (30 percent) have no idea.

One reason why Republicans are trying to pre-define the legislation as an “energy tax.”

Some popularity drop-off isn’t uncommon right now, as states battle with their budgets, but Palin has really not adjusted well to her new role as a national figure from an obscure state.

“The fact that so many people don’t know anything about Toomey indicates that he’d be in a tough position against Ridge, who’s the best known Republican in Pennsylvania,” said Richards. “While it’s hard to tell and it’s a ways away I think Ridge is such a dominant force that it would be hard to defeat him.”

The poll was not actually conducted as a reaction to the Ridge rumors, but as a test between Specter and the single strongest Republican nominee. “At the time we put Ridge’s name in the field, no one thought Ridge would run,” said Richards. “Mainly, this is a poll about Specter.” Quinnipiac will conduct a Republican primary poll at some point, but it’s not on the schedule yet.

I wrote that citing Obama’s “sky-high ratings among African-Americans make some of his positions appear a bit more popular overall than they actually are” … Maybe “across-the-board” would have been better than “overall,” but I doubt that would have kept a left-wing activist like Matthew Yglesias, or Andrew Sullivan, who has himself been accused of racism and, quite recently, anti-Semitism, from branding me a racist.

York doesn’t seem to realize that “actually are” was just as problematic, but let’s ignore his drive-by accusations of two people who haven’t written themselves into a mini-controversy this week.

My question was why York was engaging in the occasional conservative habit of asking what a Democratic politician’s support would be like if there were no blacks in the equation, something that is usually done after an election to talk down the Democrat’s electoral mandate. You heard a lot of this after November 2008, with conservatives arguing that black voters’ racial solidarity pushed President Obama over the finish line, and that they were “the real racists,” unlike white voters who had been accused for months of possibly lying to pollsters about whether they’d support Obama. York’s answer:

What if a president were wildly popular with one group, and only middlingly popular with another group and yet was often portrayed as being hugely popular with the whole group?  It seems worthwhile to point that out that there are differences within the group — something that is done all the time with political polls.

It’s done all the time because politicians are always trying to expand their margins with various members of their base. It’s rarely done to argue that one group’s extreme support shouldn’t count, because that’s moronic.

It’s the old joke:  Six people are in a bar.  They’re all middle class; their average net worth is about $100,000.  Bill Gates walks in.  Seven people are in a bar; their average net worth is in the billions.  A wealthy group, right?  Internal numbers are revealing.

That’s actually the way that Fox Business Channel views the economy (GDP is up, therefore everyone is richer and has higher wages) but it’s a foolish way of viewing a political poll. Public opinion isn’t about what the average person thinks, but about whether a majority can be cobbled together out of a group of people to push the Congress to make a decision or to re-eleect a politician. If you have one group of actors you can count on, you try and build up your support with other groups. This is what, for example, Mississippi Republicans do as a result of their low support with the state’s large black population — they try to win black votes on the margins and maximize the white vote.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 41 percent would vote for their district’s Republican candidate while 38 percent would choose the Democrat. Thirty-one percent of conservative Democrats said they would vote for their district’s Republican candidate.

Overall, the GOP gained two points this week, while the Democrats lost a point in support. Still, it’s important to note that the GOP’s improved position comes primarily from falling Democratic support. Democrats are currently at their lowest level of support in the past year while Republicans are at the high water mark.

The thing is, you don’t hear as many Republicans citing these polls as you did in February, because we have new data: the special election in New York’s 20th Congressional District. No serious political operative thinks that the Republicans are gaining ground and the Democrats are losing it. If that was the case, the Republicans would have picked up that upstate New York seat.