Poll: Republican brand sinks

>>> so as the country teeters on the edge of this fiscal cliff, the republican party appears to have already gone over the image cliff. in our "deep dive" today, we're going to dig into our new poll to see what it says about the party brand going forward. using responses to our nbc/" wall street journal " poll, look at how people describe the gop, words like, bad, weak, negative, uncompromising, out of touch. 1 10 of the top 11 responses were negative. less than 20% were positive overall. let's look at the word cloud when asked about the democratic brand, if you will. the top description in the party is that it's, quote, for the people and the working class . another top answer was they're doing a good job. they didn't got off the hook, though. confused and misguided was the second most common description. in raw numbers, the democrats are at a plus 9 positive rating, the gop underwater, negative 15% to 30% approve, 45% disapprove, as can you see there, not good at this point in time. mika, let me start with your side of the aisle now. i dug into the cross tabs . the only two groups that are sort of not affiliated with political groups that had a net positive rating on the republican party were folks that live in rural america and folks that live in the south and even that want great, 39-38, 39-33.

>> yeah.

>> i mean, is it even worse than it looks? or is this a -- is this a kick the loser right after an election?

>> i think you got to have perspective. the perspective here is that look at 2008 , in december 2008 , the parties numbers were actually even a touch worse than that and then two years later, november 2010 , the republicans pick up 62 seats in the house and six seats in the senate. american politics are fluid and right now it's a bad fluid, bad mojo for the republican party . that's what happens after a loss like this, there's some introspection and there's a lot of media attention on where the republican party is.

>> fred, before you jump in, i want to throw up more on the republican side of the aisle. we tested paul rivian, mitt romney , john boehner and the republican party as a whole. paul ryan comes out with the best ratings. among just republicans earlier he's through the roof. but he comes out the best here. what was interesting is look at mitt romney and what you guys point out in the analysis, mitt romney faring a lot worse than even john kerry or john mccain did.

>> that's definitely a kick the loser unfairly. i think going back to the republican party brand, i think that their numbers are roughly where they were four years ago. what's interesting is it took most of 2009 and into 2010 for the republicans to start to recover. but, you know, it's really interesting. i think the party has a cult and i think they might have recovered slightly in november 2010 but --

>> we're bordering on -- you can argue it's been since 2005 with a blip for about two months in 2010 . is that what you're going to --

>> look, the image rating is one measure and it's a way to look at the parties but it's not

>> one more thing, i think it's not a word cloud and i'm not sure if it's a white cloud or a dark cloud , the interesting thing is republicans are underwater by 37-21. the democrats aren't much better at 36-26. part of the issue is the base. 80% of democrats are favorable to the democratic party . that number is only 65% for republicans.

>> i assume that number recovers fairly quickly. that is a depression of losing feeling.

>> think of the years of second term president and struggles we see in the poll in terms of the economy, people think weerg in a recession. there's a whole other story.

>> that's why i want to move on. the president's ratings start with good ratings, job performance up 53%, handling of the economy, he's right side up for the first time in four years. september 2009 is the last time he was right side up. but it is a tempered expectation, if you will. there's still some questions about does he have the right economic vision, if you will. so there seems to be -- maybe those in the white house say, hey, i had one person say that's a good thing, we came in with too high of expectations. that's not a ton of confidence.

>> we had these same numbers. i think basically the same discussions about a year ago before the republican field was fluid and, look, it's been a tough, four, five years as a country. this is measurements of how tough it is to govern. it's going to be tough for the president. but, you know, when we -- and the poll shows when he's compared to boehner, when he's compared to republican, sometimes elections or policy differences are about choices. and if it's the president versus the republicans, he wins.

>> he's able to win that choice.

>> i want to move to gay marriage here, micah. in 2004 , just eight years ago, 30% of the country was in favor of same-sex marriage. now just eight years later, a majority, 51-40. your boss said people don't understand this and sometimes in our short attention span society, this has been the most rapidly changing issue perhaps in the modern era .

>> yeah. and another thing about 2004 , 51% were strongly opposed and today 51% are total in favor.

>> what do we have 16% in the strongly opposed category? it is really small numbers.

>> here's the difference. it's all driven by age. once you hit that 50-year mark you start to get a net oppose. but everybody under 50 is in favor based on this question and the wording. it's all driven by men 50 plus as well. so there's some gender in there as well. but, look, these things are changing quickly because we're a rapidly aging population .

>> george will said it. he said literally opposition to gay marriage is dying off. that's what you're saying our poll shows.

>> i would argue one thing. i think this is one issue, actually, guys, where the president has been very influential. when he supported --

>> moved in particular --

>> exactly. our poll is 51% in favor among african-american voters. in 2008 in california when prop 8 was defeated, it only got about 28% of african-americans.

>> all right. the clintons, did you think they'd be the most popular politicians in america?

>> yes.

>> that didn't surprise you?

>> no.

>> four years ago would you have predicted that?

>> no.

>> fair enough. fred yang, micah