'Occupy' Movement's Favorability Rating Plummets, For Some Reason

How very curious:

A sign that the Occupy Wall Street movement isn’t the best long-term vehicle for Democrats to connect themselves with: A new Quinnipiac poll, showing a plurality of voters viewing the group unfavorably. The poll, released today, show 30 percent of voters surveyed view the movement favorably, 39 percent unfavorably, with an additional 30 percent not hearing enough to have an opinion. It’s one of the first national polls to suggest voters are growing skeptical of Occupy Wall Street- and it comes as police have clashed with protesters in several cities. Previous national polls have shown a plurality of adults supporting the movement.

Ed Morrissey has an excellent post up at Hot Air that breaks down and exposes Quinnipiac's preposterous poll sample, which gave Democrats a +13 party ID advantage. In the most recent national election, the actual voter breakdown gave Democrats zero identification edge. None. Ed runs the numbers and shows that even with a weighted sample that reflects the 2008 electorate -- a great year for Democrats at +7 -- the latest Q-poll would have been even less generous to the Occupy movement, not to mention President Obama. Top notch stuff from Ed, so read the whole thing. But back to the Occupy mob. Even Quinnipiac's slanted survey shows a dramatic drop in public support. Ironically, as Phil Klein points out, low income Americans give OWS the lowest overall favorability of any income demographic. The mob's highest level of support (and opposition, at 36/45) comes among the poll's top income group. This seems to square with the internal 'Occupy' poll Kate wrote about yesterday:

I feigned shock at the results of this latest poll in the headline, but I'm not the least bit surprised that the American people are beginning to slowly back away from a group they originally believed to be well-meaning idealists frustrated with Wall Street excess. The only think I'm surprised about is that the numbers haven't turned more sour, faster. Part of that is due to the mainstream media's attempts to airbrush and glorify what has turned out to be a far Left movement. But it's not just ideology that's turning Americans off. It's violence, rioting, sexual assault, and property destruction. Verum Serum has a genuinely disturbing round-up of videos from Occupy Oakland and elsewhere. I'll crib a few clips from them below to illustrate my point, but check out their full rundown. Scary stuff, especially the videos of anarchists descending on an Oakland Whole Foods. You'll hear a few occupiers loudly object to the violence -- to their credit -- but they're quickly overrun by Left-wing anarchists. As you watch these clips, remember: The Democrat Party has explicitly and officially embraced this crowd, and that city's Democrat Mayor gave government employees the day off yesterday (except for cops, natch) to join Occupy's ranks. Insanity: