Poll Finds 49% of Public Focused on Clinton Plan

With the exception of the war in Iraq and the invasion of Panama, Americans paid closer attention to news of President Clinton’s economic plan than to any American government policy initiative in years, according to a new survey released today.

Forty-nine percent of those polled said that they followed news about Clinton’s economic plan “very closely,” according to the Times Mirror News Interest Index, a monthly survey of public response to the news.

By comparison, the most closely followed policy initiative in the Administration of President George Bush--his plan in August, 1989, to deal with the country’s drug problem--was “very closely” watched by 40% of the public, the survey found.

The survey, which has been monitoring public response to the news since 1986, interviewed 1,516 adults Feb. 20 to 23. The results are subject to a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The new President’s attempt to lift the ban on gays in the military also riveted public attention in a way that was unusual for domestic matters. Forty-five percent of the public said that they paid “very close” attention to that effort.

Since 1986, other policy initiatives that won widespread public attention tended to involve military intervention. The Persian Gulf War was very closely followed at its peak by 67% of Americans, the invasion of Panama by 60% and the deployment of U.S. forces in Somalia in January, 1993, by 52%.

But in terms of domestic policy, the other initiatives that won widespread attention were the Federal Reserve Bank’s interest rate reduction in January, 1992 (35%), the attempts to change abortion laws in December, 1989 (35%), and the Bush Administration’s efforts to reach a budget deficit agreement in November, 1990 (34%).

Other Clinton efforts and news stories faded greatly in interest in the last month.

Twenty-eight percent of Americans reported paying very close attention to the creation of a White House task force on health care. Accounts of U.S. troops in Somalia earned the attention of 28% of Americans, the failed nominations of Zoe Baird and Kimba M. Wood for attorney general 24% and the civil war in Bosnia 15%.