Worrisome, although only 37% say they’re following stories on the subject very or somewhat closely so there’s plenty of educating to be done here. Bush has promised to veto it if it becomes before him, but the means next to nothing given that the House has already voted against it. The real concern here is what happens after Bush, with a Democratic president, a more Democratic House and public opinion polls which, even if opposed to the Doctrine, are split closely enough to make legislation viable. Possibly anticipating that, Senate Dems moved yesterday to block a GOP anti-Fairness measure.

Contain your shock as the partisan crosstabs are revealed:

An interesting dynamic of the public debate is that liberals are more supportive of the “Fairness Doctrine: than conservatives. Liberals support the measure by a 51% to 33% margin while conservatives are opposed by a 48% to 40% margin.

Those numbers might come under the “be careful what you wish for” category.

Indeed they might. Follow the link up top and see what the results were for applying the Doctrine to the Internet. Way closer than it should be, which is bad news for free speech and terrible news, potentially, for the nutroots’ online advantage.

Doubtless if it ever did come to a vote the Dems would carve out an exception for their Internet masters, but what would it look like hypothetically if they didn’t? Would lefty and righty blogs of similar size try to satisfy the balance requirement by merging?