Writing earlier today on News Commonsense, I mentioned the fact that if you believe polls, 9/11 and sending our young men and women to die are somehow reasons to feel much better about how things are going in the States.
Like I said, if you believe polls….
When…asked in another survey whether the government should “stay out of Medicare” — an impossibility — 39 percent said yes.
…The results, however, are debatable — respondents might have said they wanted the government to “stay out of Medicare” because they don’t want anyone to change the program — not because they don’t know who runs it, for example.
So while they can’t figure out how to ask a question that really tells us something, they decided to correct an oversight
And as for the Antichrist question [when 8% of New Jerseyans said Obama was], Jensen notes that they should have asked the same question about former President George W. Bush for comparison. They plan to remedy the error this week.
Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait!
And then we have a pollster telling us why polls are important.
“Some would argue that we really shouldn’t even be looking at public opinion, because it’s not informed,” acknowledges [Mark]Blumenthal. “But like it or not, we live in a democracy, and people get to vote every two years.”
Which means public opinion — however it is derived — matters. So legislators hoping for clear-cut answers are probably out of luck — and should accept their fate, say several pollsters.
“Politicians need to understand that voters are very comfortable having mutually contradictory views,” says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.
But (and it is a big but)
Unlike an election, there is no deadline for voters to make a decision about health care reform — and some never will.
So maybe, if the public doesn’t get it by now, dragging it out any more won’t educate them. In fact, there’s a sizable suspicion that they’d only become more confused.
So, ladies and gentleman of Washington, get ‘er dun. And when the world doesn’t end and some folks even find things a little better, 2010 will take of itself.