Wisconsin: those pesky polls again
There’s a depressing Rasmussen poll out, which everyone says shows the public to be against Governor Walker’s stand on limiting public service unions’ collective bargaining rights.
I wrote “everyone says” because I can’t seem to find the actual poll results themselves—the hard data, that is—which I believe have not been released yet. I linked to Rasmussen’s summary instead, which says that, in a recent telephone survey of Wisconsin “likely” voters, “just 39% favor weakening collective bargaining rights and 52% are opposed.” But see this:
The overall sample for the survey included 30% of union households. That includes 33% with a private sector union member and 60% with a public sector union member.
Additionally, the sample includes 46% who voted for Governor Walker last November and 45% who voted for his challenger Tom Barrett. Walker actually won the election by a 52% to 46% margin.
When I read that sort of thing, I’m inclined to throw up my hands in despair. Only if 60% public sector union households is representative of Wisconsin’s population as a whole is this sort of thing even remotely valid, and the stats for Walker voters in the poll makes its sample doubly suspect. [ADDENDUM: see this.]
The strange thing is that, when Rasmussen has been criticized in the past, the charge has been that it leans more to the right than the left. So, although I tend to distrust polls in general and feel they have an agenda, I can’t quite figure out what the agenda here might be.
Maybe in the future I should just ignore polls. They don’t seem to be worth the trouble of dissecting them or even paying attention. But they do seem to grab attention, since they’re the only tool we have to gauge public opinion.
Ah, public opinion. When Rasmussen lists the questions asked in that poll, the one that grabs my attention is the very first one, “How closely have you followed recent news stories about Governor Scott Walker’s proposals to reduce the state budget deficit?” And even when we get that numbers for the answer (which we don’t have yet), my bet is that people tend to think they’re following closely when they’re not at all.
I’d also love to have seen a quiz accompanying the poll with some questions on what respondents think collective bargaining is. I’d also love to have seen question 11 (“Do you favor or oppose a proposal to weaken the collective bargaining rights of state employees?”) broken down into sections that list those “rights.” Hey, I’d like it not to have used the word “rights” at all, which seems to me to state the case that these are fundamental rights such as life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and those embodied in the Bill of Rights.
What’s more, I’d like to have seen a linkage in the question, not just the phrase “weakening of rights” floating in the air like that, untethered to the budget issue. It’s very possible that if I had been asked a question like “Do you favor or oppose a proposal to weaken the collective bargaining rights of state employees?” I might have answered “no,” in the absence of a direct connection to the actual issue involved here, which is the budget. After all, the connection is not readily apparent; how many people who answered the poll have a clue what’s actually being proposed in Wisconsin, and why?
It all comes down to the same thing, over and over: if voters are uninformed, they will be manipulated by others. Our entire system of government rests not only on voters’ common sense, but on their ability to understand what’s going on. Polls not only reflect whatever deficits exist in those traits, they also can exploit them and magnify them.
[NOTE: There’s also this WSJ/NBC poll, which indicates people want to reduce the deficit without cutting Social Security or Medicare. But again, look at what was actually asked.
Respondents were queried on whether they favored making cuts in Social Security to reduce the deficit. If I’d been asked that question, I would have said “no,” too, because I think older people who paid into the system all these years and have relied on it ought to get their money. But cutting those payments is not a Republican proposal right now, anyway; some sort of stepped phase-out is, as well as a change in the age of receiving benefits which is supported by the poll. So why ask the question that way?
I don’t think it’s because the pollsters don’t know what they’re doing.]
[ADDENDUM: It doesn’t sound as though Governor Walker is too terribly cowed by the polls.
And I’ve just noticed the use of the term “fleebaggers” to describe the AWOL Wisconsin Senate Democrats. Clever.]
Polls, schmolls. (Full disclosure: I only skimmed Neo’s post, and didn’t click the links.)
The public is being sold a bill of goods as flawed, in its way, as “more money for educrats means better education”. For the time being, the Right’s job is to educate the public about what government unions are actually doing. Educating the public may not be easy, and it will take time.
From time to time I post that it is not easy to create a governing coalition. However, IMO consensus politics is premature wrt government unions. At present the issue calls for conviction politics. (But even conviction politics on a topic should be practiced in a manner that does not sink the rest of one’s agenda.)
Neo,
I don’t disagree, but I see the problem somewhat differently. As you well know we are all emotional beings, and many of our decisions are made emotionally not intellectually. People may not be following the WI events carefully, but in their mind the think they are and that’s all that matters. What that really means is that they have already made up their mind.
I have been in numerous situations where I have had to promote or defend programs or ideas. I have found that most of the time, once a person has reached a decision, no matter what that decision is based on, it is virtually impossible to change their mind with cogent argument.
Thus, WI residents are either pro union, anti union or they don’t care. If their pro union, Wisconsin’s budget problems don’t matter. If their anti union, The unions are judged to be power hungry. If they don’t care, who knows?
gs: well, you could say that the shorter version of my post is, “polls, schmolls.”
like with Op Amps, polls are feedback, and the people who use them, can damp or amplify using them.
feminism insured that the children would be left alone with the statists… now we cant even breed to maintain ourselves… same process was used by them too…
HOW would it be possible to stop this if the progressives and communists took over the school in bella dodds time?
notice there are almost no men teaching?
notice how politically active the teachers are and what stunts they pull on the children?
notice the decline that is constant?
look… if you had a plan, and it required you to teach the kids away from parents, and your not allowed to be overt about it, since the last overt action was world war…
what would you do?
you have to get the kids away from mom and dad, as either can teach them (And grandparents too). maybe move women out of the home, into the workplace, tax the new wealth progressively… not good enough… the parents would still team up as they are still helpmeets.. oh.. i know, why dont you use that same thing hat worked in germany, but use it between mates? after all, this is about controlling the future, and so, REGARDLESS OF ANY SPECIFIC WAY, ULTIMATELY DEMOGRAPHICS IS THE END RESULT.
the result of the german thing was a huge demographic switch. the result of the gulags is a huge demographic switch. the result of the influx of immigrants illegally and in excess is a demographic switch. feminism is a demographic switch. abortion is a demographic switch. redistribution is a demographic switch.
stumps me, i cant see a theme there can you?
of course demographics is slow, and gives you lots of opportunity to play time games.
like telling women they can have good children later, when perimenopause starts in their 20s… and our psychology changes adn becomes less mutable and adaptable to mates. and their mate is a man so he is an abusive idiot by default, even if he isn’t.
as to teaching..
you have to get them to be under the right people, so in the early days, victory was preserved with tenure, now later on, with the proportions reversed, tenure is evil.
that is you have to change the demographic make up of the schools.
the press has had its demographics changed too.
once you had nuclear weapons, the war concept moved to other areas. however we were not allowed to be taught that those things are war.
so we dont understand the world war in economics we are in is a war.
we dont understand that the culture war is a war, and the losers dont have babies. (both sides as the winners are those that dont play).
we dont understand that sending adulterated products for children is a form of war… what does lead and all that do to minds?
and the Chinese are studying genetic iq… they don’t have politically correct Marxists proving prophecy!
they dont have the social poison of kinsey, meade, goldstein (freidan), and so on.
why would they infect themselves with what they gave us as a form of warfare?
warfare is about winning, not about how you win.
bullets or starvation, or demographics, or economics, or social malfeasance and decay, or liberalization undoing the cohesion, etc..
ie.. the new war is to constantly nibble away in any way shape or form… and to asemble armies of your own enemies people to do your work.. (as your people are protected). you let them tear themselve apart.
and the KEY?
to make sure the event horizon is way past the time you pass it.
as long as they cant conclude and extrapolate forward without wishes and see… they will cross the line and not know it.
we have almost crossed that line..
but i dont see women with the ideology are going to do anything about the math of it.
remember redistribution and all that feminism and liberal kids stuff. FAVORS breeding dumber people!
and dumber people with bad ideological education are pawns… not the key to future utopia as the magic bean salespeople keep saying
T: I’m very curious, though, about that “60% have a family member belonging to a public union” figure. Unless that’s representative of the population as a whole, it indicates to me that respondents were self-selected for being highly interested in this issue because they are the ones who stand to lose from Walker’s proposals. Doesn’t 60% seem rather high? I would love to know how many people in Wisconsin have a close family member in a public service union. Maybe it really is that high; I don’t know.
In addition (I didn’t think of this when I wrote the post), in Wisconsin, firefighters and police officers are exempt. The questions in the polls were about all public service employees.
I really have come to hate and despise polls. The more I look at them, the more slanted they seem.
T: I’m very curious, though, about that “60% have a family member belonging to a public union” figure. Unless that’s representative of the population as a whole, it indicates to me that respondents were self-selected for being highly interested in this issue because they are the ones who stand to lose from Walker’s proposals. Doesn’t 60% seem rather high?
Neo, I think they meant 60% of the 30% of households that included a union member, i.e., 18% of the households polled had a member of a public sector union.
It all comes down to the same thing, over and over: if voters are uninformed, they will be manipulated by others. Our entire system of government rests not only on voters’ common sense, but on their ability to understand what’s going on.
my prior post should have had the above at the top of it to give it better context. sorry.
our leaders warned us about that..
and it comes down to one more thing..
not only being not ignorant, but also, being willing to act in negative ways to negative things. not just accept it, or half heart protest and then give in over a long time and a distraction. holding people to things, not accepting ideological explanations, etc.
we love our cancer too much to survive
Unless I see how the questions in a poll were framed, the demographics of the respondents, along with how the poll was conducted and at what time of day, I do not trust them at all.
To paraphrase: There are lies, damned lies, and polls.
The only poll that matters is the one in the voting booth. And Gov. Walker won that poll.
from neo to T: I’m very curious, though, about that “60% have a family member belonging to a public union” figure.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Doesn’t 60% seem rather high? I would love to know how many people in Wisconsin have a close family member in a public service union. Maybe it really is that high; I don’t know.
how did FAMILY MEMBER become CLOSE FAMILY MEMBER?
yes the number is high for CLOSE Family member, but not high for Family member.
if you say close, then there is this tight limit.
if you dont and your words are loose and you don’t catch that your speaking generally about a specific.
then you can have a family of 40 people who call know uncle Stan who is a union member.
we are so used to mashing language its no wonder we cant reach a decision on our own.
neo,
I agree, that 60% number is very high. My comment was not made w/ the polls in mind, thought, just as a general observation.
I also understand your (and others”) skepticism regarding polls; I feel the same way. Yet I am always conflicted by my own skepticism when I see how closely the polls resemble final results of an election. they seem to be very good prodictors when they’re done correctly, and Rasmussen is usually quite neutral in sampling–I am astonished by a 60% union link in a Rasmussen poll.
Occam’s Beard: I think you are correct. That makes the figure more reasonable, although it’s interesting that public service union members outnumbered regular union members 2 to 1. I wonder whether that is typical, or whether that indicates the phenomenon I was describing (that is, that the respondents were self-selected for being more affected by this issue).
T: see my answer above. It wasn’t really 60%, it was 60% of those with family members in unions.
Artfldgr,
I think it has less to do with being informed (because we usually filter information according to our biases) and more to do w/ critical thinking skills.
Most people have the ability to think crtically; plumbers, electricians, physicians, college professors, etc., all use critical thinking skills in their various professions. The difficult part is to transfer those critical thinking skills to areas with which we are less familiar.
The physicians writing bogus medical excuses in WI are a case in point. They use critical thinking skills to diagnose ailments all the time, but their emotions (pro-union) get in the way of a critical assessment of Wisconsin’s budget problems. If anyone should consider cause-and-effect it’s physicians, but their emotions cloud their intellect.
If Occam Brard’s numbers are correct, that still places union representation at ~18% in the Rasmussen poll which is still well above the national average of ~7% to 11% of the workforce.
If Occam Brard’s numbers are correct, that still places union representation at ~18% in the Rasmussen poll which is still well above the national average of ~7% to 11% of the workforce.
And yet they’ve got budget problems? How did that happen? /g
Questionable polls? What an odd observation, why just two weeks before the mid-term election a Newsweek poll gave Obama a 14 point favorable over unfavorable margin, which explained the Democrat’s subsequent landslide victory.
As a rule if the poll is from the MSM it can be safety discounted as nonsensical.
There may be another phenomenon going on where people will vote one way in secret ballot elections yet express opposing less controversial views in public situations and possibly around their own friends and family.
An unfortunate large amount/percentile of people don’t distinguish between private and public unions. Since no one is for the proposition that unions be outlawed, which is the conclusion suggested by the phrase “limiting collective bargaining rights,” those people are merely thinking the general thought “doing away with unions.” They are not linking in to the real reasons behind limiting public union collective bargaining rights: corruption because union benefits are the quid pro quo for the union dues that elect the corrupt legislators; since the terms of public employee’s contracts are set by statute, what need is there for public “servants” to unionize. The statutory compensation is already an action of collective bargaining rights since the people elect those who write the law.
Being in Wisconsin, I think what could determine the credibility of the polls is whether and how much they fluctuate. It is my perception that most of the people here have chosen a side and are more entrenched than ever. If the polls change substantially over the next few weeks, I will seriously question its accuracy.
If they were concerned about what the public thinks, they’d ask the questions in a straightforward manner:
1) Do you think it’s fair that government employees contribute nothing to their pension and health plans?
2) Do you favor paying higher taxes so that government employees do not have to contribute to their own pension and healthcare plans?
3) Should government employees have money deducted from their paycheck to fund the political campaigns of politicians who will determine their salaries and benefits?
4) Do you think good teachers should earn the same amount as poorly performing teachers with the same level of experience and comparable credentials?
5) Should it take 9 pages of procedures and two and a half years to fire a poorly performing teacher?
Let’s see how that poll comes out.
Someday, and I suspect it will not be very long in coming (3 months, 3 years?), it will not matter how the poll questions are worded or how those polled answered the questions. Someday reality will make polls irrelevant. The piper must be paid. The unmade bed is where we’ll sleep. The window of opportunity to reverse the direction of the country is rapidly closing.
Change “Do you favor or oppose a proposal to weaken the collective bargaining rights of state employees?”
to…
“Do you favor or oppose a proposal to change collective bargaining rules for state employees?”
…and see what that does to the poll results.
I’ve believed for a long time that polls are used to mold public opinion rather than reflect it.
Just as many people in the news media want to “change the world” or “make a difference” rather than simply report what happened.
And I’ve just noticed the use of the term “fleebaggers” to describe the AWOL Wisconsin Senate Democrats. Clever.
Really? I first saw that a week or two ago. I don’t recall where I first saw it. Maybe at Ace’s.
Very clever and funny.
Rightklik hits my point. I believe others have also. Just the choice of a word or two makes a big difference in perception. Most folks are reluctant to take someone’s “rights”.
I wrote to Bret Baier of Fox News today. He consistently refers to collective bargaining “rights”; and I grind my teeth. I made the point that a right must be extended equally to all. Collective bargaining isn’t even available to most Federal employees. So we are talking about “privileges” that can be offered or withdrawn by legislation, as circumstances change. I asked him to not let interest groups control the narrative by twisting language. I don’t expect my message will have any effect.
I have tried to follow the debate; and to the best of my knowledge no one has even asserted that Wisconsin PEUs have a contractual claim to collective bargaining.
It would be interesting to see a poll that framed this as a debate about the “special privileges” to be accorded public employees.
I grew up in an all union area and heard nothing but complaints about what the union was doing. There was a strange battle among the higher ups of the union and the management of the companies. Each would retaliate in childish ways that made the life of the average worker miserable. Everything worked out well – the plants closed down, the workers lost everything, and the higher ups of both union and management made out just fine.
This battle is more about union leaders income, power, and perks than it is about the rank and file’s well being.
An open shop (non-mandatory dues) reduces membership and income unless the leadership can convince the rank and file they need them.
Restricted collective bargaining reduces the leadership’s clout and their ability to make the rank and file feel dependent on them.
If you doubt the size of the leadership income and perks that are involved, check this out:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/117290533.html
I’m looking forward to starting a union.
Siphoning off $60 per month per worker (like what happens to me)
and giving that money to the tea party.
Hey – That’s the american way – It’s my “right” to do this to people. It’s not theft. It’s my “right”.
Let’s take a poll to see if that right shouldn’t be taken away.
Parker (at 6:12 above),
You are worried about the window of opportunity closing, but it needn’t be so.
First, understand that it is necessary to reduce spending and begin spending less than what we take in so we can actually pay down the debt. The size of the debt, however, is a function of the health of the economy. If we gross up the GDP with real productivity (goods and services) the debt becomes a smaller part of the whole and, therefore, more manageable.
For example if one has $50,000 in consumer loans (not mtg) but make $50,000/yr and has a net worth of only $25,000 one is in a difficult situation. On the other hand, if one is worth $300,000 and can gross their income up to $125,000, the debt takes on a different character.
The current (short term) problem is that the Obama administration is doing all it can to suffocate the economy. This will not continue forever.
Oldflyer (8:55 above),
You are correct, bargaining is NOT a right but an agreement in a contract. Contracts are changed all the time
As for the obvious retort that it should, then, be a negotiated change. Well, Scott Walker has apparently been up front about what he intended to do and was elected in WI in spite of (or because of) that. Secondly, the taxpayers are captive; unlike the private sector where consumers can choose to not buy a product if they think a union was unfairly treated (positively or negatively). Taxpayers have no choice as to whether or not to pay for a negotiated settlement, so the govt has a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer, not to the public employee.
.
Neo:
My problem is, it’s clear at some point something’s got to give. The question is how do you resolve the problem (unfettered misuse of the income from a Ponzi scheme to pay bills unrelated to the Ponzi scheme) and provide the least pain to the fewest people — or at least distribute it most fairly?
Social Security is a scam, pure and simple. And sooner or later the music is going to stop and someone is going to be missing a few trillion chairs.
How do you best equitably distribute the absent chairs?
“The current recipients aren’t at fault”? Really? Not at all?
Who elected the bastards that set this crap up?
Who continued to elect bastards who refused to actually fix a blatantly ridiculous system — a $%&%^*%^*% Ponzi scheme, for cryin’ out loud?
To accept the claim that they have zero culpability is to play the schnook.
.
Polls don’t feed the Admiral’s cat. Navy expression.
Nor do polls pay for pensions when there ain’t no money left.
To quote Richard Pryor: “We ain’t go no more liquor! (money).
‘Nuff said.
On Social Security:
Since I receive SS, I am not that anxious to see it cut.
However, in reality, SS is not a a savings account. It is a tax. The money previously paid as FICA and Medicare taxes were treated as part of general revenues (that’s how Clinton “balanced” the budget).
That money is spent. Going forward, the only question is can the federal govt collect enough taxes (or borrow enough money) to finance the budget and pay expected SS and Medicare benefits.
The answer (IMO) is NO!
Soon (who nows exactly when) the Federal Govt will not be able to borrow as much as it wants to because it is becoming obvious that it will not be able to pay the money back.
Already, the Federal Reserve is buying most US Treasury debt (with “made up” money). That is the text book definition of inflation (see monetization of debt). SS may be paid but it will be in inflated money that will not buy as much.
It is not about whether we “want” SS to continue. It will not because it cannot.
Baklava @ 11:25pm
“I’m looking forward to starting a union.
Siphoning off $60 per month per worker (like what happens to me) and giving that money to the tea party.”
No, no you don’t get it. You will deduct $50 of the $60 for your “overhead” and give $10 to the tea party. It’s a pretty good “racket” to be in.
Top Indiana Fleebagger Says WI Governor Walker Has “Attraction of the Demon”
State Rep. Pat Bauer, the leader of the AWOL Indiana House Democrats still camped out in Urbana, IL and effectively shutting down legislative process back home, says it’s no surprise to him that Wisconsin has dominated the headlines while Indiana’s fight has slipped off the front page.
Not just Wisconsin? there are fleebaggers from INDIANA, too!
FIRE these people!