A Tale Of Two Polls

Dan Walters is touting a UC Riverside poll on budget issues that interviewed 276 respondents, 63% male, with a 42-38-11 split among Democrats, Republicans and independents. He does this with a straight face.

It barely matters what such a flawed poll shows, but I'll mention it anyway. According to 276 people, 57% support the 2/3 requirement for passing a budget, 24% preferred a simple majority, 6% in between, 4% other (?), and 6% don't know. Given the bad methodology, these numbers mean nothing.

But I'll tell you who has historically taken numbers like these as the gospel's truth and used them to mute themselves about any reform efforts for thirty years. That would be the leaders of the California Democratic Party. And they latch on to any poll numbers showing a view like this as a blunt instrument to kick hippies, not a starting point for the political advocacy and opinion leadership that can and should be done to change perspectives.

Meanwhile, the David Binder memo, with ten times the poll respondents and a clear majority favoring a broad swath of tax increases over spending cuts to deal with the deficit, goes unmentioned by virtually everyone in this state. And in that desert, voters go vainly on a futile search for leadership. They find nothing but shell-shocked politicians.