Have you ever been part of a Gallup Poll or maybe a Quinnipiac University Poll? (Is that a real school? Do they play football? What conference are they in?) According to the above poll of pollsters (haha!) they're in the believable category. Political party polls and news media polls, not so much.
I'm always hearing about how the American people are in favor of or against blah blah blah, but if you look at how Americans say they feel about contemporary issues, and then look at how Congress is representing us with their votes, you'll see a definite disconnect.
We say we want immigration reform, and our politicians nod and agree, and then passively do nothing, or worse, the exact opposite.
We say we don't want trade tariffs, and our politicians nod and agree, and then just sit on their thumbs.
We have opinions on various gun control measures, ditto.
We tell them how we feel about taxes, and health care, and they tippy toe around them and do nothing.
Here's a typical day for a Washington politician: They meet for breakfast with a lobbyist who says his client wants X, then meets with a trade group from "back home" who says they do not want X. He poses for pictures with his constituents, passes out ceremonial Congressional paper weights, thanks them for their opinion, promises to keep in touch, then goes out and votes for X, which is slyly buried in a bill promising to end puppy mills, 'cause, you know, everyone wants to end puppy mills, right?
Then two months later he's the speaker at an event back home, and they treat him as if he was royalty! People are scared to speak up and hold his feet to the fire, or throw him in the fire, because....I have no idea why.
What's the point of public opinion polls if our public servants (wow....there's an oxymoron!) pay us no attention?
S
No, I didn't actually doze off during the final presidential debate last night, but it was touch and go for a while. The polls this morning all agree President Obama won, but I certainly saw no knock-out punch or anything even close. What I saw was a surprising amount of agreement on the issue of foreign affairs. On many occasions Romney said he agreed with Obama's handling of (xyz). Where was the blood and broken, flying teeth? I just thought it was a boring event.
I will have to say that Obama did successfully (in my mind) call out the discrepancy in Romney's claim of a plan to generally cut spending and move towards a balanced budget all while cutting taxes across the board and increasing defense spending. That arithmetic just does not compute, and unless Romney can/will provide specifics on how he's going to do it, I'm a skeptic.
I will also agree with Obama that raw numbers of military hardware (ships, planes, etc) are no longer as important as weapons system capability and survivability. I've met many military leaders over the past dozen or so years and they all seem to agree. I sleep well.
What shocked me was the fact that Europe, Africa, South America, Australia, and most of Asia except China have just disappeared. They are apparently no longer even discussed when it comes to foreign affairs. Did you hear them mentioned last night at all? (OK, Russia was mentioned very briefly, but that was it.) They've just vanished!
No, the only part of the world that matters seems to be the Mideast and SW Asia. We seem to spend ALL our time / money / effort trying to civilize those heathens, and all we ever really do is buy off a few despots and corrupt generals. All because they have oil. There isn't a damn thing there besides that. As I've said before, we need to develop our own secure sources of energy so we can quit beating our heads against the wall trying to schmooze those bastards.
OK, now I'm worked up and awake....about 12 hours late.
S
It's odd to me how politics is all the talk around the water cooler, yet here on Blogger people seem to be going out of their way to talk about the weather, the grand kids, what they had for lunch, anything BUT politics. This seems like a very non-confrontational group. I'm not looking for "confrontation", but just a good healthy discussion and exchange of ideas. I guess I'll just have to have that exchange with myself. So be it. Y'all can relax. I've got this.
Anyway, I thought last night's presidential debate was a good one. Both candidates came prepared and it showed. Neither fell on his face like Obama did 2 weeks ago. The consensus this morning is that Obama narrowly won the night, and I guess I wouldn't argue with that. It seems pretty obvious that these two don't like each other....it's become personal.
I'm guessing Romney thought it a good thing that he got to go first, based on a coin flip. Trouble was, it meant Obama got to speak last, with no time for rebuttal. Obama in essence had a closing statement, and Romney didn't. This is where Mitt's 47% quip was brought up again and eloquently hammered home, and was left in the audience's mind to ponder overnight. Shrewd or just luck, I think it will show up in this coming week's polls.
Speaking of polls, have any of you ever been polled by Gallup or ABC or CNN any of the more prominent companies? I haven't, nor do I even know of anyone who has been. Part of that might be because I live in Texas, which means the pollsters just consider me and everyone else here a Red Stater, so why bother polling me? Because of the fairly wide discrepancy in results, I'm thinking polls get waaaaay more attention than they deserve. That's what I think.
S
