It’s all in how you ask the question
One news item making the rounds today comes from a polling question. The ABC News/Washington Post poll asked Americans about a number of subjects, but the headline comes from a statement that 80% of Americans disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case.
Perhaps they do, but I think some of the disagreement comes in the way the question was asked. Here’s how the poll asked the respondents on the 35th of a grueling 40-question list:
Changing topics, do you support or oppose the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that says corporations and unions can spend as much money as they want to help political candidates win elections? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
Well, shoot, when you ask it that way, I might even be inclined to oppose the decision. I wonder if the responses would’ve been different had the question been asked:
Do you support or oppose the Supreme Court decision which held that corporations have the same free speech rights as individuals when it comes to political contributions?
But by couching in both political and monetary terms, the pollsters led people to what they considered the “proper” answer. It also shows that Americans are woefully deficient at understanding the Constitution because they agreed with the next question:
Would you support or oppose an effort by Congress to reinstate limits on corporate and union spending on election campaigns? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
Obviously they don’t recall the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” The Supreme Court held money equalled speech in Buckley v. Valeo:
The Court concurred in part with the appellants’ claim, finding that the restrictions on political contributions and expenditures “necessarily reduce[d] the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of the exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money.”
Understanding that is the key to supporting the Citizens United decision. There are still laws on the books regarding disclosure of who contributes, and those are advisable.
What Democrats in Congress would like to do is put the genie back in the bottle for corporations, yet leave unions free to do whatever they wish. Obviously they’re a little angry that their key special interest now has to play on a more level field than they did before the Citizens United decision.
Every time someone tries to take the money out of politics, smart people figure out ways around it. When McCain-Feingold passed, millions of dollars just shifted to 527 groups who did the dirty work for politicans. At least with the Citizens United case we’ll have more accountability to just who gave money to whom, then try to figure out the quid quo pro.
If the press wasn’t worried about losing influence, perhaps they wouldn’t need to create an artificial issue by asking loaded questions on a poll. The SCOTUS may not have made the popular decision, but it made the correct one.
Taking the rumor seriously
On Monday, a slow news day in the nation’s capital because of the President’s Day holiday, a fellow Maryland blogger made a sensation by posting a rumor from an “impeccable source” that longtime Senator Barbara Mikulski was soon going to announce her retirement and not seek another term. (No, surprisingly the blogger was not Joe Albero.)*ahem* While I remain in the camp of “I’ll believe it when I see it,” I’d still like to see her days in the Senate come to an end soon, and preferably not feet-first.
It appears that one of those seeking to oust her is going to have some fun with the concept and provide another imaginative campaign tactic which shows he’s not going to stick with politics as usual.
On March 4th, the “Barbara Mikulski Retirement Party” will occur online. Borrowing a concept employed to great advantage by supporters of GOP Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts – nice to be able to write that phrase – the campaign of Dr. Eric Wargotz will be setting off their own “money bomb” where they hope huge contributions will roll in from across the country.
Occurring as this rumor did on the heels of the surprise retirement of Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, the Maryland situation is different than Indiana’s. Bayh’s last-minute decision not only shocked Democrats, but left them with no one on the ballot – state Democratic Party officials will decide the nominee as the one candidate who attempted to secure signatures against Bayh was short of the number needed in at least one of the nine Indiana Congressional districts. (One name floated as a possible candidate is musician John Cougar Mellencamp.)
However, Maryland’s late primary would give Democrats an easy opportunity to gear up a campaign should Mikulski call it a career before our filing deadline July 6th.
And while Indiana Democrats might enjoy the lack of a contested primary while several GOP contenders compete for their nod, the Maryland rules make it much easier for candidates to get on a primary ballot – over the last several Senate cycles 2 or 3 minor candidates have popped up as opposition to an entrenched incumbent. Moreover, in 2006 Democrats had 18 primary contenders for an open U.S. Senate seat vacated by former Senator Paul Sarbanes, with just two (eventual winner Ben Cardin and former Congressman and NAACP head Kweisi Mfume) getting more than single-digit percentages in that year’s primary. It promises to be another free-for-all should Mikulski step aside.
In the meantime, Wargotz and his campaign attempt again to conjure up some of that Scott Brown magic – a shrewd step from perhaps the leading GOP contender.
After one year: feel stimulated yet?
Nope.
Remember when unemployment was 7.6% and not 9.7 percent? That was the rate last February.
And where are the 8,300 jobs promised for our Congressional district, let alone the 66,000 for the state?
Instead, we have fewer people working than the last time when the unemployment rate was 9.7 percent because many have given up on the search – 1.1 million fewer to be exact. Even illegal immigrants are leaving because they can’t find work, not doing the jobs Americans won’t do either.
If unemployment weren’t a big problem, why would Congress continue to subsidize it by extending unemployment benefits to nearly 100 weeks? That’s practically two years.
The only sector which is experiencing growth is the federal public sector. Obviously the First Lady is doing her part by employing 22 assistants, while her husband keeps dozens of “czars” on the payroll.
I thought Rush Limbaugh came up with an intriguing idea last year when the stimulus came out. Take the stimulus money and do two things with it: devote the proportion of it equal to Barack Obama’s vote to his ideas (essentially the stimulus package we have now) and the remainder equal to John McCain’s vote to tax cuts and business-friendly policies, and see which side of this bipartisan compromise did better. Obviously we didn’t get the GOP side so the lack of success all falls on the side of the statists, who keep spending way more money than we have available to us for bailing out favored special interests, unions, and key business contributors on Wall Street.
This is a good timeline to recall just how well the stimulus worked, thanks to Rep. Eric Cantor.
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