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I frequently argue that public opinion polls on complex policy issues are almost meaningless. (Although polls can be useful for predicting election outcomes.) It all depends on the framing. Here’s another study that reached the same conclusion:

We presented respondents with two different education plans, the details of which are unimportant in this context. What is important is that half the sample was told A was the Democratic plan and B was the Republican plan, while the other half of our national sample was told A was the Republican plan and B was the Democrats’ approach. The questions dealt with substantive policy on a subject quite important to most Americans “” education “” and issues that people are familiar with “” class size, teacher pay and the like. Nonetheless, when the specifics in Plan A were presented as the Democratic plan and B as the Republican plan, Democrats preferred A by 75 percent to 17 percent, and Republicans favored B by 13 percent to 78 percent. When the exact same elements of A were presented in the exact same words, but as the Republicans’ plan, and with B as the Democrats’ plan, Democrats preferred B by 80 percent to 12 percent, while Republicans preferred “their party’s plan” by 70 percent to 10 percent. Independents split fairly evenly both times. In short, support for an identical education plan shifted by more than 60 points among partisans, depending on which party was said to back it.

Most polls on policy questions report little more than mood affiliation.

Update: Here’s how Yahoo describes the charges against Dennis Hastert:

Hastert pleads not guilty in hush money case The former House Speaker is accused of agreeing to paying $3.5M to hide past misconduct claims

Interesting that the American press is so ashamed of our country that they refuse come right out and say that it can be illegal to withdraw cash from your own bank account, and instead feel a need to make up lies about Hastert being charged with paying hush money.

Update#2: Et tu, Vox?

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This entry was posted on June 09th, 2015 and is filed under Methodology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.



