Both Kuhl [and] the Ontario GOP omit another interesting statistic from that poll. When asked who they trust to get S-CHIP right, 52% say that they trust the Democrats. Only 32% trust the President. Another interesting fact: 17% of the respondents were following S-CHIP "very closely", and 34% "somewhat closely". Almost half of the public (49%) are following the issue "not too closely" or "not at all".So if I understand this right, one of Eric Massa's leading supporters in the blogosphere is essentially saying, "When presented with the facts on SCHIP, the public agrees with Congressman Kuhl's position. Thankfully the American people are either too ignorant or not paying much attention to this issue and will blindly support Democrats on health care, so haha, facts be damned, GO MASSA!" I'm paraphrasing, naturally, but still, that's the Fighting 29th's point. Also notice that he doesn't even dispute the facts given in the poll; he just thanks God that people aren't paying much attention to Massa's signature issue. Because, really, the program's name has the words "children" and "health" in it, so it must be good, and only the Democrats care about "children" and "health," so why care about all these needless facts?
So, when a generally uninformed public is presented specific facts on S-CHIP, they tend to agree with Republicans. When those facts are absent, their general distrust of the President governs their opinions. The news on S-CHIP could be worse, but this certainly doesn't qualify as good news for Republicans.
Thankfully, blogs like mine exist to set the record straight and show that the American people really do not want their tax dollars to pay for the health insurance of upper-middle class families, making the public less "uninformed."
That being said, though, I'd like to thank the Fighting 29th for selflessly advertising my blog, and welcome him back anytime!
2 comments:
I don't understand why you didn't quote the other poll that The Fighting29th discussed. "NPR/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard SCHIP" of October 18? This one says,
"* 65% support the expansion (of the SCHIP bill) while 28% oppose.
* 64% think Congress should vote to overturn President Bush's veto of the expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program; 30% think Congress should not.
* 14% say they would be more likely to vote for his or her Member of Congress if he or she opposed the expansion; 35% say they would be less likely to vote for him or her; 46% say it wouldn't make much difference.
I guess I do understand why--it doesn't support your side.
I also posted a follow-up which noted that another poll, which asked the question in a slightly different way, got a completely different result. But I guess you didn't want to mention that.
BTW, I tried to leave a comment on your blog previously and it did not appear. I've linked to your blog, as you note. I hope that courtesy doesn't go only one way.
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