 |
| President Obama officially pardoning Cheese the Turkey last year. Apparently Macaroni was camera shy. Or was it a conspiracy to convince Americans he had only pardoned the traditional single bird? Also remember the daughters Sasha and Malia were attacked by conservative operatives for their alleged violations of approved attitude at this occasion. |
It’s mid-afternoon and I am still working on the blog
post I had planned for this morning.
Look for it tomorrow. But on a break
from working on it I found a post on facebook
that intrigued me. But it was from PoliticusUSA,
a liberal web site I have learned not to trust. It often skews news items, misrepresents the contents in headlines,
exaggerates, and passes on from sources even less reliable. Having been embarrassingly burned a couple of times I have learned no matter
how much their stuff might appeal to my natural political leanings, positions,
and prejudices not to pass it on or
share on social media. My conservative
friends—and I still have a few—might do well to review their own sources of
information confirming their preconceptions. But then if they did so sites from The
Drudge Report and Breitbart not to mention Fox
News might go out of business. Those have been proved to have their pants
on fire repeatedly by neutral fact
checkers.
But
in the case of the post that grabbed my attention, I decided to investigate if
there was even a morsel of truth in the Politicus
meme. And lo
and behold this time there was. The
story checked out. And it was too good,
and revealing not to pass on from the original source material—Public Policy Polling (PPP)
PPP
is a North Carolina based polling
organization ranked for its reliability,
accuracy, and methodology as one of the best in the business. The
company only works for Democratic or
Liberal campaigns which value it for
telling them the truth about public opinion, not just parroting back to them what they want to hear. Separate from the polls that they conduct
for campaigns, the company of conducts “temperature measurement” polls which
reveal the depth of ideological commitment of some voters—and
often reveals remarkable gullibility. Questions in these polls sometimes seem whimsical or ridiculous—but some voters take them with absolute seriousness.
They
have polled questions like the approval
rating of God, whether Republican voters believe President Obama would be eligible to enter heaven in the event of the Rapture, and whether hipsters should be subjected to a special tax for being annoying. Although
these polls are sensational enough to attract media attention and thus boost the PPP brand, they are conducted as
straight forwardly as any campaign
polling. Unlike the notorious push polls favored by Republican operatives, the
questions are not framed in inflammatory
or prejudicial language intended to push the pollee to the desired
response. They are put forward matter-of-factly an in neutral language. They use Interactive Voice Response (IVR),
an automated questionnaire used by
other polling firms including SurveyUSA
and Rasmussen Reports. Sample
sizes are large enough to be meaningful
and guard against anomalies.
In
other words PPP polls tend to reflect what people are really thinking. Which can sometimes be frightening. It’s a Bizzaro world out there folks.
The
poll question that grabbed my attention asked “Do you approve or disapprove of
President Obama’s executive action to pardon two turkeys rather than the customary
one turkey at Thanksgiving?”
 |
| Republicans apparently had no objections when Ronald Reagan first used the word Pardon in sparing Charley in 1973. |
You
might recall that last year to white
gobblers named Macaroni and Cheese were saved in a holiday tradition dating back to John F. Kennedy spontaneously spared the
turkey donated to the White House annually
by the National Turkey Federation
and the Poultry and Egg National Board
on Nov. 18, 1963, just four days before his assassination. Other
presidents informally followed suit, making for a nice heartwarming annual
story. Ronald Reagan was the first to call it what the press already was—a pardon, but it was George Herbert Walker Bush who first
drew up and issued a formal pardon. The
birds are generally donated to a local petting
zoo. The First Families, if they are so inclined, dine on a traditional non-celebrity turkey feast.
You
would think such a charming little tradition would be non-controversial. You
would, of course, be wrong. Nothing
Barack Obama does is non-controversial in these hyper partisan times. If Fox
News were to suddenly report that Obama respires
oxygen a significant portion of their viewership would be dead of asphyxiation by morning.
Let
PPP itself report the outcome of their question.
The examples of
the GOP’s reflexive opposition to President Obama’s agenda are many but this
may be the best one yet: by a 27 point margin Republicans say they disapprove of
the President's executive order last year pardoning two Thanksgiving turkeys
(Macaroni and Cheese) instead of the customary one. Only 11% of Republicans
support the President’s executive order last year to 38% who are opposed- that’s
a pretty clear sign that if you put Obama's name on something GOP voters are
going to oppose it pretty much no matter what. Overall there’s 35/22 support
for the pardon of Macaroni and Cheese thanks to 59/11 support from Democrats
and 28/21 from independents.
So
there you have it. Are you surprised?
PPP’s
complete report on this round of polling also included questions on which Presidential Candidate would be the most
likely to say something inappropriate
at the table and ruin Thanksgiving Dinner (Donald
Trump in a run-away), Thanksgiving
menu choices (cranberry sauce or not
turns into a generational divide)
and Christmas issues—Americans are
united in thinking the Starbucks coffee cup issue is ridiculous and in opposing
too early playing of Christmas music.
Perhaps there is some dim hope for unity after all. Check out PPP’s
report a here.
*Just the sort of
inflammatory headline to avoid like the plague. This has been a Public Service Example.
No comments:
Post a Comment