[EL] What's More Popular than Congress?

[Paul Gronke]

Dan (and others),

I think we had a food fight the last time a Rasmussen poll was cited here, so I'll just state my own opinions on this survey: it's junk.

The biggest problem is that the press release uses interchangeably "confidence," which is a broad summary term meant to convey a citizen's confidence or trust in an individual political leader, the leadership of an institution, or the institution as a whole (best citation to understand this distinction is Hibbing and Theiss-Morse,"Why Americans Hate Congress") and the precise wording of the question: "better understanding of the problems America faces today," 

"Better understanding" is simply not the same thing as "confidence".  Confidence, in all the work I am familiar with, has something to do with implementing policy solutions to a problem.  

While I have not seen the "better understanding" wording before, it feels an awful lot to me like "empathy" items that are often used to query about the personality traits of presidents and presidential candidates, e.g.

	"Barack Obama does / doesn't understand the problems of people like me"  (Agree strongly -> Disagree strongly)

It's just odd in many ways to have a set of questions that compare the "average Tea Party member" to the "average member of Congress."  Here's the exact wording:

	3* Who has a better understanding of the problems America faces today – the average Tea Party member or the 
	average member of Congress?

I simply don't know what that means.  No one asks about the "average member of Congress"--we ask about your own representative, the leadership, or the institution as a whole.  The "average member" has no political meaning.  I'm not surprised that citizens would say that the average member of a citizens movement has a "better understanding" of problems.  That does not mean you want Tea Party members solving the problems, or that their solutions are viable, or anything else.

By the way, I can't help but fun at the next two terribly worded items:

	4* Thinking of the budget debate in Congress, has the impact of the Tea Party made things better or worse for the country?

	--> Thinking about the *budget debate* and about *Congress*, tell me about the impact of the *tea party* on the *country.*  UGH! How many attitude objects can you include in an individual item??
 
	5* Some people have accused the Tea Party of acting like economic terrorists during the budget debates.  Are members of the Tea Party economic terrorists?

	--> I did a Google News search on this term that "some people" have used.  The only citation I can find is a single statement by Stephen Rattner on the "Morning Joe" show on MSNBC.  This is a classic example of asking about a non-issue, and are we surprised that most respondents don't endorse the term?  

---
Paul Gronke                Ph:  503-517-7393
			               Fax: 734-661-0801

Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.
Portland OR 97202

EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net

On Aug 11, 2011, at 9:56 AM, Lowenstein, Daniel wrote:

>        Also the Tea Party, according to Rasmussen.
> 
> http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2011/voters_still_express_more_confidence_in_tea_party_than_in_congress
> 
>             Best,
> 
>             Daniel H. Lowenstein
>             Director, Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI)
>             UCLA Law School
>             405 Hilgard
>             Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
>             310-825-5148
> 
> What’s More Popular than Congress?<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=21746>
> Posted on August 11, 2011<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=21746> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
> 
> WaPo (Lifestyle<http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/whats-congress-less-popular-than-among-other-things-human-cloning/2011/08/09/gIQAznM26I_story.html>, again): “Cloning sheep. Cloning humans, even. Caning teen vandals. Believing that aliens have descended from space and abducted humans.”
> _______________________________________________