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Politics : Clinton's Scandals: Is this corruption the worst ever? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (11492)	2/11/1999 9:53:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Respond to of 13994

It's not just the corrupt that support the Dems, they also have a lock (big surprise) on the stupid and ignorant: The 'Ignorance Bonus' Greg Schneiders and Jo Ellen Livingston ("Can You Trust the Polls? Well, Sometimes."2 editorial page, Feb. 8) give us guidelines to determine the accuracy of polls. But the question of accuracy is secondary to the question of relevance. Case in point: polls indicating that regardless of whether Bill Clinton is guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice, it is the "will of the people" that he not be removed from office. Does it matter if those polls are accurate? No. We are a nation of laws, not polls. The Constitution refers to high crimes and misdemeanors, not high approval ratings. We are a representative republic, not a pure democracy. This is the United States Senate, not the Roman Coliseum where an emperor asks the mob for a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Even if accurate, polls can be misleading as well as irrelevant. The most carefully worded question on whether a president should be impeached is meaningless if the person questioned doesn't even know what impeachment is. According to a Washington Post-Harvard University survey taken shortly after the 1996 election, Bob Dole actually beat Bill Clinton 47% to 42% among voters who could accurately identify where each candidate stood on key issues. Among the most uninformed voters, Clinton achieved his margin of victory, winning 53% to 33%. In a separate study performed by a Princeton University political scientist, it was determined that incumbent Democrats have a natural 7% "ignorance bonus" of voters who actually vote against their own beliefs and interests. The Washington Post study found that so deep is voter ignorance that 40% of adults couldn't name the vice president, almost half failed to identify the speaker of the House, and that 60% believed the government spends more on foreign aid than on Medicare even though foreign aid is only 2% of the budget. It is no wonder that Bill Clinton has been able to fool enough of the people enough of the time. Daniel John Sobieski *** Mr. Schneiders and Ms. Livingston presented a precise and comprehensive discussion of problems related to conducting and understanding of public opinion polls. I write to add a related but different factor highlighted by the following actual poll. In middle of December 1998, USA Today published a poll according to which a large majority of Minnesota residents approved of the job performance of Jesse Ventura. Mr. Ventura was sworn in as governor of Minnesota in January 1999. (This is in no way a reflection on Gov. Ventura, whom I genuinely wish every success.) V. Michael Shante wsj.com