Next Time, the NRA Will Lose [More]Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not.
In either case, the war will be far from over.
We'll see who has the will to win.
[Via bondmen]
Thursday, May 02, 2013
The Biggest Loser
In either case, the war will be far from over.
We'll see who has the will to win.
[Via bondmen]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2013/04/gun-control-polls-to-comfort-the-left
Gun Control Polls to Comfort the Left
BY Dan Friedman
If gun control advocates are going to shake off their recent defeat, buck the odds and the NRA and force meaningful legislation through Congress, they aren’t going to do it with wool over their eyes.
But some Democrats hoping to reverse their recent beating on a background check compromise seem on the way to reading polls like Mitt Romney backers last October, and seeing what they wish for.
On Monday, the liberal group Americans United For Change touted news polls from the Democratic leaning Public Policy Polling showing declines in the home state numbers of five senators who voted against expanding background checks.
The reported dips range from almost 20 points for Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has had an especially rough time over his background vote, to just a few points down for Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).
Republicans religiously reject PPP polling, charging a leftward tilt, while some professional pollsters tend to ignore the group’s polls because they rely on automated phone calls, which reduces reliability.
The group’s findings could be right, but they aren’t the whole story. When PPP recently showed Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) down 15 points after opposing background checks, liberal groups and news organizations touted the poll then ignored a UNH survey that did not rely on automated calls and showed Ayotte’s popularity “holding steady,” – and ignored Republicans assertions that the PPP poll greatly oversampled Democrats.
Anyone who has dealt with campaigns knows they don’t just consume polling, they promote favorable results, believing that perception, with media and fundraising affected, can shape reality.
Gun control advocates, similarly, push polls that back their political views in the hopes they affect events, for example by causing Flake or Ayotte to alter their views.
But if PPP, as Republicans argue, exist to give “the Democrat Party numbers they want to see,” Democrats in relying too much on the group’s findings on guns risk doing the same to their backers. In doing so they may losing the fight because they aren’t willing to acknowledge the depth of many Americans’ disagreement with their views.
Gun control advocates,even the well-informed Mayors Against Illegal Guns, endlessly cite polls showing near 90 percent of Americans support strengthening background checks as if this means the same voters supported the defeated deal on background checks between Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)
It doesn’t. Almost everyone supports better background checks in the abstract. But put it in an actual bill with language to attack and lie about, with a divisive president behind it, and support falls fast.
That’s why a Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll last week showed just 47 percent of voters said they were “angry” or “disappointed” gun control legislation failed, while 39 percent were “relieved” or “happy” by the result.
The 90 percent figure also ignores an intensity gap favoring gun rights advocates over gun control backers. If disputed, it is real enough for politicians who act on the belief that gun rights voters are much more likely to vote on the issue than gun control backers.
Senators who opposed the background check cited ratios of 7-1 or 8-1 of calls and emails against recent gun control legislation. They paid as much attention to those figures, signs of motivated homes-state voters, as they did to broadly worded polls.
Advocates of stricter gun laws have to deal with these political challenges, not ignore them by convincing themselves lawmakers who voted against gun control legislation violated the will of their constituents. Hope is not a strategy.
Post a Comment