March 5, 2011

Not even WPRI can spin this

And they collected the data:
Since mid-November the percentage of people who strongly oppose Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker — who view him "very unfavorably" — has more than doubled from 19% to 41%.
TMJ-4's makeup department better order a few extra kilos of talcum for Charlie Sykes tomorrow morning. Those lights are warm enough.

Even more remarkable:
Half the people in the survey were asked how they felt about "stripping most public employees of their right to collectively bargain over benefits and working conditions as part of a ploy to eliminate public employee unions altogether." With the issue framed that way, 58% opposed it and 32% supported it.
Thirty-two percent support a cunningly dishonest government-run project to take advantage of its own citizens. Isn't that lovely.

eta: On his teevee show this morning, Charlie Sykes took pains to point out that WPRI's pollster Ken Goldstein is a public employee. Doubtless Prof. Goldstein would appreciate this snide ad hominem swipe at his academic and professional objectivity.

Yet despite Sykes's heroic efforts to downplay the significance of the WPRI poll — its sample of respondents skews disproportionately toward union and Democratic households, he claimed — left completely unsaid throughout was the poll's greatest significance: that it comported substantially with a number of recent Statewide and national polls conducted by both Democratic and Republican outfits, all of which substantially comport with one another.

To wit, both Scott Walker and his policies are highly unpopular.

"Really diverse group we've got here today," said Sykes of his panel, which contained two WPRI "senior fellows" and Patrick McIlheran.

McIlheran nominated Scott Walker his "Winner of the Week" while Sykes said of the 14 Democratic Senators that the "adults" among them were being "held hostage by extremists like Chris Larson and Lena Taylor." Sykes also predicted that either the Senate stand-off will end early this week or else it will go on for "months," adding false dichotomy to his ever-expanding repertoire of logical fallacies.

Mercifully, no panelist attempted an analysis of the merits of Republican Senate leader Scott Fitzgerald's ersatz "arrest warrants."

OTOH it might have made Sykes's one-note tedium entertaining.

2 comments:

capper said...

That 32% is remarkably similar to the percentage of the population that claim to be of the Republican brand, once again showing their collective, Borg-like mentality.

Hence their surprise at finding out that resistance is indeed not futile.

Anonymous said...

Message to Gov Walker:

"Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God."

Do not throw the baby-boomers under the bus and give our children and grandchildren the protection and incentive they need to provide all children with a good education.