{"id":20037,"date":"2011-05-16T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2011-05-16T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20037"},"modified":"2011-05-16T09:33:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-16T15:33:00","slug":"20037","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20037","title":{"rendered":"Strib Poll: Empowering The Powerful, Gulling The Gullible"},"content":{"rendered":"

The poll was as drearily predictable as the annual stadium extortion-fest; notwithstanding last November’s electoral GOP legislative sweep, yet another Star\/Tribune <\/em>“Minnesota Poll” shows<\/a> that the public is, mirabile dictu<\/em>, entirely on board with the DFL agenda:<\/p>\n

Sixty-three percent of respondents said they favor a blend of higher taxes and service reductions to tackle the state’s $5 billion projected deficit. Just 27 percent said they want state leaders to balance the budget solely through cuts.<\/p>\n

The poll comes [with utter predictability – Ed.<\/em>] as the Republican-led Legislature and the DFL governor head into the final week of a legislative session still dug in on their vastly different approaches to balancing the budget.<\/p>\n

Dayton said the results show the public backs his position. Republicans said the results run counter to last fall’s election and what they are hearing from Minnesotans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Predictable? \u00a0Absolutely. \u00a0Whether through editorial perfidy or lazy methodology, the Strib<\/em>\/”Minnesota” Poll has a long history of releasing “news” the DFL needs<\/a>, exactly when it needs it. \u00a0Especially when the issue is especially close-fought<\/a>; the harder-fought the issue, the more absurdly lopsided the \u00a0Strib <\/em>poll, like the “Humphrey Institute” Poll<\/a> run for many years by the U of M and MPR polls, seem to be. \u00a0Right when the DFL needs it.<\/p>\n

My theory; the DFL knows full well how the “bandwagon effect” in polling<\/a> works for manipulating public perception; the Strib <\/em>serves the DFL, wittingly or not.<\/p>\n

And, sure enough, the poll’s methodology<\/a> was as predictable as the Strib’s <\/em>smug headline; emphasis is added by me:<\/p>\n

Today’s Star Tribune Minnesota Poll findings are based on 565 landline and 241 cellphone interviews conducted May 2-5 with a representative sample of Minnesota adults. Interviews were conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International.<\/p>\n

Results of a poll based on 806 interviews will vary by no more than 4.7 percentage points, plus or minus, from the overall population 95 times out of 100.<\/p>\n

The self-identified party affiliation of the random sample is 33 percent Democrat, 23 percent Republican<\/strong> and 37 percent independent. The remaining 7 percent said they were members of another party, no party or declined to answer.<\/p>\n

Results for the question about the best approach to solving the budget deficit — primarily through service reductions or through a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts — are based on interviews with 548 of the 806 respondents. The question was reasked in follow-up calls to all respondents because of a problem in the original wording of the question, and 548 of the respondents were reached. Results of a poll based on 548 interviews will vary by no more than 5.7 percentage points, plus or minus, from the overall population 95 times out of 100.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, a group which self-reports its political leaning, whose geographical weighting and mix are unknown (remember the Humphrey Institute’s overweighting of Minneapolis respondents<\/a>? Which they didn’t bother to report until after the election, even though their actual poll, which indicated a 12 point blowout for Mark Dayton, went out on schedule, right before the election?), and where the “independents” are given no known context, and which gives the DFL a completely unearned 50% head start, shows the public solidly behind Mark Dayton.<\/p>\n

Just like it needed to.<\/p>\n

I doubt the Twin Cities media will ever admit that the “Minnesota Poll” and the “Humphrey Institute” polls are, intentionally or not, pro-DFL propaganda. But it’s gotten to the point where the evidence doesn’t support any other conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The poll was as drearily predictable as the annual stadium extortion-fest; notwithstanding last November’s electoral GOP legislative sweep, yet another Star\/Tribune “Minnesota Poll” shows that the public is, mirabile dictu, entirely on board with the DFL agenda: Sixty-three percent of respondents said they favor a blend of higher taxes and service reductions to tackle the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-great-poll-scam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20037"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20039,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20037\/revisions\/20039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}