Comments on: Should government leaders heed public-opinion polls before making important decisions?

By: Menlo Bob

Menlo Bob — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:56:12 +0000

“I remember when Rockford had the Morning Star and the Register Republic..”

I remember as a delivery boy delivering the Rockford Register Republic. An awful job in the winter. Now days a newspaper would be sued for hiring 12 year olds to deliver their product on bicycles. Whoever came up with the idea of hiring illegal aliens to toss them out the window of pick-ups is a genius.

By: ROTStar

ROTStar — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:07:20 +0000

Let me just clarify my last comment — blogs are not FOR making mistakes, but as has often been discussed, mistakes are an inherent feature of blogs and are often corrected by the comments.
David

By: ROTStar

ROTStar — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:24:41 +0000

Pat,

Freelance huh? I had offered to blog gratis to provide a an actual balanced outlook to the blogs here. (I like your deal better.)

When I hadn’t received a single reply, not even a, “no thanks,” to at my 6 offers since your move here from the Rascal so I sorta gave up on ingratiating my self. I pretty much figured there was no hope and no interest. However my offer still stands.

Oh, and blogs are about making mistakes, admitting them, and correcting them online. They are the daily reactions (free of editors) and are often wrong. So that shouldn’t really impact blogging qualifications — most bloggers err, it comes with the territory.

I am more interested in seeing balance on the blogs here.

I remember when Rockford had the Morning Star and the Register Republic and don’t want to see all the functions of the online business shifted to an out of town servers. I am fine with conglomerates, but also think local blog coverage offers something valuable that even papers can’t offer.

Thanks for the note on the milestone! Congratulations on 1700!
David

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 02 May 2008 01:05:39 +0000

By the way, David: your apology was the 1,700th comment on this site. Thanks for the milestone.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:20:21 +0000

David: Apology graciously accepted. And I welcome further input from you.

By: ROTStar

ROTStar — Fri, 02 May 2008 00:14:49 +0000

Pat, your right - my apologies
David

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:04:19 +0000

Incidentally, David, you seem not to have read comment No. 6 above where I said: “But don’t get me wrong. I don’t think politicians should blindly bow to public opinion in every case. Greatness sometimes amounts to leading the crowd rather than following it.” Or comment No. 7 where I said: “I did a post on this matter mainly because I found the survey results somewhat counterintuitive. On many occasions, I consider the prevailing opinions of the masses ill-informed and ridiculous.”

In other words, you put words in my mouth without having read my words to the contrary when they were available here for you to see before you sent your comment.

I see from some of your other comments that you’d like to have a blog on this site. Good luck with that. I really mean that. But I have nothing to do with such decisions. I’m just a free-lancer in this gig. However, I’ll offer you some unsolicited advice: I don’t think your failure to read this post and the comments carefully recommends you for the job. Nor do your slams at the Register Star. That’s not the way to ingratiate yourself with the people who do make the decisions.

By: Pat Cunningham

Pat Cunningham — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:18:55 +0000

David: Where in my post does it say I’m ” supporting polls for governing”? I’m just saying that most Americans, according to the survey by the University of Maryland, want the pols to heed the polls. And I’m saying that lots of pols do, in fact, follow the polls closely. If you promise not to put words in my mouth, David, I won’t put any in yours. Deal?

By: ROTStar

ROTStar — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:07:22 +0000

So Pat — your supporting polls for governing by using a poll on polls?

So you supported the invasion of Iraq then, right? Most Americans did. Oh and how about keeping capital gains tax rates low – most Americans disagree with Obama about that one, so you would be okay with that, right?

Being a Republican form of government is one of the reasons we have endured longer then any other elected from of government.

Governing by any poll other then the one in November is setting yourself up for failure. Americans are smart but for the last 100 years we have been fed the idea that we have a democracy and as such when the majority want something the government should give it to them, thus increasing the power of a centralized government.

It all becomes a ploy to stay in power and buy votes.

Regarding the Clinton Presidency when even the encyclopedia says (Grolier, The American Presidency):

Still, good presidents make the most of what they do face and move public opinion in their direction, and Clinton failed to do that. The fund-raising speech took precedence over the bully pulpit. Rather than chart a bold new course or seek the winds of change, Clinton followed the currents of popular opinion. Rather than set the terms and tone of public debate, he governed by polls. And so historians may judge the Clinton presidency, as do many Americans today, as a mixture of promise and disappointment.

You know you have an uphill PR battle for the ages.
David

By: Menlo Bob

Menlo Bob — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:51:39 +0000

President Bush said that he’d govern without an eye on the polls. President Clinton had high poll numbers and, aside from welfare reform, it seems to be his entire legacy. Polls suggested that ignoring al Qaeda was a good bet.