Reacting to a rash of new polls showing the Republican radicals intransigence, shunning any compromise to be wildly unpopular, Rush Limbaugh explained why polls don't matter. Rush claims that because voter turnout was so low in 2010 that what a majority of American adults think doesn't matter because only 42% of them voted in 2010.
)*( Left Uses Skewed Debt Limit Poll to Push Compromise on the GOP
We live in a center-right country, so any time center-left poll results are advanced by the State-Controlled Media, beware. Skewed polls are used to make news and then to shape opinion. They are used to confuse issues, not to bring clarity. And when it comes to the debt ceiling crisis manufactured by a president and his party who thinks leading means to vote "present," which is all he's doing here, confusion is the only way that he can continue to advance his war on prosperity.
John Podhoretz writing at Commentary says the big news today in Washington is this poll. Oh, yeah, they're glomming onto this poll like, "Oh, my God, salvation! Jesus has spoken," except Jesus isn't any big deal to these people. Allah has spoken, whoever, Gaia, God has spoken. And the poll "shows both a pox on all your houses attitude toward the president..." Really? "This is a poll of adults. Not registered voters. Not likely voters. Adults. As a practical matter, a politician judges the danger to himself from a political stand based on how actual voters will respond. In this case, the poll offers no guide to that. Turnout in the 2010 midterm election that brought 63 new Republicans to the House was 41 percent of registered voters." Turnout in the 2010 midterm election that gave us a landslide Republican victory all the way down the ballot was 41% of registered voters.
"Registered voters make up 61 percent of all adults. Therefore, the actual constituents to whom Republican House members must respond constitute something like 20 percent of the universe of adults who make up the respondents of this poll." That is the way to put this in perspective. Twenty percent of adults in this poll represent people who vote. That's it. "There are two reasons to do a poll of adults only on a complex matter involving Congress in a non-election year. One is cost; it is more expensive to do a rigorous poll of registered or even likely voters. The other is to skew the debate." Which is what is happening here. To skew the debate. Pure and simple.
Are Tea party Republicans so naive that they'll swallow this argument and shun any compromise?
First 71% of American adults were registered to vote in 2008 Rush is only off by 10%. That works out to 45% of adults voting in 2008.
Second by comparing off year election turnouts to presidential election year turnouts is deliberately deceptive. The turnout in 2008 was 64%.
On top of that Rush is arguing that Republicans need to ignore what most Americans think, and to remain rigid radicals. While that's the stuff Rush's listeners love to hear, its liable to be a big time loser for Tea Party candidates in 2012.
Also from today's show here's Rush suggesting that the Heat Index is a big Government conspiracy.
This is as absurdly cynical as Rush saying Republicans need to stop thinking about what Americans want. The level of cynicism is stunning.
Can Rush's damn the torpedoes full speed ahead to a glorious conservative triumph meme create the Right's fantasy narrative? Will it help get Tea Party types in the House agitated enough to derail ANY plans to avoid a default? Predicting what these erratic radicals will do at this point is a crap-shoot.