When pollsters practice punditry

Gallup predicted a Dewey win

While I would be remiss in my new job not to mention that the recent Siena poll failed to mention the other declared major party candidate in the hunt for New York Governor, it’s not the purpose or reason for this missive to the electronic ether. During an interview with WGY’s Al Roney, this Tuesday, Steve Greenberg of the Siena Research Institute, outlined a scenario about spending in NY that he claims makes New York voters look inconsistent. The reality is that the poll itself fails to outline clear alternatives to spending that did not include the sacred cows of the chronic statists, healthcare and education.

As Governor Paterson as iterated many times, healthcare and education take a lion’s share of the budget and most people are reluctant to cut those seemingly necessary public goods. Notwithstanding a truer test of what in fact constitutes such a good, these two items constitute only about sixty percent of New York budget expenditure. This means that there are in fact additional items that can be addressed in terms of spending and cuts. Perhaps bloated salaries and redundant agencies for a start. It is possible to make to close the gap, without closing public goods that all people can use.

According to Greenberg during the WGY interview, voters were only given the choices of healthcare and education and burdened with an additional rational about taxes. Even without scrutinizing the ‘cross-tabs’, Greenberg lays out only the most simplistic scenario for voters when it comes to spending.

Nearly three-in-five voters, including a plurality of Republicans and conservatives, say the Legislature should not cut spending to either health care or education, even if it means raising taxes. Voters were told that the Governor was attempting to close an $8 billion deficit and that health care and education are the two largest parts of the state budget,” Greenberg said. “Still, only 20 percent of voters say both should be cut and another 16 percent said one but not the other should be cut.

When given no clear alternatives to the polling scenario, suddenly spending cuts only relate to healthcare and education, which presumably only a small cranky minority would willfully cut. Thus voters who don’t want to see education and healthcare cut are stuck with the unseemly alternative of raising taxes. Of course, no talk of bloated bureaucracies and their disproportionate salaries.

In my estimation this is ‘gotcha’ polling that seems to be guided with some sort of desire to actually influence policy and it’s discussion, than any reasonable assessment of voters true sentiments. This allows pollsters, like Greenberg, to get on with media types and rightfully conclude that their results have certain consequences as to how politicians need to behave in order to satisfy certain results. The more sublime analysis of this behavior is that Greenberg is echoing Paterson’s own political camouflage when it comes to this issue. Thus, like all pundits, reflection of reality parrots a position of power more so than any alternative ideological scenario might in fact do. Yes, it’s the spending. No, it’s not all about healthcare and education.

Push polling is the outright manipulation of polling questions for a certain result. In most cases it’s obvious and the ones perpetuating it are usually anonymous at the bequest of their often partisan clients.  Under the aegis of a University or Research Institute these abuses are supposed to be mitigated with a certain openness and non-affiliation with political partisans. When a more insidious burden or in this case accusation is presented, fiefdoms and prestige come into play and the average media type isn’t likely to go too deep for fear of  the wrath of the corporate overseers who provide the paycheck. It’s much easier to press on to sugary drinks and direct all that nanny state angry towards the health collective.