The Boston Globe and the AP report that 37% of Americans support OWS:
More than one-third of the country supports the Wall Street protests, and even more — 58 percent — say they are furious about America’s politics.
The number of angry people is growing as deep reservoirs of resentment grip the country, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll.
Some 37 percent of people back the protests that have spread from New York to cities across the country and abroad, one of the first snapshots of how the public views the “Occupy Wall Street’’ movement. A majority of those protest supporters are Democrats, but the anger about politics in general is much more widespread, the poll indicates.
Nowhere in the article does it say how many oppose it. Doing so requires tracking down the actual polling report, which I found here. Oddly enough, the poll itself does not even ask directly how many oppose it, although 56% say they are “Not Supporters” of OWS (7% are undecided).
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Americans oppose it 56%-37%, since some neutral individuals might also consider themselves not to support OWS, but these numbers are still fairly negative and should have been reported as such.
But I also wondered why they would use such a strange and sloppy question wording, and looking through the polling report, I found an answer. They include, for comparison, their polling on the Tea Party, which shows somewhat worse numbers than OWS, and notice that they have been using the same wording to ask about the Tea Party since the beginning. Ironically, the AP used a polling question that is biased against OWS because they reused the wording form their polling on the Tea Party, probably so that they could compare results.
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Rasmussen says 68% want lower taxes and less government. But if you ask those people if they are tea party … 65% of that 68% group say no, even though they align with tea party ideals. They really seem to be saying they don’t want to be labeled as tea bagging racist bigoted far right anti-science abortion doctor killers, that favor more rape and dirty air.
The media and the left has managed to tag and marginalize an awesome grassroots movement. They do the opposite with the OWS, which when polled are mostly left or far left. Democrats try to lay claim to some mythical massive movement that wants MORE government, while denying that so many on the street are actually socialists, communists and anarchists. Many others are just kids making noise and basking in drummed up attention. Others are union or Soros funded.
The supposed backers of the undefined OWS movement in the poll, probably favor some investigation of big money that buys off politicians. Obama will pretend to support that, even as he readily shovels his campaign bundlers billions for their unicorn solar companies.
Less government, lower taxes, investigation …. still winners that favor tea party style conservatives for change.
To understand how the lefties organize their polls, remember the old axiom; “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure”
These are the same people who voted for obama because they did not want to appear racist. Worked out well, didn’t it? However, I am not a tea party member but support the movement. My question is: did Rasmussen ask for a yes or no answer? That is the way most of them get the answers they want. Just like they said Bush had a low approval number. They didn’t take into consideration that some people thought he wasn’t going far enough but spun it to make the public beleive so many people disapprove of him because he went too far. Polling companies are dims. What does that tell you? “The end justifies the means” that’s what.
[…] » AP Reports 37% of Adults Back OWS In Horribly Constructed Poll, Fails To Mention That 56% Don’t… -Bill Quick […]
I have a feeling much of this discontent with our political process comes from people’s hyped up expectations. Too many people assume their views are the majority, and if they don’t get politicians that support every one of their views, it must be the work of some minority group wielding undue influence. The reality is, of course, there are just genuine people with genuine differences of opinion, and someone has to lose.
Think of abortion, on the one hand you have a group who genuinely believes that allowing abortion is state-sanctioned murder. On the other hand you have a group who genuinely believes banning abortion is an abhorrent invasion of personal liberty. At the end of the day, someone is going to feel like rights have been trampled on, but it hardly means the system is broken.
Just because all of your views aren’t represented by the current political atmosphere hardly means theirs some grand conspiracy. The left probably gets a boost from the inherent political ideologies of journalists and the right probably gets a boost from the inherent political ideologies of big business but at the end of the day, neither of them are controlling, so people need to just calm down and accept that they won’t win them all.