Tuesday, November 08, 2005

impeachment polling questions

ok - as you know, we raised $10k to pay for the impeachment polling, and we've conducted two polls so far asking whether PresidentBlinky should be impeached 'if he lied about war'.

that first question was kinda useful because it enabled us to establish a trend from when zogby first asked the question in June. The June poll showed 42% favoured impeachment under those circumstances, and the lastest result from last week showed that 53% - an increase of 19% over 5 months.

we are now going to ask another question and im going to get a poll put up over at dailykos to asking which question we should ask this time around.

as best as i can tell, the problem with the original 'if he lied to go to war' question is that:
1) the media has an excuse to ignore it because the contingency hasnt been 'proved'
2) apparently 50% of the population doesnt think that lying to go to war isnt an impeachable offense
3) it excludes all of the people who think that bush should be impeached, but who cant bring themselves to accept that a president would actually lie about something so serious. other reasons to consider impeachment include mismanagement of the war, traitorgate, katrina, health care, tax give-aways for the rich, various scotus debacles etc etc.

our question will be in the middle of an omnibus poll - so (apparently) we need to provide some context in the lead-in to the question, otherwise (apparently) we will get lots of 'dont know' responses.

Trying to construct the 'right' question isnt as easy as it might look at first glance - but basically I want to ask the straight impeachment question - so the main issue is how we set up the question. I've tried to use language similar to the polls that were taken by the major polling firms about clinton's impeachment (you can see them here)

Anyway - Donna and I are working on the list of questions - my first pass of the questions we will post over at dailykos for voting is as follows:
1. Given the Bush Administration's handling of the Iraq war, the leaking of a CIA agent's identity, and the response to Hurricane Katrina - Which of the following possible outcomes would you most like to see happen? Bush is impeached and removed from office. Bush resigns from office. Bush is censured by Congress, and remains in office. Bush remains in office.

2. Given what you know about the integrity, conduct and competence of the Bush Administration - Which of the following possible outcomes would you most like to see happen? Bush is impeached and removed from office. Bush resigns from office. Bush is censured by Congress, and remains in office. Bush remains in office.

3. Recent polls indicate that more than 65% of americans think that the country is "seriously off-track" - Would you prefer to see Mr Bush stay in office for the remaining 3 years of his term, OR, would you prefer to see him leave office before the end of his term, either through impeachment or resignation?"

4. Given all that you know about President Bush's handling of foreign and domestic events, Which of the following possible outcomes would you most like to see happen? Bush is impeached and removed from office. Bush resigns from office. Bush is censured by Congress, and remains in office. Bush remains in office.

5. Based on all that you know about President Bush, what do you think should happen? He should be impeached and removed from office. He should resign from office. There should be some other penalty. Nothing.
obviously the multiple choice options are a bit mix-and-match - and i dont think there will be much discussion about that - therefore the main issue will be the lead in. My guess is that something like #1 (katrina/traitorgate/iraq) will probably be the best option - although there will be some disagreement about which specifics should be included.

#2 is obviously more generic - integrity/competence/conduct - but seems to pick up most of the same issues without naming specific events. the latest polls show a slamming of Blinky's integrity numbers - and i think that the mix of integrity/competence/conduct probably captures most of the reasons why people might wanna get rid of Blinky.

#3 - "seriously off-track" is just another way of trying to remind people of all the things that are going wrong. the recent cbs poll and the recent wapo poll both had "seriously off-track" at 68% and 69%. i actually think this is a pretty good question - because it taps directly into whatever reason the interviewee might think the country is "seriously off-track" - and while being "seriously off-track" isnt an impeachable offence, its probably not a bad proxy.

#4 - domestic/foreign - is simply another way of highlighting/presenting the different types of challenges the country faces.

#5 is the most generic presentation of all the issues.


the list of questions might be refined a little bit or completely changed before we post the poll for voting over at dailykos - but what do you think of the list so far? completely stupid? a good start? proof of Intelligent Design?

we havent decided when to do the next poll - although im leaning towards sooner rather than later. if we get a close vote in the poll, we will be able to have a run-off vote between the top contenders - or we might tweak the options a little bit and have another poll. or something. (also, i should add that we havent necessarily decided that the 'winner' of the poll would necessarily be the question that we ask - and apparently the pollsters have the final decision in how the question gets asked anyway)

donna asked a good question about whether we should include cheney - my response was:
"ive thought about this quite a lot - my *sense* is that our goal is to get the impeachment issue into the msm. i dont think we need to ask about cheney becuase once we get the issue into the msm, then naturally the question will be 'what happens next?' and obviously the succession issue comes into discussion and people will naturally start asking if we want to impeach cheney as well - so my sense is that *we* dont need to worry about the cheney question. (and we have people like impeachpac trying to get rid of them simultaneously)

whaddya think?

if we want to ask about cheney - we have 2 choices:
1) we can 'spend' a separate question about cheney
2) we can roll both in together - ie the same questions as below (for the sake of argument) but with "bush and cheney"

cheney's approval ratings are @ 19% - so we might actually get a higher poll result if we include both bush and cheney together - especially if this torture issue explodes (which it kinda has these last few days)"
anyway - whaddya think about the proposed poll questions and the cheney issue?

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