See what happens when you make assumptions? You miss the point entirely! I never cite polls to judge a politicians performance. I cite polls to document public opinion, period. There are many criteria an elected politician must consider before making a decision. Principles, yes, and also intelligence, practicality, prudence, reality, and feasibility. Obviously, one of these important issues is the will and desires of the people who elected him and whom he represents. Any politician who makes decisions without consideration of what his electorate desires is foolish indeed. And so is any observer who fails to see this.
my impression is that you often cite polls as evidence that bush isnt performing. if not, fine, my mistake, but i dont really see the point of documenting public opinion. that is like announcing "people love the yankees", when i am arguing why the mets have a better team. i dont see the point or why it matters. for example, you said in this thread: "I believe a leader does what is best for the country and is supported by his people" i think that is an odd thing to say because doing what the people support and what is best for the country are not always the same. you also said: "Clinton was indeed a scumbag as a husband, but the public believes that he was a better president in spite of it" again implying that clinton was performing better because the public believed he was. and of course my point is that public perception is mostly irrelevant when gauging perfomance. public perception would be worth discussing if, for example, you were arguing why usc woulkd win the AP polls in 2003. but we both know that objective analysis shows that USC was not actually the highest performing team that year. i care more about reality than perception when i am analyzing performance. geaux tigers, 2003 national champs.
"Reality" is merely the way your perceptions present themselves... :yelwink2: Alright, so I don't entirely believe that, but it can be the case - especially with things like politics where people are so split.
Clearly you don't. Many others do realize that public opinion is of immense importance. Well sure, sometimes. But more often they are. You often state that you are extremely smart with all of the answers and that "the people" are stupid, uninterested, and gullible. This blinds you to the fact that many of the rest of us are pretty smart, too. Collectively the people understand an awful lot more that you give them credit for. You worry too much about what I might be implying and miss the point I state quite clearly--"the public believes that he was a better president". Salty had stated that Clinton was a bad president because of his marital infidelity. I responded that, in fact, people think Clinton was a better President than Bush--even if he was a poor husband. I say this to indicate that it is not just my opinion, but the opinion of the majority . . . an essential element in a democracy. I submit that public perception is irrelevant in gauging your performance, but it is most certainly not irrelevant in gauging the performance of a public official.
i didnt say i was "extremely smart". i say that i am right. and i do have all the answers on some topics. they are easy topics i have thought about for years. it isnt that people are stupid or i am smart. it is because most people try very very hard to believe in what they want to be true, for many different reasons. weird reasons that you wouldnt expect anyone to care about. and i almost never do that. the dumb guy will be right about many more things than the smart guy if he can do like ayn rand says, and accept that A is A. fair enough, you were making another point to salty. i would argue here, but every time i make the claim that you are wrong about this, you deny that you meant it.
The are held accountable at the voting booth. My opinion is: say during the Clinton impeachment deal for instance. Richard Baker kept on saying he was voting against impeachment because polls were showing "The American people" aren't for it. OK, that may be but he was elected by conservatives in EBR, not Dem's from San Fran. I thought then and think now that if I were a Congressman, I would run on 4 or 5 things I wanted to get done, try to get those done and when something like Clinton's impeachment came up, I'd vote his butt to the curb because it was the right thing to do.....not because a poll told me too. Then in 2 or 3 years, if the people didn't like it, they could vote me out. But Baker is just like the rest.....he's a Republican around election time and then a poll sniffer the rest. Anything to keep his free housing, pension, junkets.......etc.
Really? Well let me know when we vote Bush out of office... We can hold his party responsible, but that's not holding him responsible. The simple truth is that there's no solution to this, except with how the people vote. We can't force politicians to ignore polls or take them into consideration. It appeared to me that martin was saying politicians shouldn't pay attention to the polls at all. I think they have to take into consideration what the public wants - not that they have to do it, or even should for political purposes.
is it really a "problem" that the polls don't approve of bush? it doesnt bother me. again, the interval for reviewing and hiring and firing is 4 years, i think that works. it works better that we cant go short-term second guessing the president via polling. if i was president i would give the people what they needed, not necessarily what they wanted. if i was wondering to do on an issue that didnt matter at all, and i didnt care either way, i guess i could check the polls.
