Make It Say Whatever You Need It To Say

As we, sup­pos­ed­ly, come down to the final hours before the House vote on Health Care Reform, the Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee has come out with a poll on the sub­ject. The tim­ing of this poll is clear­ly intend­ed to intim­i­date Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gress­man into vot­ing no.

From the link:

The RNC poll also holds oth­er good indi­ca­tions of a strong Repub­li­can show­ing in Novem­ber. Among unde­cid­ed vot­ers, 46% said that they would pre­fer a “Repub­li­can can­di­date who would be a check and bal­ance to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and the Democ­rats in Con­gress,” com­pared to 19% who dis­agreed with the state­ment. 53% said that the would con­sid­er vot­ing for a Repub­li­can so as to “send a mes­sage to Pres­i­dent to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and the Democ­rats and make them lis­ten to vot­ers like me.”

If the poll shows that 46% would pre­fer a “Repub­li­can can­di­date who would be a check and bal­ance to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and the Democ­rats in Con­gress,” the poll had to have that lan­guage in the ques­tion. Dit­to with “send a mes­sage to Pres­i­dent to Pres­i­dent Oba­ma and the Democ­rats and make them lis­ten to vot­ers like me.”

The result is that the poll is, for all intents and pur­pos­es, mean­ing­less. But it was guar­an­teed to give the result the Repub­li­cans were look­ing for.

The Repub­li­cans are des­per­ate to pre­vent the bill from pass­ing because they fear the elec­torate will like the bill once it is seen for what it is and not through Repub­li­can distortions.