One reason why I hate polls.

The "public opinion poll" is one of those modern facts of life that I can do without. Largely that is due to what I learned in college about the methodology of polling. The pollster that tells you that they are not looking for a predetermined answer is lying to you. HERE is proof.

KSTP (our local ABC affiliate) published the results of a public opinion poll that they commissioned Survey USA to conduct. The poll asked three questions on taxes that I will address in this post and three questions on gay marriage that I will address in another.

The first tax question was as follows:

"QUESTION: A bill in the state legislature would increase income taxes on those with more than $226,000 in taxable income, and on couples with about twice that, in order to raise money for property tax relief. Do you support? Or do you oppose? This bill?"

The response was 64% in favor of the bill and 31% opposed to the bill (with 6% not sure - yes I am aware that adds up to 101% - these ARE the Survey USA figures not mine!)

The second question was:

"QUESTION: Another bill would increase income taxes on those with more than $141,000 in taxable income, and on couples with about twice that, in order to raise money for education. Do you support? Or do you oppose? This bill?"

Again, the majority overwhelmingly supported taxing someone else in order to pay for their goodies (64% for, 34% against and 2% not sure).

Then came the question that I know surprised all involved.

"QUESTION: Governor Tim Pawlenty proposes to balance the budget by increasing spending by about 10 percent over two years using surplus revenue and no tax increases. Do you support? Or do you oppose? This proposal? "

65% of the respondents supported the Governor's budget, as opposed to the 27% who opposed the proposal (8% did not know).

Now the methodology of this survey was fairly straight up. The first two questions were a little loaded, but I have seen worse and I know some will argue that Survey USA undersampled Republicans and over sampled Democrats, but this is Minnesota after all. You are not going to get much different than that. I do think that this state is a little less moderate than Survey USA polled (51% of all respondents) though. I would say that there should have been a couple more percentage points from both Conservative and Liberal Ideologies though.

I will say that I was surprised that the support for restraint came more from the "Twin Cities" demographic. The most support for the Governor and the most opposition for tax increases came from the metro area. That does lay to rest the idea that the "Cities" are hopelessly liberal.

Depending on who you talk to, some see this poll as good news and some see it as bad. While I agree with Gary (at Let Freedom Ring) that the answer for the third question is good, I'm not too sure that the first two questions were that loaded....as I said when I started this post, I have seen and been asked more blatently loaded questions in the past. I also agree with AAA (at Residual Forces) that we conservatives need to do a better job of getting the message across. I don't agree that this is a horribly bad poll though. It just shows us where the work needs to be done.

I guess the bottom line is, to me, that there is work to be done. The poll shows that the people of Minnesota don't want the budget balanced on the backs of the taxpayer. Conservatives just need to make sure that they keep telling the story about what they are about. It will happen....as long as they persevere.