Wisconsin Polls Prove Wording Matters

The summer reading assignment for my introductory statistics class was a short little book entitled How to Lie with Statistics. Before we ever took our first random sample or ran our first regression line, we learned how questions and numbers can be used to affirm any position (and yet for some reason the professor docked us points if we tried to do such on exams).

In the recent Wisconsin budget saga, pundits and politicos on both sides of the debate have attempted to reinforce their positions with public opinion numbers and statistics. Rachael Maddow has led off numerous shows in the past couple weeks with the latest poll from Wisconsin, and Nate Silver has critiqued Rasmussen’s early poll on Walker and unions. This week, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute added another statewide poll to the mix. Partisans may and have cherry picked numbers out of it like “65 percent think Governor Walker should compromise” or that a majority disapprove of Senate Democrats’ leaving the state. Fortunately, there is more information within the poll release than partisan positioning.

Two aspects of WPRI’s release make it notable over previous polls on the subject; they included two questions in an “experiment to examine responses to different ways of framing a key element of the budget repair bill, specifically collective bargaining, and they released the full crosstabs of their data, revealing the beliefs of different demographic groups. Question framing and wording are often cited as reasons to dismiss poll results when they are unagreeable, though rarely is there a direct comparative sample to see if such dismissals are correct.

The first question in the experiment asked if respondents strongly or somewhat favor or somewhat or strongly oppose the following Walker-friendly statement (let’s call it statement A); “Limiting most public employees' ability to negotiate over non-wage issues in order to prevent local union affiliates from obstructing the budgeting process for local governments.” The results found a statistical tie: 47 percent were strongly or somewhat in favor of the statement, while 50 percent somewhat or strongly oppose the statement.

And yet, when the other half of the sample is asked about favoring or opposing the second union friendly statement (statement B), “Stripping most public employees of their right to collectively bargain over benefits and working conditions as part of a ploy to eliminate public employee unions altogether,” there is a 25-point swing in the favor/oppose margin! Only 32 percent favor the second statement while 58 percent oppose it.






An interesting demographic aspect is the shift in opinion among the college educated between the two statements. 40 percent of those with an undergraduate or higher degree favor the first statement, statement A. When we turn to statement B, where overall favorability fell by 15 points, the favorability of those with college or graduate degrees marginally increased (42 percent). The best educated were more inclined to favor a statement of “stripping … rights to collective bargaining” that is supposed to be engender sympathy for the unions than the Walker-friendly statement. These results suggest that the college educated are more impervious to the phraseology of poll questions.

Gallup discovered a similar occurrence regarding the wording and results in their union questions. On February 21st, they found that only 33 percent of Americans favored the Wisconsin bill “that would take away some of the collective bargaining rights of most public unions, including the state teachers’ union,” and 61 percent opposed it. Less than two weeks later (March 3-6), a question on the same subject found 49 percent favored “changing state laws to limit the bargaining power of state employee unions,” and 45 percent opposed. The 34-point swing between the two Gallup questions is even larger than the swing between the two WPRI experiment questions.

The essential difference in both sets of questions is the wording “collective bargaining rights”; statements with those words in some order suggest clear support for unions, where as questions omitting the words “collectively” or “right” show mixed opinion. Gallup observes that their “differing results likely reflect Americans' sensitivity to nuances in how the debate can be framed. They may also indicate the high and low boundaries of support for setting new limits on collective bargaining.”

Question wording matters, not just the percentages that follow them. So, too, does looking beyond the state level responses to see how different groups react. The certain take away from these polls reaffirms the old adage popularized by Mark Twain; there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

As the Seas Shift, so Does the News Cycle

Any news junkie recognizes near monthly shifts in news cycles.  Midterm elections, TSA scanners, Wikileaks, Lame duck Congress, Mid-East turmoil, Union protests, and now a Japanese Earthquake.  Each new event, which comes to dominate coverage and punditry, is the death knell of its predecessor.  If an event is not resolved before its overshadowed, it's history.

So let this count as an Obituary for the Union Protests.

The Japanese earthquake, coupled with the weekend, has ended the union narrative.  Any large protests planned for this weekend will get zero coverage.  There are no friendly commentators over at MSNBC on over the weekend to force coverage.  The ongoing (and unfortunate) nuclear threat in Japan promises to to perpetuate news dominance.  Talks of a general strike have no traction.

But, there are 3 things we can takeaway in our postmortem examination.

1) The Tea Party now has universal legitimacy
After the crass actions of many union protesters, there is no standing to marginalize the tea party movement.  They can't be cast aside as crazy, a minority, dangerous, or racists, because there is demonstrable equivalence on the left which is upheld as noble, heroic, etc.

2)  The bill will stand, and be repeated in other states
Threats of recall and general strike are muted without national coverage.  Elections in Wisconsin are two years out, and voters's memories are short.  Besides, the national election will define the narrative, not a two year old debate.  The media microscope is no longer on other governors pushing similar laws.

3)  New media has changed the narrative
15 years ago, the only knowledge of the event in Wisconsin would be from nightly news coverage.  Now, the internet creates nuance to any story.  People actually read bills.  Videos emerge which objectively amplify events.  The narrative is no longer defined by media suits.

Noodles is a Dictatorship

Don't let Noodles keep you down, fight the man!



The best part is when he sells a magazine to the cameraman at the end. What a crummy socialist.

Let Them Eat Cheese

Let Madison Burn.

As Gov. Scott Walker attempts to pass budget cutting legislation which forces unions to share in the cost of their benefits, the teachers' union has led protests in the state capitol. Nobody from the right is going to complain about protesting; the Tea Party has used it as an effective tool in the vocalization of their concerns. But when the President's organizing apparatus (Organizing for America) takes the lead in busing protesters in, when schools have to close due to an illegal strike, and politicians' families have to flee their homes because protesters are on their front lawn, something is amiss.

The debate over union entitlements and contracts is old and not going to be rehashed here. The debate about how to balance budgets is just starting, and is being hashed out in state capitals across the US. A significant portion of budget shortfalls come from unfunded public employee pension liabilities - totaling a trillion dollars for all 50 states. As witnessed with the automotive industry, paying retirees nearly full wages is unsustainable. Gov. Walker's bill asks unions to contribute towards their pensions and health care costs as well as takes away collective bargaining rights over benefits, but keeps the right to bargain over salaries. In exchange, there are no lay-offs. Millions of unemployed Americans would jump at this opportunity.

And yet, the teachers walk out on it. After years of claiming they're "putting the children first," their own childish actions have temporarily closed 15 school districts. How does this help the children? Did a weekend or evening protest not suffice? Have Wisconsinites been watching too much news coverage of Cairo in their post-football withdrawal?

In a period that demands consequential leadership, Wisconsin Democrats have not only fled town, but supposedly fled the state. While governors from both parties are making the tough decisions to balance budgets (and being reward in the court of public opinion), those who have enjoyed decades of job security and pay increases based only on the number of years they have sat behind a desk feel under assault - the President's words.

What these unions need to remember is they are comprised of public employees. The governors and state congressmen they are protesting against are also public employees. The only difference is, the public got to hire their politicians. The American public who have put in extra hours and job insecurity during the recession will not put up with the historical indulgence of unions nor their government shut-downs.