The politics of questions and answers

I've mentioned before that I seem to be on the mailing lists of just about every political party in the U.S. Recently, among the stamp-signed photos of Our Leader and the hysterical pleas for money to fight the great menaces of America-Hating Liberalism, Right-Wing Radicalism, Radical Abortionists, Anti-Woman Activists, and so forth, I received yet another political survey form, this time from the Democratic National Committee.

I've seen these things before, and usually chuck them into the trash after briefly glancing over them and chuckling over the blatantly biased phrasing of the question. ("Do you support our President's war against those who seek to destroy American lives and values?" "Do you believe that government should take more of your paycheck in order to support radical left-wing social projects?" "Do you believe that women should be held captive to an outmoded view of male domination?")

Most such surveys are purely push-polls, designed to influence the emotions and opinions of those who receive them. Getting an accurate view of the survey-taker's preexisting views is the last thing on the mind of the people who write them. Instead, they're intended to arouse the True Believers to mail in money and march to the polls to vote the party line on Election Day. That's why they're mailed predominantly to people who have already been pre-selected as likely supporters of the group sponsoring the survey, by virtue of party membership lists or, in my case, probably because they subscribe to a political magazine of a certain type.

I was surprised to notice that the DNC's survey was phrased in relatively nonpartisan terms, and most of the multiple-choice options actually offered reasonably unbiased summaries of the most common arguments for or against the proposal under discussion. For example:

3. Do you support new tax cuts targeted at working families?
O Yes, with our economy struggling, working families need a tax break.
O No, additional tax cuts at this time will only worsen the federal deficit.

4. Should the government put a high priority on stopping American manufacturing jobs from being "outsourced" to overseas workers?
O Yes, the manufacturing jobs being lost are essential to our economy.
O No, American consumers benefit from cheaper goods made overseas.

5. Do you support raising the minimum wage from its current level of $5.15 per hour?
O Yes, the minimum wage should be increased to help workers make ends meet.
O No, raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses an cost jobs.

My conclusion: the Democrats, who have lost a lot of political clout in the last decade or so, are genuinely trying to figure out what voters think and what voters want. While Republicans confidently use their "surveys" to blast propaganda into the ears of their likely voters, the Democrats feel the need to actually figure out what their supporters really think. This could be taken as a sign of political weakness, I suppose, or as evidence of basic confusion about what the Democratic party stands for. It could also be taken as an example of the difference between top-down and bottom-up political organizing that some posters on DailyKos and elsewhere claim to see between the Republican and Democratic organizations.

I didn't send the survey in, but I have to have a certain amount of respect for a survey that actually tries to do what surveys are supposed to do, and in the future, I'm more likely to respond to surveys like this one than to ones that demand I choose between "Yes, I support our President! My contribution is enclosed!" and "No, I hate America".