ALL POLLS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL

by Paul Gibbs

There are a few things you can always count on in life, and perhaps chief among them is that the Sutherland Institute will always find a way to bring their standards of integrity even lower. And their latest poll, which shows support for Healthy Utah at a mere 17%, is quite an achievement. In a way I almost admire it. It takes real work and ingenuity to find a way to conduct a poll this biased, this utterly skewed in its approach and methodology. The Sutherland Institute is, of course, a Utah based right-wing think tank dedicated to the proposition that you can call yourself a "think tank" even if there is no actual thinking involved. No matter what mainstream polls and data shows, they have an uncanny ability to produce "evidence" to the contrary which supports their point of view.

Unlike the polls comissioned by organizations like Voices For Utah Children (which supports Healthy Utah) and Utah Policy (which is neutral), Sutherland's poll makes frequent use of the politically charged term "Obamacare". In fact, the term is used 24 times. Considering the President's lack of popularity in Utah, the stories of "death panels" and other outrageous claims associated with Obamacare and the finding from the Utah Policy poll that 46% of Utahns aren't familiar with Healthy Utah until it is explained to them, can there be any legitimate doubt that the near constant use of the politically charged term colored perceptions in the poll? Voices For Utah Children and Utah Policy both found overwhelming support for Healthy Utah when the program was explained (in politically neutral terms). Sutherland found that if you use an inflammatory term, you can scare people away.

This is the way the Sutherland Institute operates. Apparently their traditional conservative values don't include honesty, integrity, or fairness. Like the study by Federalism in Action, this flies in the face of.all previous research because it's biased, shady, and unworthy of consideration. The big bad federal government has done exactly what detractors secretly feared it would do: they put people ahead of politics to reach a compromise and bring healthcare to 77,000 needy Utah citizens. Healthy Utah has more momentum than ever before, and its opponents know it. And they'll drag out whatever outrageous claims it takes to slow the momentum down. Don't let them.