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Monday, September 09, 2013

Poll: no consequence for those voting to authorize action in Syria

'Welcome to Syria' billboard
Raw Story: The American public strongly opposes a US military intervention in Syria, despite a majority believing that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime gassed its own people, a poll showed Monday.

Almost six in 10 of the 1,022 adults questioned — 59 percent — said Congress should not pass a resolution authorizing even limited military action against Syria, a CNN/ORC International poll found.

More than seven in 10 said any such strike would not achieve significant US goals or serve US national interests.

And even if Congress authorizes military action against Syria, a 55-percent majority would still oppose air strikes against Syrian military targets. Without congressional support, the opponents increased to 71 percent of respondents.
This poll has been making the rounds on the blogosphere and Twitter — for the most part, minus one very important piece of info. “However, most of those questioned — 57 percent — said their representative’s vote in Congress would not make a difference in how they voted in upcoming 2014 mid-term elections,” the report goes on. “The mid-term polls are usually dominated by domestic issues.”

This is the sort of question that should be included in all issue polls: “OK, so how would it affect your vote?” You’ll find that a lot of times it wouldn’t. The odds are good that we won’t be attacking Syria, but don’t think that public opinion guarantees that. A congress critter can vote to authorize action and still be reelected. Unless people are willing to let the issue influence their vote, public opinion numbers on it are meaningless.

[photo by Paul Keller]

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