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The Lake County Dems polled willing passersby on these two questions:
- Which Democrat will win your vote for President in 2008?
- What are the most important issues the South Dakota Legislature should address in its 2008 session?
Of more immediate importance to the local electorate are the results of the legislative priorities poll. Health care edged education as the top legislative priority for 2008. Environment and energy were next in priority, followed by taxes, open government, and economic development.
Recent ballot issues may have worn voters out on gambling and abortion: those issues finished eighth and ninth in priority, respectively. Voters seemed particularly eager to keep the Legislature's nose out of abortion. Out of 67 voters who marked priorities, 33 of them -- that's one shy of a majority -- didn't even put a number or an X next to abortion, suggesting they don't want any new abortion laws even if the Legislature manages to take care of every other legislative priority. If you consult the results spreadsheet, you'll see that 2 voters marked abortion their first priority, while 20 marked it 9th, behind every other area listed.
Sure, none of this is scientific. The results are certainly influenced by the happy feelings participants got from buying my wife's yummy brownies (mmm, chocolate) and other treats from the lovin' ovens of Dem-ladies. But 68 people took time to voice their opinions, and they'll likely take the time to vote in November 2008 as well.
So, Dan, Dave, and Russ, are you reading this? You want to get re-elected? Focus on health care and education, then the environment and energy. Do those things right, and economic development should follow on its own (smart people with affordable access to health care, clean air and water and soil, and plenty of fuel and electricity will be much more inclined to stay in or move to South Dakota and live and work). Feel free to download the data and share it with all of your friends in Pierre.
By the way, Russ, I'd be happy to cite the numbers from the Lake County GOP straw poll, but we just couldn't find their table at Crazy Days. Hmmm....
Just a comment on arts in the park. We attended about 4:00 on Sat afternoon and there were just a handful of booths there and a band playing. What were the hours? If it was still supposed to be going on, the vendors should have remained until it was officially done. Or was this all there was? I remember going years ago and the whole library park was full of booths.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably the Dems' fault: we got everyone thinking so much about politics and legislative priorities on Friday that they didn't bother to go shopping or art-in-the-park-ing on Saturday.
ReplyDelete(mostly off topic: yes, Art in the Park has gotten smaller. The advertised hours were 10-5.)
I, too, went to the "Art in the Park" after stopping by the Democrat survey table plus whatever else was on the main street. For a nice town like Madison the showing was so poor. Does Madison need a new and exciting theme? Would more people attend if a little more effort were made - what is the cost of a booth at Art in the Park - has that stopped people from coming to show their art? I don't understand why Madison can't have a full park of booths and downtown should be just full of people and excitement. Maybe we will just stop going. I don't know.
ReplyDeleteThe floor remains open for discussion of the results of the straw poll... :-)
ReplyDeleteHmm, perhaps people are having to work so hard to pay their health insurance premiums and the costs of care that the insurance companies won't cover that they don't have time for community events like this any more. Could that be part of the message from the straw poll?