I wouldn’t have expected this, but a National Journal blogger poll in which I participate came up with some interesting results when it asked whether the Senate should seat Roland Burris.
Left-Leaning (18 votes) Right-Leaning (18 voters) Yes: 56% Yes: 78% No: 44% No: 22% …
Right-leaning bloggers:
Dan McLaughlin, Baseball Crank; J.R. Hoeft, Bearing Drift; Betsy Newmark, Betsy’s Page; Bob Parks, Black And Right; Bookworm, Bookworm Room; D.S. Hube, The Colossus Of Rhodey; Doug Lambert, Granite Grok; Robert Miller, JoshuaPundit; Soren Dayton, The Next Right; Walter Olson, Overlawyered; Daniel Pipes; Steven Taylor, PoliBlog; Debbie Hamilton, Right Truth; John Hawkins, Right Wing News; Rob Port, Say Anything; David Gerstman, Soccer Dad; Martin Solomon, Solomonia; David Kopel, The Volokh Conspiracy
Left-leaning bloggers:
Sean-Paul Kelley, The Agonist; Michael Shaw, BAGnewsNotes; Dean Barker, Blue Hampshire; David Kravitz, Blue Mass. Group; Brian Leubitz, Calitics; Greg Dworkin, Daily Kos; Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny!; Digby, Hullabaloo; Robert Farley, Lawyers, Guns And Money; Barbara O’Brien, The Mahablog; Taylor Marsh; News Hounds; Chris Bowers, Open Left; Mark Kleiman, The Reality-Based Community; Tracy Viselli, Reno And Its Discontents; Lee Papa, Rude Pundit; Susie Madrak, Suburban Guerilla; David NYC, Swing State Project
Some of the comments were pretty much four-square with my post from a couple of days ago.
“Roland Burris is not Rod Blagojevich. Nor is he mentioned in the Fitzgerald papers, as far as I know. He may not be the strongest pick, but if we believe we are a nation that follows the Rule of Law, then the assumption is that he should be seated unless the Senate has reason to act differently or the Illinois Legislature removes Blago. A better solution would have been Illinois maneuvering to have a special election. That did not happen; this is the result.” Greg Dworkin, Daily Kos
“The appointment is legal, and refusing it will only create an unnecessary circus. Further, it would set a dangerous precedent if they refused him. Just do it, and back someone in a primary against Burris next year.” Chris Bowers, Open Left
…
“At the end of the day, the rules are the rules are the rules. And until Blago’s not the governor, he gets to make the pick. So the Senate should just get on with business.” Lee Papa, The Rude Pundit
Meanwhile, Harry Reid continues to talk tough, though he has clearly left the door a bit ajar. On Meet the Press this weekend, Reid said that it would be “difficult” for Burris to become a Senator, but that there is “always room to negotiate.” Whatever that means.
Reid should be keeping his powder dry for Al Franken, who has won the race in Minnesota, but who probably won’t be seated for some time, unless the Dems can find a way to block a promised Republican filibuster against seating him. Here’s one idea on how to do that. That’d be fun.
but it’s hardly an enthusiastic endorsement of Burris, nor is the sample size statistically significant. In fact, if one of the 18 lefty bloggers went the other way, it’d be 50-50 on the left.
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p>It’s also worth noting that many of the bloggers in that list may have expressed their opinions before being queried by the poll, allowing for the pollster to cherrypick respondents.
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p>Interesting, to be sure. Convincing? Not to this math geek.
It’s obviously not a scientific poll, and no one’s claiming it is. It’s a bunch of reasonably well-read bloggers who National Journal has decided to poll regularly on various issues. Consider it a cyberpundit round-up rather than a poll for math geeks.
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p>By the way, the respondents were not cherry-picked on this issue. It’s a stable group of bloggers who are queried weekly (or so) on a wide range of issues.
Nobody claimed it wasn’t a scientific poll either. You thought it was worthy enough to write a diary about it… don’t jump me for questioning it’s value.
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p>As for the cherry-picking, is the stable group sized 18+18=36, or were there some non-respondents [which would also allow for bias]?
Likewise, my friend — you were the one going off on whether it’s “statistically significant” or not.
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p>Anyway, I don’t know what the total group size is. Everyone in the group is polled; probably not everyone chooses to answer every question. So there may be self-selection, but there’s no effort by the organizers that I know of to bias the answers.
Unless it is an election by the entire leectorate , whoever is “annointed” is tainted, no matter how honorable they are, Democrat or Republican.
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p>Illinois is proof positive that lightning will in fact strike twice in the same spot. I’m at a loss to figure out which state has the most corrupt state political party and legislators. Seems an even tossup Massachusetts viz a vis Illinois. I wonder who their Billy Bulger and Sal DiMasi are?
Unless someone has shown evidence that this guy was legally appointed because of some corrupted scheme. Sans, that, it’s “legally appointed”.
Cut your loss. Nip it in the bud.
Harry Reid is not a racist, he supported Harold Ford in KY. Oh, excuse me, Harold Ford was a democrat. Harry Reid should be supporting democrats. Um Mr. Reid: would you ever support a non-democrat? I think not I observed Mr. Reid’s double-speak on “Meet The Press” yesterday morning. Very unimpressive.