A couple waits in line free medical treatment organized by non-profit group Remote Area Medical at the Coliseum in Oakland. I have a "feeling" that they don't give a fuck about more austerity.
This piece is mostly about Democrats running away from President Barack Obama's attack on Social Security in his misbegotten budget, aware that Republicans will likely use it as an attack line during the 2014 campaign. Good. However, buried way at the bottom is this bit of crazy:
Some Democrats, however, argue that party faithful are willing to give Obama space to tackle the deficit as he heads into the final years of his term — even if it means proposing some cuts to entitlement programs as part of a grand bargain.
“My feeling is that most voters want there to be a budget agreement,” said Pete Brodnitz, a Democratic pollster. “Most people think something needs to be done to make Medicare and Social Security sustainable.”
This is a Democratic "pollster" who can't give us any data. Instead, he talks about his "feelings". Peggy Noonan had
some of those before last November's elections too. They were worth as much as this joker's.
Because, of course, there is no data that would find that Democrats want entitlement cuts, or give a rat's ass about any grand bargain. Voters might want a budget agreement, but one that gets rid of this bullshit sequester. And that shit about making "Medicare and Social Security sustainable"? I wish our own people would quit using Pete Peterson language to undermine our social net. Raise the cap on payroll taxes and be done with it.
Instead, a pollster who happens to be a principal at one of the biggest Democratic polling firms in the nation, Benenson Strategy Group, is going around telling people (and his candidate clients?) about his bullshit "feelings".
Would it surprise you to find out that he was Harold Ford's pollster? How about the fact that he was Blanche Lincoln's pollster? Would it surprise you that Joel Benenson, Brodnitz's partner, was Obama's pollster in 2008?
And then we wonder why Beltway Democrats are so out of touch, when even their own pollsters have to resort to "feelings" to try and sell their bullshit austerity agenda. Oy vey.