GOP Is Anti-Union, But Poll Says Public Isn't (The Atlantic Wire)

The Atlantic Wire - Two weeks ago, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker crafted a radical
proposal to help trim his state's $3.6 billion budget deficit: curtail
the pensions and benefits of nearly all public sector employees and
strip unions of collective bargaining power. The backlash to Walker's
plan arrived immediately. Protesters--many of them teachers--descended on the Capitol building, forcing school closures, forging friendships with a few Egyptian citizens and effectively nationalizing the union debate.But
even though every single pundit has weighed in on the topic, the nation's pulse was slightly more unclear. How would public opinion
digest such a starkly framed debate? As the Atlantic's Clive Crook
notes, either you side with Walker, who "will crush the unions (a
catastrophe for the rights of working people worldwide), or the unions
will triumph (at who knows what cost to individual liberty)." Here's what the first nationally representative poll numbers say:According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll,
61 percent of respondents "would oppose a law in their state similar to
one being considered in Wisconsin," with 33 percent in favor of such a
law. Reading into this single poll's results, it would seem as if House
Speaker John Boehner's sentiment (he likened the Wisconsin protests to the Greece debt uprising) would be out of touch with most Americans.Pundits
seem to agree tentatively, with caveats. "An active push to take away long-assumed
bedrock union rights might be pushing the envelope too far in the public
mind," wrote The Washington Post's Greg Sargent. Conservative Hot Air's Ed Morrissey has taken issue with previous polls on this topic, but has not, as of yet, commented on this one. His colleague, though, going by the name of Allahpundit, points out that there are two ways of taking the numbers:One: Take it as a dire warning that the GOP may face a nasty
backlash at the polls in the next cycle as Republican governors try to
end PEUs’ both-sides-of-the-bargaining-table racket. Maybe that’s a
price worth paying, but we should be prepared to pay it. Two: Insist
that the public is on our side--or rather, that it will be
once we explain the issues to them properly. This isn’t a policy
problem, in others. It’s … a messaging problem.

Patricia Heaton Paula Cole Penelope Cruz Portia De Rossi Rachel Bilson