The Paul name has been a divisive one at Obama-era CPAC gatherings, with rabid supporters of Ron Paul invading the hall to cheer on their man, jeer his Republican enemies, and in 2010 and 2011 delivering straw poll victories to him.
Presidential elections and the voter experience have long been fraught for black people. From racist poll taxes to made-up literacy tests to the egregious rollback of voting rights over the past 50 years, American democracy has, at times, felt like a weird and failed social experiment.
A Harris poll I’ve seen says only 12 percent of the electorate names taxes as one of the most important issues facing the nation. Voters put tax cuts dead last, behind education, Social Security, health care, Medicare and poverty.
Leadership can not be measured in a poll or even in the result of an election. It can only be truly seen with the benefit of time. From the perspective of 20 years, not 20 days.
The immigrant blame game is constant. Cynical politicians believe it drives poll numbers; cynical commentators believe it drives TV ratings.
I view my role now as providing more of a macro-level skepticism, rather than saying this poll is good or this poll is evil.
The first time I ever cast a vote in my 1992 Blessed Sacrament School poll, I voted for Ross Perot because – Ross Perot.
The very fact that I became mayor in 1977 conveys how you can’t figure out what the people will do. Nobody thought I would be elected. When I entered I got four percent of the vote in the first poll, four percent.
I love Franschhoek, and straight off the plane, I went to the incomparable Quartier Francais, on the main street, for breakfast. This small hotel and restaurant is regularly near the top of every poll for best hotel and restaurant in Africa.
Taking a vote or poll is a great simple way to take a decision, but it doesn’t help a group find consensus. It actually polarizes people and highlights the differences between them. People end up getting entrenched in their views.
Margaret Thatcher’s decision to use Scotland as a testing ground for the poll tax was arguably the most disastrous attempt at fiscal engineering since London slapped the stamp tax on the American colonies in the 1760s.
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