[PAA-Impeach] Update on Zogby poll - impeachment

In a message dated 9/12/05 7:49:27 A.M. Central Daylight Time
writes:
wouldn't
it be great to see the current opinion.

I have had a number of emails like the one above from Melissa,
from both members of the Impeachment workgroup and others, and so
would like to do a quick summary / update on the impeachment thing. Maybe
this should go just to the Impeach Bush listserv (which I think is operational
now) but want to update the entire group one more time before we start
doing our individual lists, and encourage everyone to help with what I feel
is a really promising effort. I'm sending copies to both lists, so
please excuse the duplication. I will try not to do that any
more. 
 
A week or so ago a number of us sent emails to Gallup and Zogby asking them
to do some polling about impeachment. Several people said it was a waste of time
since they were not going to do it, but we had a mild surprise. To date I
have received no response of any kind from Gallup (if anyone else has,
please let me know) but have had several very encouraging ones from Zogby.

 
Their first response was very cryptic. It came from "Monica" with the Zogby
organization and simply said "I did already.  John Zogby." This
aroused my curiosity so I wrote back for more details. This is the response she
sent me:
_______________________

Here are the results:

Zogby America Poll. June 27-29, 2005. N=905 likely voters nationwide. MoE ?
3.3 (for all likely voters).
http://www.pollingreport.com/bush.htm

"Do you agree or disagree that if President Bush did not tell the truth about
his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him
accountable through impeachment?"

                        Agree    Disagree    Unsure
                         
%             %            %
ALL                    42           
50            
8
Democrats         
59            30           
10
Republicans       
25        
   70            
5
Independents    
 43            
49            
8
Libertarians         36            
53            12

Other articles that reference this poll are here.
http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=11562

http://www.democrats.com/node/5217 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/06/BL2005070601211_pf.html 

_______________________

At first glance I was amazed that so few agreed, but you need to read the
three links for perspective on this. The first is to Zogby's website, and the
second is to Democrats.com who co-founded the After Downing Street organization
and have been pressing for impeachment. The third is largely a repeat of the
first but contains a fascinating ending. Here are some highlights from the three
links, starting with Zogby:

(1) Mainstream Media Try to Hide the Impeachment
Question

The latest poll shows more
support for impeaching Bush now, than there was for impeaching Clinton when
Congress did so in 1998. But the mainstream wimpmedia are reluctant to report on
this. Here are portions of an article that managed to sneak into the Washington
Post.

(PLEASE go to the rest of this fascinating link - cm)

The second link to Democrats.com is also very interesting and should be read.
It points out for instance that most Americans are unaware of the Downing
Street Minutes which show pretty conclusively that Bush did lie about the
reasons for going to war. Surely if the MSM had not suppressed the DSM and
the public knew that Bush did in fact lie, the results would be a lot
different.

Finally and very interestingly, here is a small clip from the end of the
third link:

Pollster Zogby himself made it onto Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Thursday night. Olbermann was most taken with
the fact that 25 percent of Republicans were willing to consider
impeachment.

He asked Zogby: "When do you do the impeachment question again? When are you
going bring that up again in a poll?

"ZOGBY: We'll test it periodically. Probably a month from now. Again, no one
is really talking about it, but it is a good barometric reading."

So it's no longer just a forlorn hope that Zogby will do a follow up
poll on impeachment. He has actually said that he intends to do one,
"probably a month from now." But the poll was done from June 27 - 29 which was 2
1/2 months ago, so he is overdue for the follow up! We need to bombard him with
emails gently reminding him of the statement he made on
the Keith Olbermann program. It's easy to do - just go to this link and
fill in the blanks. Be courteous but let's try to hold his feet to the fire on
this:

http://www.zogby.com/contact/index.cfm 

Here is the email I sent:

Dear Mr. Zogby:

"I appreciate your poll conducted June 27 - 29 about whether Bush should
be impeached if he lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq. It reflected
that 42% agreed, and no doubt there would have been many more if the
mainstream media had not suppressed the Downing Street Minutes and more people
were aware that he did in fact lie.

I understand that Keith Olbermann asked you on his show if you planned
to do another poll on that subject, and you said you would test it
periodically, probably a month from now. Since that was several months ago, when
do you plan to redo it? I would suggest that next time you poll on the question
without qualifiers, based simply on Bush's overall record of criminal war,
approval of torture and rendition, out of control deficits, the New Orleans
fiasco, destruction of privacy rights, and on and on. 

This administration is destroying our country and I feel sure most Americans
agree at this point. They just need an opportunity to say so, and
you have the bully pulpit to allow them to do that. I hope you will use it.
Thanks for your consideration."

I think polling on this subject could be a very powerful tool to reflect the
widespread anger about this astoundingly bad and basically evil administration.
It is easy to encourage Zogby, and it's free. He seems to be pretty progressive,
and as contemptuous of the MSM as most of us are. Let's work on him hard.

Charlie
Mauch