Another Partial Finding from the Earmark Survey

As readers of the Cheese Factories blog are aware, we are running a survey on earmarks.  The survey will continue to run for a couple of more weeks: take it here and please pass it on via email, and social media sites like twitter and Facebook.

Despite the perceived opposition to earmarks 47% of our respondents feel that members of Congress have a responsibility to pursue earmarks for their constituents.  Another 33% of our sample feel that most earmarks are "probably good."  Taken together, 80% of our sample takes a position that is sympathetic to earmarks.

If our results are anywhere near representative of overall public opinion they prompts an interesting question: If 50 to 80 percent of Americans have attitudes that are favorable or somewhat favorable toward earmarks, why is media coverage of earmarks almost 100% negative?


Note: This is a non-scientific, non-random sample; any results reported should be considered as suggestive of public opinion but not representative of public opinion. Findings are based on an N=133.