Uptown Notes

When it rains, it pours (literally today). The Ann Arbor news highlights a poll by WDIV and Mitchell Polls that suggest 52% of people polled favor a ban on affirmative action in the state of Michigan.Unfortunately, I cannot find the original article online right now, but when I find it I’ll post it later with more details. The article does not give the original question, nor the margin of error, which would be 2 good things to provide. Just food for thought!

Update: Still didn’t find the Ann Arbor News story, but I was kindly forwarded the Detroit News story. The story outlines that there were 600 respondents for the state, which is pretty small sample size and the margin of error is 4%, which essentially means the results are basically a wash. This story also doesn’t give the exact question, Carol Swain in America Becoming gives a detailed analysis of why survey question wording has a dramatic effect on responses with questions about Affirmative Action. Also, these polls are conducted with people’s gut feelings, to take this as predictive of voting patterns would suggest that lobbying and information campaigns have no effect.