37 Percent of College Students Would Evade Draft

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Jun 27 13:31:37 PDT 2002



>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>37 percent of college students would evade draft
>>
>>BY CASSIO FURTADO Herald Washington Bureau
>>
>>Miami Herald
>>
>>Posted on Fri, Jun. 21, 2002
>>
>>WASHINGTON - Thirty-seven percent of American college students
>>would try to evade the draft if one were called today, according to
>>a nationwide poll released Thursday.
>>
>>The survey by Republican pollster Frank Luntz
>
>While this is good news, take anything from Luntz with a grain of
>salt. He was reprimanded by the American Association for Public
>Opinion Research for not disclosing questions or techniques, and he
>pissed off the Republicans by feeding them very misleading polls on
>the Contract With America. (Basically he'd asked people if they were
>against waste in government; when they said yes, he interpreted this
>as support for the Contract. Newt & Co. bought it, much to their
>eventual regret.) And he did the famous more people believe in UFOs
>than Social Security poll - without disclosing that respondents
>wanted SS, they just doubted its longevity.
>
>Doug

I thought about that, too, but wouldn't Luntz have framed the question and massaged the results so that the percentage of would-be draft resisters would look lower rather than higher?

On the other hand, though, the article also says: "He also said students who were better informed about the U.S.-led war on terrorism were more supportive of the military." Maybe the poll results are designed to encourage more spending on consultants and PR firms to sell the war better. -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



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