County Hall Corner: Poll Me Out

By Larry Stout

One refreshing thing that comes out of the Lycoming County Commissioners Meetings is that Scott Metzger, Tony Mussare, and Rick Mirabito have a mind of their own and follow their own convictions. Yes, they listen to their constituency — quite well, actually — but they are not controlled by them. Unfortunately, the normal pattern is that the higher up an official goes on the political food chain results in more decisions based on the public pulse.

It is a very rare article on politics these days that does not somehow refer to the percentage of Americans that think a particular way based on opinion polls. Just for fun, I researched what Americans fear right now. A scientific study polling 2,083 US adults about their fears conducted by SafeHome.org showed that the number one fear of adult American citizens was the death of a loved one. On the other hand, a YouGov poll of exactly 1,000 Americans (with a 3.4 percent margin of error) tells us that the number one fear of American adults is snakes (30 percent), followed by heights (28 percent), spiders (24 percent), and public speaking (23 percent).

I intended to check some other polls on this subject, but these two had al- ready made my point. Fear of a loved one dying on the YouGov poll does not even hit the two percent threshold of the NPR poll. I am shocked, shocked that polls differ. Yet, ironically, the one thing they all have in common is how much they emphasize their accuracy!

Yet despite this, politicians will continue to use polling to help them to see which way the political winds are blowing. The danger of this is that as opinion polling becomes more and more the weathervane of our political leaders, the further we are away from the foundation of our republic.

Here is the problem. The American people have forgotten (or wish to ignore) that our country was NOT established as a democracy but as a republic. A democracy is where the majority rules — a republic rules based on its foundational

See COUNTY HALL on Page 16