# Stupid Republican idea of the day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897 "2009-03-26T18:48:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 39
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/761 "2009-10-09T02:25:47Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Deserve it, or have a right to it under the rules? The question is which group has a higher rate of improper refusal of benefits: those covered by private insurance or those covered by public insurance? There are also appeals procedures. How many people continue to get improperly rejected? There is a benefit for a private company to delay payments, but no benefit for the government to do so - not at any level. When I say deserve it I’m talking about people who have a right to it under the rules established when the program was set up. When you have a section of a major government benefits agency whose primary responsibility is providing for people who become disabled, and that agency deliberately adopts the practice of denying everyone initially, regardless of the legitimacy of their claim, they can’t help but be denying it to people who deserve it under the rules. Their goal is to cause as many people as possible to accept that denial and give up. Presumably this is to save money at the expense of people who have become disabled and are in desperate straights. As to why this agency is trying to save money, I have no idea other than to think that it doesn’t have enough to begin with. And if it doesn’t have enough to begin with, it goes back to underfunding, which insofar as I know has afflicted every government social program that ever existed. Sixteen percent of the salaries of every working person in this country (save federal employees, of course) goes into the Social Security program. That should be enough to fund quite generous benefits in my opinion, and yet the typical SS retirement benefit is only $1,000 or less per month, and disability applicants are routinely turned down. Why is that, when so much money is going to fund these programs? I don’t know. Perhaps additional taxes truly are needed to make these programs work properly, but if so how high would those taxes need to be? Sixteen percent of everyone’s pay for the sole purpose of funding Social Security is a pretty damn good chunk of their income, and if that is only enough to provide for the mediocre services and payouts we have today, would thirty-two percent provide twice as much? I doubt it. But even if it did, would that be worth it? Would doubling the mediocre payouts and disablility expendures of today solve the problem? I doubt it. Benefits and care are so meager today that doubling them is still likely to provide only so-so improvement. In fact, I’d wager that doubling the SS tax still wouldn’t adequately provide even for disability payments to those who qualify for them even if retirement benefits remained the same, so how high should we be prepared to go? This is a key problem with government social programs. There simply isn’t enough money available to adequately fund them because people would scream bloody murder at the amount of tax it would require. So we wind up with what we have today where people are paying sizable amounts of their income to fund programs that provide only the most meager of benefits…if they provide them at all! Certainly there are many around this board that would be perfectly happy for the government to take ninety-five to ninety-eight percent of our incomes in order to provide some mediocre kind of existence for us from cradle to grave, but most people in this country would like to live better than that. And given that most of us feel we can do a better job of deciding how to spend our money than the government can, we prefer to keep as much of our money as we can so as to better feed, house, clothe and educate our children and enjoy our time here on Earth. Which, of course takes us back to the question of raising taxes, and the fact that the U.S. government, despite the fact that in less than a hundred years we’ve gone from no income tax at all to a system where nearly half of every working person’s income goes to fund one government entity or another, still can’t provide what it promises when it persuades people to vote to institute these programs (or when like is happening now, Congress decides to ram them down our throats whether we like it or not). > [@Voyager](#): > > Perhaps you are reading this into their attitudes? I’m not saying they are humming Yankee Doodle Dandy while they work, but my experience has been pretty good. Sometimes they are hemmed in by paperwork, often the result of a legislator crying fraud which makes the 99% of the people who are honest prove that they are. My mother worked for a time reviewing cases in the New York Health and Hospitals Corp. (public) and as far as I can tell no one she knew there took pleasure in throwing out cases that weren’t clearly crap. I worked one summer for the Post Office, and people there were pretty anal about getting the mail delivered accurately. Yeah, the post office does an excellent job of delivering the mail, and just about anytime I’ve gone into one, the people there have been knowledgeable and pleasant and helpful. So in that case, I’ll have to rescind my earlier comment that the only thing the government operates well is the military. (Or perhaps I should say it ‘functions well,’ as it seems to have a very hard time operating at anything but a loss.) Still, functioning well is something I don’t ordinarily equate with the government services so in the case of the Post Office that’s still a good thing even if it does operate at a loss. Still, my experience generally with government employees, or at least the ones that one has to go to in order to obtain services, permits, records, etc. is that they are often sullen and bored, and have a pretty much take-it-or-leave-it attitude as to what you need if it falls even slightly outside the parameters of what they’ve been trained to provide. In other words, there’s no real helpfullness, no going the extra mile to provide service, and no real indication that you are anything more than something they have to deal with in order to get their pay and superior benefits. This attitude is further bolstered by the fact that once you get hired by the government, whether federal or state, you’re practically guaranteed a job for life as it’s almost impossible to get fired. > [@Voyager](#): > > On the other hand, we have a Pit thread running right now from a guy working in customer service who is instructed to say “no” to anyone asking for anything out of spec. > > The problem is when an industry segment - like health insurance - has structural reasons to screw its customer. Every risky customer turned down for a pre-existing condition helps the bottom line. Every month of delay in paying benefits does also. You’ve read the many Doper stories about this. For me, I’ve had no unjustified refusals in 12 years of coverage at my company. We are self-insured, so turning us down doesn’t help the bottom line of the insurance company. Coincidence? I think not. Contrary to popular opinon, I have no great love for insurance companies. But I do know that based on my own personal experience and observation, people with insurance get a much higher quality of care than people who have to rely on the government for their health care. I would not be averse in the least to laws and regulations to bring insurance companies in line and to set up guidelines that they have to follow and live up to if they want to be in business. What I don’t agree with is that the only solution to insurance company malfeasance is for the government solution. > [@Voyager](#): > > The high level of satisfaction with Medicare makes me think that they don’t turn people down as much. Certainly my father and f-i-l seem to have had no problems, but that is too small a sample to say for sure. I am very dubious about these so-called surveys showing a high degree of satisfaction with Medicare. I don’t know a single person who once had corporate insurance and now has Medicare who likes it. They often can’t see doctors they want to see because those doctors don’t take Medicare patients; they get treated more perfunctorily by doctor’s office and hospital staff; and medications and treatments are guided by or determined by what’s the least expensive. The only people I’ve known who were happy with Medicare are people who’ve never had insurance and who would have nothing now without it, and like I’ve said before, being better than nothing is hardly a ringing endorsement of how good a program it is. > [@Voyager](#): > > A manager who takes this policy is being obnoxious in my book, since that is clearly not what the people who wrote the laws had in mind. How far up do you think such a policy would get supported? In fact, most government agencies, given some reasonable level of funding, have every reason to spend all their budget and not save it, unlike industry. I once sold a very expensive set of training credits to a government lab because the department had money left in their budget for the year, and didn’t want to waste it. If you were complaining about the government shoveling money out without proper checking, then I can see it, because that is where the incentives are. You seem to be talking about outliers - which I suspect are rare. No, I am talking about a policy (refusing all disability applications, for those who’ve lost track) that is so well-entrenched and so widespread and well-known that there is no answer for its existence other than that it had to come down from on high. Here is a policy that is widely known to provide bupkus, even after forcing its disabled claimants to somehow survive for six months to a year waiting on a ruling, without first having attorneys (and their concomitant costs) becoming involved and forcing the government’s hand. This is a widespread and widely acknowledged practice on the part of the Social Security administration and IMO it has to be a practice deliberately decided upon and handed down from the upper levels of that administration itself. And I think it’s just accepted as S.O.P. by the politicians and presidents who become aware of it because there isn’t enough funding to finance it all anyway, as I alluded to above. In other words, I think everybody in Congress and the presidency (every presidency, not just Obama’s) is aware of it and that the instructions to operate this way come down from SS’s top administrators. > [@Voyager](#): > > Yeah, subprime mortgage brokers really, really cared about their customers. Subprime mortgage brokers are a tiny, tiny sliver of the businesses that operate in this country. > [@Voyager](#): > > A business clearly has incentive to give you the minimum necessary to keep you - assuming you are the kind of customer they make money on. A business’s primary goal is to be profitable. And to be profitable and compete, it has to keep at least most of its customers happy. And to keep them happy, it has to give them what they’re paying for. Business almost always operates more efficiently and at less cost than government and provides better and higher quality service. This is because business has a profit motive - something that government doesn’t have to worry about. > [@Voyager](#): > > Now look at someone in the frontlines of a government office. Whyever would they want to deny a claim and get yelled at when it makes no difference to them or the agency if they pay it? Because they have to do what they are told by their superiors, which is to deny benefits wherever possible. I doubt they have much discretion at all as to what they allow and what they don’t. > [@Voyager](#): > > Nope. Not exactly a small place. It was quite crowded, actually - almost no space in the parking lots, almost no chairs available. The secret is that they have an on-line reservation system. If I just walked in I would have to wait; but since I had a reservation I went to the head of the virtual line. I got my first license in New York, so I know my big city DMVs pretty well. > When my daughter took her road test it didn’t take that much longer. It is worse than usual because they close two Fridays a month due to the budget crisis. So, sorry. So in other words, you have to have specialized knowledge based on experince in order to keep government offices from making you sit in line all day and miss one or two days of work. I’ve never in my life experienced that kind of treatment from a private company. > [@Voyager](#): > > Just like in private industry. Again, I’ve never had to wait like that in private industry. > [@Voyager](#): > > You’ve never had to wait on hold for an hour, have you? Nope, but even if I had it wouldn’t have been because I went to their place of business and had to sit on my ass for the better part of at least one day and perhaps even a second before I even got to talk to someone. And I know that most companies that keep customers on hold for an hour are doing so in order to keep their costs down and provide me with less expensive products, and that they are constantly striving to improve their customer service experince so as to become more competitive. I’m sure Apple has sold a great many computers over time because of its excellent reputation when it comes to customer service. > [@Voyager](#): > > Which cabbage patch have you been hiding in? Been to a department store lately? Businesses lay off people for the bottom line as much as possible, and then overwork anyone remaining. Whereas government will keep people on forever whether they are needed or not. > [@Voyager](#): > > Hell, I’ve taken on a couple of new jobs for this very reason. Now, I’m not denying your point about proper funding, but who do you think is responsible for that? Is it the heads of agencies, who have every incentive to grow, or is it the tax and government haters, who yell at spending too much on bureaucrats - and then yell about having to wait too long when they need government services. > > If you wait two hours to see a clerk in the DMV you should be grateful for all the tax money they are saving. But you are not alone. They yell because they look at how much they have to spend on taxes and how little they’re getting in return, and they look at how wasteful and unaccountable government is, and the last thing in their mind is that if only they paid more taxes maybe there would be enough people there to take care of time in a timely manner. > [@Voyager](#): > > One of the problems with the California budget is that everyone wants lower taxes and everyone also wants more services. Well, all I can say is that a great many conservatives and Republicans don’t want more services. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/762 "2009-10-09T13:56:11Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Well, all I can say is that a great many conservatives and Republicans don’t want more services. So they’re holding town hall meetings demanding an end to Medicare and Social Security, eh? Along with police and fire, cheap mail service, roads and bridges, and all the other government services “conservatives and Republicans” don’t want. Film at eleven… As for the rest of your screed, it’s mostly TLDR. Why bother to read yet again your mantra that your gut feeling and your personal experience trump all cited evidence to the contrary? Yawn. And you continue to ignore the difference between a program for which one must qualify (like disability benefits-- requires one to actually have a disability, you know, in a world seemingly filled with people willing to file claims for catastrophic impairments who then go home and play soccer) versus a health care system that provides \*universal coverage \*without special qualification. ( Your scenario, modified for universal health care: Bureaucrat one: Hey, watch this! I’m gonna deny this guy some critically needed health services! Bureaucrat two: Fun, but you can’t. Coverage is universal. Bureaucrat one: Rats! ) But you knew that. You ignore it deliberately, because it contradicts your thesis. Tell us again why we should bother to further “discuss” this with you? \ ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/763 "2009-10-15T16:41:25Z")
The little talking Michael Steele at the new [GOP.com](http://GOP.com) was pretty stupid. [These guys](http://hammerandsteele.com/) vastly improved it. EG, [this](http://hammerandsteele.com/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6DBuk91phkI). ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/764 "2009-10-15T16:50:21Z")
Not an idea, really. Just DailyKos having a little fun at Steele’s complete lack of metaphor making ability. [WARNING! Death involved!](http://www.dailykostv.com/w/002253/) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/765 "2009-10-15T17:22:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So in that case, I’ll have to rescind my earlier comment that the only thing the government operates well is the military. (Or perhaps I should say it ‘functions well,’ as it seems to have a very hard time operating at anything but a loss.) Yeah, it operates at a loss except when it doesn’t. Sort of like airlines. But all in all I don’t mind the losses the past year or so, as I’d prefer to (eventually) have to subsidize the usps when it runs out of money (which it hasn’t yet) than to continue to receive junk mail (which I did until last year, even though I was and am on the no junk mail list,) even if junk mail did let the USPS operate at a profit for much of the recent past. (It clogs up my mailbox) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/766 "2009-10-15T17:46:45Z")
And is so very tempting. Of course I don’t _need_ a credit card with a $295.00 annual fee, but I’m _pre-approved_! That means they think I’m responsible and worth doing business with! How can I insult people with such sound character judgment abilities by turning down their generous offer? And I can have a picture of a puppy on the card! A _puppy_! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/767 "2009-10-15T18:07:09Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Well, all I can say is that a great many conservatives and Republicans don’t want more services. By all means, do not avail yourself of them then. I had a similar experience as an atheist in a Catholic hospital. I totally managed to avoid the chapel without being in anyone’s way, and you can do the same: get out of the way. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/768 "2009-10-15T19:21:48Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > By all means, do not avail yourself of them then. And may we also not avail ourselves of paying for them? ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/769 "2009-10-15T19:40:04Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And may we also not avail ourselves of paying for them? Sure. Required them to be deficit neutral. Oh [look](http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-President-Spells-Out-His-Vision-on-Health-Care-Reform/). That’s what Obama has asked for. Too bad there aren’t any congressional Republicans in helping ensure that a deficit-neutral public option gets implemented. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/770 "2009-10-15T20:33:43Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Yeah, it operates at a loss except when it doesn’t. Sort of like airlines. But all in all I don’t mind the losses the past year or so, as I’d prefer to (eventually) have to subsidize the usps when it runs out of money (which it hasn’t yet) than to continue to receive junk mail (which I did until last year, even though I was and am on the no junk mail list,) even if junk mail did let the USPS operate at a profit for much of the recent past. (It clogs up my mailbox) UPS and other mail carriers deliver packages. That is the profit making part of mail delivery. They do not compete with the post office in mail delivery. They could not do it. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2009, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/771 "2009-10-15T20:48:30Z")
They don’t compete with the post office because they’re not allowed to. I don’t know if they should or should not be allowed to (leaning toward should, as principles of free enterprise trump the macroeconomic advantage to natural monopolies in certain circumstances.\*) But the question is unanswered as to whether or not they’d be able to consistently beat the post office for regular mail if they were allowed to. While I agree that they most likely would not be able to do it, the post office _is_ able to do so (just not every year.) Even when their loss margin exists, it’s nothing compared to what the for profit companies would experience in the same year if you look at what they currently charge for service. - i.e. the theory that certain markets just are not money making no matter what entrepreneurs think. Competition would just lead to wasted infrastructure and capital expenses and leave society with a net cost due to the labor and materials involved in creating the infrastructure, according to that theory. While this is the sort of thinking that got us the relatively efficient and inexpensive Postal Service, this is also the sort of thinking that gets us the Cable Monopolies, which no one, even myself, would defend as customer oriented and efficient.) ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/772 "2009-10-16T03:08:52Z")
Getting back to the bottomless well of Republican stupid, I present the latest GOP effort at attracting more people of color to its “big tent”. [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us\_redneck\_video\_lawmaker](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_redneck_video_lawmaker) ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/773 "2009-10-16T03:23:51Z")
I nominate post #761 as today’s Stupid Republican (idea) of the day. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/774 "2009-10-16T10:45:46Z")
… wait whut? > [@](#): > > “If opossum is the other dark meat, what is the original dark meat he is referring to?” Hensley said. “It is not only thoughtless, but outrageous.” … black man is dark meat? Soylent Possum is made out of chicken! Seriously, the racism accusation over that makes no sense. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2009, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/775 "2009-10-16T14:33:40Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > … wait whut? > … black man is dark meat? Soylent Possum is made out of chicken! > > Seriously, the racism accusation over that makes no sense. I’d always heard that possum was the other _white_ meat. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/776 "2009-10-21T02:08:50Z")
I don’t know if this is a very, very stupid Republican idea or some expansive and wicked hoax. People have been receiving [this survey](http://web.campaignsolutions.com/rnc/2009surveycensus/?initiativekey=F5BMW17GUXCG) sent out by [this company](http://www.campaignsolutions.com/homepage.html) in the mail. Real push polling or push polling TO THE MAX! ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/777 "2009-10-21T02:20:36Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > I don’t know if this is a very, very stupid Republican idea or some expansive and wicked hoax. People have been receiving [this survey](http://web.campaignsolutions.com/rnc/2009surveycensus/?initiativekey=F5BMW17GUXCG) sent out by [this company](http://www.campaignsolutions.com/homepage.html) in the mail. > > Real push polling or push polling TO THE MAX! Intersting poll. I liked this part the best. > [@](#): > > Are you in favor of a space-based defense system to protect America from intercontinental ballistic missiles? We’re really back on the Star Wars line of defense? This whole Reagan nostalgia thing has gone too far. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/778 "2009-10-21T03:04:37Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > I don’t know if this is a very, very stupid Republican idea or some expansive and wicked hoax. People have been receiving [this survey](http://web.campaignsolutions.com/rnc/2009surveycensus/?initiativekey=F5BMW17GUXCG) sent out by [this company](http://www.campaignsolutions.com/homepage.html) in the mail. > > Real push polling or push polling TO THE MAX! I feel privileged to announce the least shocking news in history: it’s [the people](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Donatelli_Group) who brought you the Swift Boaters and Judicial Confirmation Network. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/779 "2009-10-21T03:22:49Z")
I’m somewhat disappointed that there was no question like: > [@](#): > > Should the public demand the release of Barak Hussein Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2009, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/780 "2009-10-21T03:26:28Z")
Probably only because their target audience mostly thinks he’s already presented his Kenyan birth certificate. Most likely while singing _L’Internationale_ or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=40)