Paying Pollsters to Ask About Bush Impeachment

For Immediate Release: October 4, 2005

Grass Roots Coalition Says It Will Pay Pollsters to Ask About Bush Impeachment

A coalition of anti-war groups operating under the name After Downing Street put out a request Friday evening for donations to fund public opinion surveys by mainstream polling companies to measure support for impeachment proceedings against President Bush. The request had brought in $6,300 by Tuesday morning, putting the campaign more than half way to its goal of $10,000.

Zogby International, the sole pollster ever to raise the issue, asked in June whether Americans would favor impeachment proceedings if Bush "did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq." An impressive 42 percent said yes. Since then, Zogby has not asked about impeachment again, nor has any other pollster raised the issue at all. This is despite the positive response recorded by Zogby four months ago, Bush's lower approval and performance ratings, and the considerable demonstrations against the war on September 24th at which many of the posters, t-shirts, and speeches called for the impeachment of Bush.

After Downing Street, its allies, and many bloggers have encouraged polling companies to ask about impeachment. Thus far, they have refused. Several – including Zogby International -- have indicated that they will not do so (unless hired to do so) until there is action on the issue in Congress.

The campaign to raise funds for polling on impeachment is headquartered at this site, which includes background information:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/polling

"If Congress fails to represent the public," said David Swanson, Co-Founder of After Downing Street, "and then the pollsters limit their questions to fit that failure, popular concerns – even majority concerns – can be shut out of the public discourse. The result can be a majority of people holding the same opinion, but each believing they are part of a small minority. We intend to find out if that is the case here."

AfterDowningStreet.org is a rapidly growing coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups, which launched on May 26, 2005, a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war.

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