Marcy,
Thanks for taking the time to speak to Dr. Elmendorf and respond to
his research request. Crafting good questions to ask these politicians
is tougher than it looks! I tend to agree with you that questions
forcing respondents to agree or disagree with a specific law,
proposal, ballot measure, etc. are better, but I wouldn't say that
broad, general questions are never good. For instance I like the
question, "Would you say government in San Francisco is too big, too
small, or about the right size?", because I think it can serve as a
useful barometer of how libertarian-leaning someone is, as well as
prompting respondents to think about whether they do want more or less
government in the aggregate, a question they may not have considered
before.
But in the case of Michael's question, I'd be very surprised if
anyone running for office in SF other than a Libertarian would
affirmatively agree to such a sweeping pledge. In fact, on
consideration, I'm not sure even *I* would say yes -- after all, if I
had an opportunity to vote for a new police training program designed
to teach respect for Fourth Amendment rights, encourage officers to
take physical risks themselves rather than endangering suspects or
civilians, etc., I would probably support it!
I believe that a major goal, if not the primary aim, of our questions
to candidates and officials should be to help us sort the better ones
from the worse ones, and a question likely to get the same response
from everyone won't do that.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))