Here's a chilling thought for Christmas week: A survey by HCD Research says 62 percent of Americans say they would pay off their state's governor for a job with a salary topping $100,000 a year if they knew they could get away with it. Perhaps Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich had an advance look at the data - or just a distressingly prescient sense of the public. The same poll found that 58 percent would pay off the governor to get out from under a drunken driving charge, and, by varying majorities, to obtain the same health insurance as legislators and the governor, an all-access relationship with the governor and a state ruling that would ensure that a business becomes profitable. Fewer than half of respondents would pay for a letter of recommendation for their child for a state university or military academy or guarantees that their trash would be picked up or pot holes fixed on their neighborhood streets.
I wonder if people took this survey seriously ... and I wonder
what else they might be willing to buy from an obliging politician. Who knows,
maybe this could be a budget-balancing option for the state of
-- Jim Sweeney
“I wonder if people took this survey seriously ...” Well, apparently you did, since you give creedence to their findings. HCD Research is actually a volunteer public, opinon poll often used by pharmecutical and media companies running political and product advertising to check their effectiveness or impending marketing strategies. It’s not an institution that one can reasonably rely upon to write statements such as: “…62 percent of Americans…”.