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Home > Vol. 2 (2010) > Iss. 3

 

Abstract

On June 26, 2010, the organization “AmericaSpeaks” sponsored “town hall meetings” in various cities around the United States, built around the theme “Our Budget, Our Economy.” The sessions purported to aim at determining the degree of support from citizens for various ways to reduce the country's budget deficit. Editor Max J. Skidmore applied to attend one of these meetings, and was accepted. He reports on his experiences as a participant, and also examines the validity of the overall activity, one that its organizers describe as an objective effort to assess public opinion. He concludes that such efforts are no substitute for scientific polling, that they are more effective as public relations exercises than opinion assessment, and that activities such as “Our Budget, Our Economy,” if effective, could potentially affect poverty adversely.