City “Don’t Poll Facts. Just Sound Bites.”
Nancy Drew has an item in this week’s In Other News about the Elway poll numbers re: the Sonics (first reported here on Slog.)
Nancy wrote:
New polling, done by local pollster Stuart Elway, has some devastating, although not surprising, news for the Sonics: 78 percent of those polled would be a-okay if the Sonics left town. Just 15 percent wanted them to stay. The poll asked whether voters were “more inclined [to] let the Sonics leave Seattle” than to pay for a KeyArena renovation with “taxes.”However, Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis, who’s working behind the scenes to hammer out a deal to keep the Sonics in town, was skeptical of the poll, telling the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the question was framed to elicit a negative take on the Sonics by spinning it as a choice between raising taxes or letting the team leave. Given that raising taxes is exactly what the Sonics are demanding, it’s not clear how Ceis would have worded the question differently. NANCY DREW
We had called Ceis for a comment on this story. That is, we wanted him to tell us how he would have worded the question differently. Well, he finally called back today to tell us. Ceis said you don’t get an accurate poll result from a single question. You have to explain the talking points on both sides of the issue. As he saw it, you had to explain the Sonics’ side—they’re losing money on this lease deal. And then explain the POV of those who are against the subsidy—it’s debatable how much a sports team really contributes to the economy.
I suggested that there was more to the nay side than just a question about the Sonics’ contribution to the local economy… that the real issue was this: The current lease is also a shitty deal for the city because we’re losing $2.3 million a year, still paying off the renovation we funded for the Sonics in 1995. (We’re not supposed to be paying it off… the Sonics are!). In short, the real issue is that the public is sick of subsidizing a private business that hasn’t lived up to its end of the bargain. Why would we want to do that again, especially when we have other needs that are going unmet?
Ceis said: “Facts don’t matter in a poll, you just have to test both sides’ sound bites.”
I’ll keep that in mind when Team Nickels releases its own polling on the viaduct tunnel option or the mayor’s $1.8 billion transportation levy. When they trot out their winning numbers, I’ll know it’s based on their craftier sound bite.
Meanwhile, I asked Ceis if there was, indeed, a Sonics deal in the works.
He said: “We’re not commenting publicly now. When this issue was being debated in public, it was just raising temperatures.” He said nothing would be announced this month.
JOSH GOT TO TALK WITH CEIS....
JOSH, DID YOU LEAVE A PUDDLE?