Republicans Have Better Mental Health

What’s New This Week

"Efficient market theory dominated economic thinking from the days of Ronald Reagan to the collapse of 2008. It was the rationale for deregulation, the cause of a massive transfer of wealth and income from the middle class to a tiny number of the very rich. Now it is dead and gone but Republican politicians won’t let go, and many in the media show no understanding of the issue." Republicans Are Locked in a Passionate Embrace with a Corpse and Won't Let Go

"Reconciliation is not being considered for [Senate] passing comprehensive health-care reform. Major health-care reform legislation passed the Senate without reconciliation on Christmas Eve ." The Role for Reconciliation

December 1st, 2007 · No Comments · Republicans

December 1, 2007

The Facts

Fox News is repeatedly reporting on a Gallup Poll survey that says Republicans have better mental health than those of other political party affiliations.

My View

Who else but Fox would air this report several time an hour? If there has ever been an example of how little value we should place on certain polls, this is that example. To begin with, how many of us really know definitively what our mental health is? Do you know right off on the top of your head what the actual definition of mental health is and how many categories there are? If someone knocked on your door and said to you “I am taking a survey on mental health. What is the state of your mental health”, what would your answer be? Furthermore, anyone who believes that asking a diagnosed mental health patient what political party they are affiliated with is relative to getting at the root of a patient’s problems must have a very peculiar imagination. Therefore, if the survey results were obtained by surveying mental health professionals, it also has to be highly questionable.

There are at least a dozen questions in my head as to why anyone would take a survey comparing mental health to political party affiliation. Certainly the one question that is not at the bottom of my list is “is it with the intent of promoting the Republican Party”; especially in view of the fact that we are in the middle of a Presidential campaign.