Reply #114: It is a clear statement of fact

[grantcart]

in a political contest negatives unite people of different opinions into a common subset this is why political scientists rarely examine the positive polling numbers and only examine the negatives. Negatives also contain a much more committed response as anyone who goes so far to openly express a negative emotion is assumed to give it more weight to someone who expresses satisfaction and may simply be going with the flow or hasn't really developed an opinion at all.

For example take the statement "The President's approval rating on handling Health Care has fallen to 40%"


a more careful look at the responses would likely show:


Approved of the President 40%
Wanted the President to include the Public Option and do more 20%
Thought that the President to take a less comprehensive strategy 20%
Was satisfied with the current system 20%.

While it appears that the President only had 40% approval the reality is if he was up against either

Do you think that the President should have done more or Do you think that the President did too much his rating on a binary question would have been 60% approval. Only when the the negative is left undefined, and all of the negatives combined does the President get 40%.

The fact that you would find this completely objective factual and and basic political science fact to be a 'slur' indicates that you either make it a habit of looking for such slurs where they don't exist or that you have made it a particular hobby to honor me in such a pursuit.