Survey Says... LET FREEDOM RING!

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Before we get to this serious stuff in this morning’s column, I have a confession to make. Maybe this is a minor sin. Maybe it isn’t a sin at all. But I have a serious weakness for the Steve Harvey version of “Family Feud.” I’ve never watched an entire episode, but when a “Best Of” or a “Dumbest Answers Ever” collection shows up in my YouTube recommendations, you’ll know exactly what I’m going to click on next.

There’s something about Steve’s (no relation) pitch-perfect deadpan delivery combined with his “You have got to be kidding me” expression that slays me. And, of course, the ridiculous answers the family contestants give him. There’s so much material for Steve to work with and he works with it expertly.

But it’s the “Survey Says!” part that makes the show. Americans guessing what their fellow Americans think about almost any subject under the sun creates genuinely comedic moments — and, sometimes, a little insight as to where this big, crazy country is headed.

Granted, maybe I’m reading a little too much into a long-running game show. Or maybe I’m onto something. Only time will tell. But professional pollsters, believe it or not, sometimes rely on “Family Feud”-style polls to get a sense of the country’s mood — and you’d better believe that campaign pros use them in their internals to help decide what issues their candidates should focus on.

Here’s the most recent of those “concern” polls, conducted earlier this month by FIRE/NORC.

Results from a new survey: Free speech is now ranked the second-most important issue for Americans in the upcoming election — more important than health care, crime and immigration. pic.twitter.com/pyaIthKhvm

— i/o (@eyeslasho) October 24, 2024

Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ know I don’t focus much on polls, but this one is exciting.

First, I’d like to point out that of the 10 issues that 50% or more of Americans rate the most serious, seven, eight, or nine of them help the Trump-Vance ticket, depending on how abortion and gun policy break down in the crosstabs. “Abortion” could mean more controls or fewer, and the same with “gun policy.” “Supreme court appointments” is too ambiguous to mean anything at all.

From inflation to war and peace, the others are all rock-solid for the GOP. But one of the remaining issues is not like the others.

Inflation hits home. So does crime — and the price of health care, immigration, and war. Yet way up there in second place is “Free Speech.” That’s not a kitchen-table issue. There’s no free speech in your pocketbook to vote on.

But it’s still the most American of issues. And Americans still see it that way. One party explicitly says it wants to control what you can read or say by determining what “disinformation” is. The other party — or at least two men, Donald Trump and Elon Musk — knows how wrong and dangerous that is.

If free speech concerns you that much, it ought to be impossible to vote for Harris-Walz.

That’s an own goal for the Democrats, a self-inflicted wound. All they had to do on free speech is what the First Amendment says: leave it the heck alone. But the Left’s increasingly authoritarian worldview doesn’t allow dissent — and has trouble winning elections when dissent is allowed.

Finally, because I’m a thoughtful man sometimes, here’s last year’s “50 Funniest Answers & Moments With Steve Harvey.”

That was 20 minutes of my morning down the drain and yours, too, if you’re lucky.

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