Do the will of the people - or feel the people's wrath

You can get a sense of the disconnect of America’s leadership from the people they serve by contrasting the voices coming out of Washington with the vox populi that you hear in the local barbershop.

But perhaps our beloved senators and representatives are just as afraid to set foot in a barbershop as they are to have a townhall meeting. No telling what demands the public could make for accountability if they were allowed too close to the anointed ones of Washington, D.C.

The question arises, therefore, how exactly will our elected officials represent us if they are afraid to meet us, to talk to us, to exchange ideas with us honestly and freely? Perhaps they won’t, and perhaps they don’t care. That is the scary conclusion that many of us have reached as we watched Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi use parliamentary tricks, bribery and secrecy to impose nationalized health care on a nation that just doesn’t want it.

And that means our very republic is at stake.

Consider carefully the words of Thomas Jefferson, from a letter he wrote in 1816: “The mother principle [is] that ‘governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.’”

And if they ignore the will of the people, what then?

I have a modest proposal. Let every senator and congressman do a Google search for his own name on the Internet and then read what “we the people” are saying about “they the politicians.” If they had a strong stomach, they could even search for something like “I hate Max Baucus” or “I hate Harry Reid.”

Blogs, reader comments and social networks provide the framework for politicians to hear directly from their constituents. And if senators have time to wade through 2,000-page health-care bills, they should be able to take a few hours each Friday to see what the folks back home are saying.

One small facet of that public voice can be heard on our Website at www.dailyinterlake.com, where since November we have been letting the public “have its say” on a variety of issues through online polling. It’s been a fascinating exercise, and one that should give Congress pause.

Take the most recent poll, which asked whether the Democratic meetings to negotiate a final version of the health-care bill should be televised on C-SPAN. With over 1,000 votes cast, an overwhelming 88.7 percent said, “Yes, President Obama promised transparency.” Only 50 people, less than 5 percent, said the negotiations should not be televised because “the system doesn’t work that way,” and 6.4 percent thought it “doesn’t matter” either way.

Now, you can certainly say accurately that this is not a scientific poll, but I doubt you can say scientifically that it is not an accurate poll. It no doubt represents the view of the thousands of people who visit our Website, and probably is not too far from representing the will of the people overall.

What has been fascinating to watch on each poll we have run so far is that the percentages of responses don’t change by more than a point or two over time. That suggests there is no “ballot stuffing,” so to speak, and that therefore these results reflect an accurate cross-section of Inter Lake readers.

The poll that Congress really ought to study is the previous one, which asked our readers, “Do you support the Democratic proposals for health-care reform?”

Only 25 percent supported health care reform, roughly divided down the middle between those who thought it was “about time” for such a plan and those who thought it should be more liberal by including a public option.

More than 51 percent, an absolute majority, went on record stating that the Democratic proposals are “just plain unconstitutional.” They were joined by 18.5 percent who opposed health-care reform because it is too expensive.

Just another bit of information to be ignored by our elected representatives? They do so at their own risk. That particular poll received more that 2,200 votes. Clearly, this is an issue people care about.

And of course, it is not just these Inter Lake polls that send the same message. As I noted last week, according to a poll done by Montana State University in November, 74 percent of Montanans think that the Democratic proposals for health-care reform will make health care in America worse, not better.

So what is it going to be? Will Sen. Baucus and Sen. Tester represent Montana or not? How come neither one of them has introduced a bill to demand that the negotiations on health care be done in the light of day? That is what their constituents want!

It must be concluded that they don’t share with Jefferson the belief that “More attention should be paid to the general opinion.” But if they don’t learn to do so soon, then they may expect to be examples of Jefferson’s other dictum, that “Public opinion... [is] a censor before which the most exalted tremble for their future as well as present fame.”

• Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com