Polls

Are the Town Hall Folks Right?

Sympathy increases for demonstrations against health care.

The numbers are out and many Americans say that they are being swayed by the boisterous town-hall protests against health-care reform this month. Thirty-four percent of American adults surveyed say the demonstrations have made them more sympathetic to the protesters' views, while 21 percent say it has made them less sympathetic, according to USA Today/Gallup Poll released Wednesday. Independents by a 2-to-1 margin say the protests have made them more sympathetic to those who oppose health-care reform. "No one condones the actions of those who disrupt public events," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said in an op-ed article published in USA Today. "But those in Washington who dismiss the frustration of the American people and call it 'manufactured' do so at their own peril."