Poll Results: President Should Keep Campaigning on Fairness—David Frum
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Today we asked, "Is President Obama making a mistake by making "fairness" a dominant campaign theme in 2012? Vote now on Facebook!"
The results are as follows:
No: 79%Yes: 21%
A strong majority of readers thought the President's fairness theme was a winning message.
balconesfault: It's not that Obama says "fairness" that often. It's that the word is like fingernails on the chalkboard for today's Randian Conservatives, who don't really believe that fairness of opportunity is important to America, much much less fairness of outcome.
If you made millions in life, be it through hard work, speculation, or inheritance, your children deserve to be born on 3rd base, and its fine if the basepath from home to first is made of quicksand. That is the natural way of things.
Others thought the President's accomplishments and expertise gave fairness the benefit of the doubt in 2012.
Oldskool: This is the guy who took down the Clinton machine, got a health care bill passed, took out OBL, etc, etc. Whatever he wants to do is probably a good idea.
Many readers thought our phrasing of "fairness" was a bit vague and made the question hard to answer. One reader offered a more precise distinction to explain why the president may have a winning message.
saladdin: Depends. From the President's perspective, I think fairness of opportunity is the key, not fairness of outcome. This stark difference is the main issue between the parties. While both tend to agree on fairness of opportunity, the fairness of outcome is what is often misconstrued.