At RedState we have become quite familiar with Scott Rasmussen’s polling on the political class and every day Americans. There is a great disparity between the two. In my book Red State Uprising I relied on Scott Rasmussen’s polling heavily, including this nugget:

A July 23, 2010 Rasmussen survey found “75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure.” But, among those considered the political class, which trascends party lines, “a government managed economy [is preferred] over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin. . . . [A]mong Mainstream voters, 90% prefer the free market. Outside of the Political Class, free markets are preferred across all demographic and partisan lines.”

Now Scott Rasmussen has taken the next step and written a book called The People’s Money. The subtitle is “how voters will balance the budget and eliminate the federal debt.” He goes straight into the great divide between the political class and most Americans.Turns out all that polling that shows Americans are a rather conservative lot is true. It also turns out that the public is willing to make cuts and is willing to tackle social security and medicare.The catch is that voters are necessarily in favor of a lot of movement conservative reforms to social security, etc., but are much more closely aligned to the conservative movement than to the left.It makes a really fascinating read and could be a blueprint to get the serious discussions moving on our nation’s fiscal solvency. I am not nor have I ever been a fan of poll driven political platforms. But seeing where voters are and what they think provides a lot of insight and can help politicians build a workable platform to solve our serious problems.You can get Scott Rasmussen’s The People’s Money right here. It is a very thought provoking read.