DICK MORRIS LAUNCHES THE DICK MORRIS POLL

DICK MORRIS LAUNCHES THE DICK MORRIS POLL WITH FIRST PUBLICIZED POLL OF WISCONSIN VOTERS ON ISSUES IN THE PUBLIC EMPLOYEES PROTEST

New York, NY, February 25, 2011 -- Dick Morris, a veteran pollster with thirty years of experience in national and international polling, is announcing the launch of The Dick Morris Poll, which will focus on timely political issues and candidates. Drawing on his polling expertise, Dick will provide the results and an analysis of each poll.

Dick Morris was President Clinton's pollster for 20 years, and has done polling for 30 Senators and Governors and 14 presidents or prime ministers in foreign countries.

The Dick Morris Poll, to be published at least once a month, will use the traditional polling method of telephone calls to registered voters. On occasion, Internet polls will be done of a carefully drawn random sample of likely voters - in order to avoid the bias of relying only on those participants with a political predisposition.

The initial poll is the first published poll of voters conducted within the state of Wisconsin and was completed on Monday, February 21, 2011 and Tuesday, February 22, 2011.

WISCONSIN POLL RESULTS

The Dick Morris Poll conducted a telephone survey among 409 likely Wisconsin voters. The survey has a margin of error of +- 4%.

Findings: Wisconsin voters break almost evenly on Governor Walker's proposed reforms, supporting them by a margin of 51-47.

They support many aspects of the proposal by significant numbers:

VOTERS SUPPORT CHANGING THE BENEFITS TO STATE WORKERS, PAY, AND AUTOMATIC DEDUCTION OF UNION DUES

By 74-18, they back making state employees pay more for their health insurance.
By 79-16, they support asking state workers to contribute more toward their pensions.
By 54-34, Wisconsin voters support ending the automatic deduction of union dues from state paychecks and support making unions collect dues from each member.
By 66-30, they back limiting state workers' pay increases to the rate of inflation unless voters approve a higher raise by a public referendum.

VOTERS OPPOSE CHANGING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENTS

On the issue of limiting collective bargaining to wage and benefit issues, however, they break with the Governor, opposing the proposal by 41-54.

If the issues to be taken off the bargaining table are related to giving schools flexibility to modify tenure, pay teachers based on merit, discharge bad teachers and promote good ones, however, they support such limits on collective bargaining by 58-38.

ANALYSIS: Voters back the principal of collective bargaining. But they are also willing to limit these negotiations so that they would not impede education reforms.

For Governor Walker to prevail, he must focus on his goal of achieving reform in schools. He will not prevail as long as his proposal is essentially negative in nature (i.e., limiting collective bargaining). But if he emphasizes the positive intent that lies behind the proposal (i.e., giving schools the flexibility and freedom to implement education reforms), he will find a solid public majority behind him.