Polls can provide important guidance for politicians, but there are times when it is foolish and erous to rely on a temporarily misinformed public for a political compass. The current debate over Social Security provides one of the most compelling examples in modem history of the pitfalls of poll-driven political strategy. Yesterday two leading Democratic strategists publicly took their party to task for their" just say no" approach to President Bush’’s program. "To say there is no problem simply puts Democrats out of the conversation for the great majority of the country that want political leaders to secure this very important retirement program," they warned, "Voters are looking for reform, change, and new ideas, but Democrats seem stuck in concrete." Stuck, indeed. To be more exact, they are holding their ground and refusing to surrender to a president who is once again manufacturing a "cr" for a political purpose. And why should they do otherwise, when this strategy is clearly working Let’’s start with the facts. According to President Bush, Social Security can pay all promised benefits for the next 37 years without any changes at all. Even if nothing were done by 2043, the program would still pay a higher real benefit than what people receive today. And even looking into the future of the 75-year planning period, the shortfall is less than what we fixed in the ’’50s, ’’60s, and ’’80s. In other words, Social Security is financially stronger today than it has been throughout most of its history. So this attack on Social Security has nothing to do with the solvency (偿付能力) of the program. Nonetheless last week, a Quinnipiac University poll found that respondents, by a 49 to 4,2 percent margin, believed that Social Security would not be able to pay them a benefit when they retire. But this is a ridiculous idea, based completely on misinformation. It is even more far fetched (牵强的) than the notion, which also commanded a majority before the invasion ’’of Iraq, that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the massacre of 9/11. In the case of Social Security, there is no dispute about the facts. There are just a few cheap verbal and accounting tricks that have been used to convince the public that Social Security faces serious problems. These are easily refuted. The same Quinnipiac poll showed that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling Social Security, with only 28 percent approving. It makes no political sense to pretend that this attack on our nation’’s most successful and popular government program is actually an attempt to insure its solvency. Even in politics, there are times when honesty is the best policy. What can we know about the Democrats, according to the author