Ron Paul says majority of Americans favors gold standard [View all]

[struggle4progress]

... We'll leave the policy debate to others. What we're fact-checking is whether there’s as much public support for the idea as Paul claimed ...

So Paul is correct on the number -- but way off on the description. This was not a "national poll" that shows that a "majority of the American people believe we should have a gold standard." Instead, it was three polls in three states, with respondents from only one party -- and even among this narrow sample, it only asked those who are active enough politically to be considered likely to participate in the upcoming primary. The survey was also commissioned by a group that supports the gold standard ...

Rasmussen found that 44 percent of likely voters had a favorable impression of returning the U.S. monetary system to the gold standard, or, broken down, 15 percent very favorable and 29 percent somewhat favorable.

That’s closer to the majority mark, but it’s worth noting a few qualifiers. Among pollsters, Rasmussen, which describes itself as nonpartisan, has a reputation of producing polls that skew Republican. In addition, this poll was of likely voters, which uses a smaller pool of respondents than the default method, which is to poll all registered voters ...

http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/jan/04/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-majority-americans-favors-gold-stand/