Michael J. O'Neil is President of O'Neil Associates, a national public opinion research firm based in Tempe, Arizona. O'Neil Associates has conducted more than 1,700 opinion research surveys in the last 35 years for entities including Fortune 100 companies, law firms, labor unions, hospitals, utilities, nonprofits, and government agencies. Dr. O’Neil has also been a television and radio commentator in every election since 1980. A sociologist by training, he has taught at several universities including the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois, and Northwestern. Links to many of his past writings and commentaries are available at www.mikeoneil.org and company information is at www.oneilresearch.com.

Blog Entries by Michael J. O'Neil

The Public Option

3 Comments | Posted November 4, 2009 | 12:30 PM (EST)


I decided to write a letter to an old friend from Crabapple Cove, Maine. With almost anybody else, I would send an email, but he's a geezer whom I am fairly certain is computer illiterate. So I hand-wrote a three page letter, and I considered how to send it. For...

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Afraid of Socialist Healthcare in America? It's Already Here

2 Comments | Posted October 5, 2009 | 04:02 PM (EST)


In the course of our ongoing national debate about health care, it is instructive to observe the words that are used -- and the words that are avoided -- to describe different models of healthcare. Consider:

Socialist Health Care System. This is the model under which the government pays...

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What I Hope a Fly on the Wall in the White House Would Hear

3 Comments | Posted July 28, 2009 | 12:11 PM (EST)


I was thrilled to see the President invite Sgt. Crowley and Professor Gates to the White House for a beer.

While this conclave of three Alpha Males could become the temporary testosterone capital of the world, I have genuine optimism for what may transpire. The more I consider who...

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The Gates/Crowley Rorschach Test

125 Comments | Posted July 24, 2009 | 11:19 AM (EST)


How you react to the case of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley may tell you more about yourself than about the incident itself.

What I have found most disturbing about the case is the nearly universal rush to judgment of almost all commentators,...

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Census Pick Illustrates Broader Obama Strategy

4 Comments | Posted June 15, 2009 | 04:07 PM (EST)


What does the testimony of a Presidential nominee to a nonpolitical federal statistical agency tell you about the strategic approach of the Obama administration? If you observe how it fits a pattern, it tells you quite a bit.

Robert M. Groves is President Obama's pick to head the Census...

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Diversity, Perspective and the Supreme Court

6 Comments | Posted June 9, 2009 | 10:18 AM (EST)


Many years ago, I was elected foreman of a jury in a civil case. My experience taught me the greater collective wisdom we get when diverse perspectives are brought to bear on a legal judgment. I was, at the time, a professor in my late twenties. The jury was a...

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