Issues with the Pro-Penny arguments - Part 1

So I'll start by poking holes in the pro-penny arguments.  Don't worry penny lovers, I'll get to the anti-penny arguments soon enough.  After all, I believe everyone can make their own decision as long as they have the facts.

So first off we have their opening statement, "The penny continues to enjoy overwhelming support from a majority of Americans."  This assumption comes from their own "poll" in which 67% of those polled favored keeping the penny in circulation.  OK, let's assume you never worry or even hardly think about pennies. If someone asks you if you're in favor of keeping the penny in circulation (and they require a yes or no answer), what are you going to answer?  I would venture to say that the tendency is to stay with the status quo and so a majority of people will automatically say yes without any thought.  Since we use the penny now, that's what the majority will agree with.

I think a more telling argument would be to ask how they feel about the penny first, and throw out the answers to those that are indifferent.  You only want the data on those who have an opinion one way or the other, otherwise your data will be skewed toward the status quo.  Those that are indifferent will not care if we have a penny or not.  Of course, if you get an overwhelming majority of those that are indifferent, then your pro-penny argument will lose a lot of steam with that, too.

Another avenue would be to ask those you poll a bunch of similarly mundane-type questions and find the percentage that follow the status quo vs. those that go against it.  Then if your penny question is on the high end of the spectrum with followers, you'll have a good pro-penny argument.  If it's on the low end though, then you can conveniently ignore it, or just pick and choose the parts that help your argument.

I've got more, but I'll stop here for now.  Post a comment if you have any other ideas on the subject.