While browsing a
technical website, I came across something unusual in that context: a banner ad asking me to participate in a
Post-Election Survey with Dubya's picture emblazoned on it. Of course, it had an American flag as the background. Like a well-trained crackmonkey, I clicked on the flashy banner.
The further I got into the survey, the more obvious it was that this was a "push poll" biased towards the conservative viewpoint. Examples below the fold.
Here's a selected subset of the questions. While I'm no polling expert, I was deeply concerned by:
- the phrasing of the questions
- the multiple-choice answers offered
- the ordering of both question and answer elements to favor the desired outcome
Examples:
Would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?
- Right direction
- Wrong track
- Not sure
Note the different language for each answer: "right direction" vs. "wrong track". This is a fairly subtle but unmistakable weighting for the desired answer.
Federal income tax cuts enacted into law since President Bush took office are due to expire in the next several years. Do you...
- Favor making cuts permanent
- Oppose making cuts permanent
- Not sure
Everyone loves tax cuts, right? Note the complete lack of information regarding the consequences of the tax-cut driven deficit spending.
Do you think people should have the choice to invest privately up to 5 percent of their social security contributions?
This one's just factually inaccurate, but the issue of percentages and contributions has been so thoroughly hashed out elsewhere in the Diaries and Articles that I'm not going to touch it.
I urge each and every person who reads this Diary to spend a few minutes doing the survey, paying close attention to the inherent bias in the survey. The conservative bias gets even more obvious in the final pages of the poll.