As the 2006 election year warms up, there will be thousands of polls in field trying to measure voter's opinions. Last night I got polled, and this diary is an attempt to encourage fellow Kossacks to report when they get questioned, so that we can help out with progressive campaigns, and of course have some fun discussing polls. More after the fold.
Last night was an odd night at la Casa de Ed in Montana. I was watching a helicopter circle our neighborhood searching for
an escaped convict when Mrs. Ed in Montana handed me the phone saying "It's some weird national polling organization". And indeed it was.
Okay Just the Facts:
Time of Poll: Wednesday January 11, 2006 7PM MST
Pollee: (is this a real word?) - Ed in Montana.
Pollster: The Institute on Voter Attitudes
A Google search shows that this organization is a project of the Free Enterprise Institute which in turn is a project of the Gordon and Mary Cain Foundation. I'm not entirely sure of this last link, since all of these organizations have only a few Internet references, making it hard to find confirmation of a single reference. Caller ID returned a phone number of (703)321-1882, coming from Virginia, which is the home state of the Free Enterprise Institute.
Questioner: A young girl who was obviously very inexperienced doing this sort of thing. A lot of background noise from other people in the call center, showing a unprofessional polling approach.
Type of Poll: Aggressive push poll, with five loaded questions, and no multiple choice answers.
Poll Questions:
1- Are you a registered voter in Montana?
2 - Do you lean democrat (always a giveaway), independent or republican?
3 - Do you think increased taxes and more government spending solve problems in all situations such as education and schools?
(I'm not sure of the precise wording of this one since it was a long, run-together sentence, but the intent was clear, do you favor more taxes?)
4- Do you favor more gun control, such as a ban on handguns and automatic weapons, even though these have been shown not to control crime?
5 - Do you favor banning abortion, except in case of rape or incest?
Poll Answers:
Since the pollster refused to identify themselves or their organization upfront, I didn't feel any obligation to give them real answers. So for the purposes of this poll, I am a anti-abortion anti-gun control protax independent. Before the young woman hung up I asked who was doing the poll, to which she said, the Institute on Voter Attitudes.
Reported to:
Daily Kos, the Montana Democratic party, the Jon Testor campaign, the Democratic National Committee.
Analysis: Having done some polling myself, this seemed to be a very unprofessional poll, shown by the lack of any real options for answers, other than yes or no, and the extremely loaded questions. The real question is who are they doing this poll for? I immediately thought for Burn's senate campaign, but I don't think even his campaign staff is that dumb. Possibly this was just some national poll for a right wing nut foundation that happened to randomly get my number, since I am not on active repub lists.
But it's always worthwhile to give them absurd answers to screw up their stats, and to report these polls to the appropriate organizations. It's been said that politics is just war by other means, and good intelligence on your opponents is critical in both.