Polling Report: Ed gets Polled

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 [phone], 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.

•  Got polls?

  What would we do without caller ID and Google?

  by Ed in Montana on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 06:17:23 AM PDT

•  Push Polls

  Is it OK to adminster push polls, even though they have been proven to be a dirty campaign trick? (y/N)

  by XStryker on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 06:24:49 AM PDT

  •  Don't know

    But in this poll, no elected official or candidate was ever mentioned. Which seems to me to indicate it was just a general poll done for a right wing organization, rather than a candidate.

    by Ed in Montana on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 06:38:50 AM PDT

•  Theres a difference

  Theres a difference between a push poll, which seeks to influence opinion not gather data and a question that pushes for an opinion, which is widely used to test messages and not influence individual voters. This is a push poll, which is condemned by the NCPP and AAPOR. It is also considered highly unethical. This one is odd that it seems to have no real purpose and isn't really trying to influence an election.

  by UpstateNYDem on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 06:40:02 AM PDT

•  Getting polled is fun

  just use plenty of lube.

  by Crisis Corps Volunteer on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 07:30:07 AM PDT

•  This would have been a fun poll

  1-  Are you a registered voter in Montana?

  (obviously not)

  2 - Do you lean democrat (always a giveaway), independent or republican?

  I'm a partisan member of the democratic party.

  3 - Do you think increased taxes and more government spending solve problems in all situations such as education and schools?

  Yes absolutely, particularly in the case of schools and education. Tax me more please so that we can imrpove our schools, make classes smaller and pay teachers like the professionals they are.

  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?

  Gun control doesn't curb crime?  Can you send me the statistics before I answer that please?  Without proof I assume that gun control does curb crime and so I am in favor of as much gun control as possible.

  5 - Do you favor banning abortion, except in case of rape or incest?

  No, I favor sterilizing all males at the age of 12 (after freezing some sperm of course) so that women don't ever have to worry about the state running their lives again and can have sex without sacrificing their bodies to state enforced slavery, just like men do.

  by TeresaInPa on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 07:33:12 AM PDT

  •  I did have to resist

    The urge to give totally crazy answers. Instead, I tried to lead them on to see where the whole train was going, which turned out to be nowhere!

    by Ed in Montana on Thu Jan 12, 2006 at 08:28:26 AM PDT