Second Person Plural, of course.
For months I've used polls to ask dKos users what they thought and felt, and now I'm summarizing what I think I've learned so far.
Do I really have to mention that these polls are not scientific, have small samples even relative to kos usership? No. I don't. Therefore I will not bother.
The summary itself is politely hidden in the extended section...
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National Healthcare
One thing I noticed, although some people say that they don't like polls, many more people will express their opinion through a vote on a poll than by writing a comment. So for example when I asked via diary "Which Candidate Is Most Likely To Accomplish National Healthcare?" I got two answers. Hillary won, Gep game in second. But when I asked shortly after that, using my same strange but purposeful wording via a poll, "Most Likely To Accomplish National Healthcare?" I got 24 answers, which may not be scientific but it makes for good looking percentages like 29% and 37%! Clark won that. Dean came in second.
I was suprised who won, but of course, we don't learn the correct answer to the question I ask, and it's even debatable if you hear what the people voting "really think", but you do do get what they want to tell you from what they believe to what they hope, to what they simply want to convey.
Most Dangerous Democratic Candidate
Biggest Potential DANGER!!!?
I ought to run this again, 97 votes and the third comment is one word long "Troll.". Raboof buddy, it was an honest question, but it is a poll, it does ask for response. But as I really am collecting not pushing opinion in a poll, "Bad Question" was therefore an option. It took 34%. So I learned that dKossians think the biggest danger is potentially divisive questions. This poll was not divisive, however, it was an assessment of people's worry at that moment. People worry about the unknown and also about known scandals, we want to know what people worry, especially us, so that's a fine question. Lieberman and Sharpton won (lost) the vote among candidates, in that order but within 1% of each other. Is that reasonable? Those two lead because of knowns, I think, fair or not.
(note: I think joke options don't hurt the poll too much because they give outlets for people that might find my options frustrating, "none of the above" is a serious and specific answer, and in this poll there was one vote for Willie Brown (Jerry Brown was also an option), and this person, of course won the fabulous prize for having gotten the correct answer. The funny thing about Willie is he is probably the guy that did that made that vote.
Dean Fans
Then I learned this board was dean fans. I did not know this. Tom Tomorrow sent me here. I had come and read but I normalize out a lot of chatter in terms of realizing how strongly dKos leaned Dean because there were supporters of all candidates here. Ooops, did I just use past tense accidently on purpose provocativly? Perhaps.
Other things I learned:
- Asking "Candidate Best Able to Solve Specific Problems the Bush Administration Will Leave Behind?" dkosites willing to parse that said Dean 52%, Clark 24%. This is early Nov and Kerry was still third at 9%. Watching subsequent events I'd guess that Kerry would get fewer votes here today both because of conversion and emigration.
- Nevertheless, a small slice of dkos around 8:44 Grenwich on Nove 5, says Clark not Dean won the Rock The Vote Debate.
Reveling in my power to ask interesting questions and be answered by the group mind which uses an interesting but spooky voice, I discovered
* When you ask dkossimen "Is God Dead?". The dKoset answer to that "Which god?" with a runaway plurality of 42%. The other options were Yes, No, and Nietzsche is Dead. Some of these answers offend me, but see how good I am to include them?! Very fair poll writer here. :)
To emphasize this on my behalf my subconscious started me on a poll where half the respondents said I omitted a crucial option (I dare not think what the option was), although my fairness is still in tact since I provided the option allowing them to say that. But I recovered to discover that:
- dKos users very much like Dean/Clark and Clark/Dean in one form or the other, or should I say, still did around Nov 7.
- dKos users are not frightened of reported terrorist threats, or don't take them seriously.
- dKos users mostly agree with me on the idea of instant runnoff voting... (it's good)
- dKos users believed the draft would be reinstated by Bush, but After the election (71%) (not implying that would happen, just if given the chance). No one answered "Silly Question". I use past tense because this could have changed right as there was some draft news at the time, iirc, which influences this probably.
- 42% of 33 voters told me they thought, in their largish focus group sized opinion, that a woman could win the US Presidency today if it was the right candidate, which is a cool opinion. (9% of those said the female candidate would have to be conservative), and I think this brought up a good point that people forget about "electability" -- it's codeword for vote-veto based on bigotries a lot of the time. But, in fact, it would be hard for Bush, for example, to run against Braun, as I said for example, ignoring issues for the sake of argument, because so many of the GOP's usual tactics would look like sexism or racism. Candidates from traditional victims of American bigotries may win big when they finally overtake an office because the bigotry of conventional wisdom outlives the actual public sentiment. I do think the GOP would have to fight with kid gloves on against Braun. It's intriguing to remember these sorts of aspect are a part of real politics, the "CW" cannot tell you what's inside the voter.
- well past the 10'th hour some die hard dkossian c-span junkies votes Schumer and Boxer as best orators in the GOP Conservative Judge Yakathon Spectacular of Joy! (remember the not-quite-a-filibuster filibuster(tm)?) 2 people voted for Santorum. You know who you were and I suspect you two voted from the same computer.
- Most agreed with me that the Republicans were due a "thank you" for the Senators On Parade spectacle, which made Democrats look good as far as we could tell.
- if my poll represented dKosserthink, a little more than half watched the Senate Talkathon, nearly a fifth watched 5-10 hours! I forget how I voted because I was around 5 hours... I think I votes 1-5 becuase it might have been more like 4.5 hours.
- dKostericans are evidently able to support a flag burning amendment if Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure Dolls are actually required to be burned as a compromise. Other than that, no.
- Bremer announced Iraqi Government by Next Summer, 1/3 say yes, but the US military stays, 1/3 say no, not by next summer, the final third is distributed among minority options and the focus group is a mere 21. I find this interesting. I don't think I voted, I didn't have an answer.
- Two thirds of dKosserites think Dean can actually fix the mess in Iraq he may inherit. This reminds me, I've learned that DKos users are optimists, at least those that vote and commnent.
- dKosterilians absolutely (sample of 79 don't lie!) read Conservative Opinion Journalism, mostly to learn for the sake of compromise... well, if 7% is "mostly"... the rest say it's something called "know thy enemy", but of course my favorite group (13%) went for All of the Above ("don't listen to lies", "know thy enemy", and "learn for the sake of compromise") (PS: they read us... you can tell because they always refer... and this poll was around when Tom Tomorrow did the Chickenhawk Blog Comic and caused a blogcident with those guys.
- Suprisingly few dKossaks believed Rush Limbaugh was really a Changed man after his first day back. I dare say less think it now. A quarter of responsders claimed not to know who Rush was... but they are hopeless liars, no offense intended, you know who you are.
- 54% said that Clinton would NOT be in a Democratic Presidential Administration (the poll said "working for the White House"), the rest said some form of yes (excluding particular administrations he would not be part of). I think it's likely that Clinton will work for the next Democrat, and that he is the one that the party can rely on to help fix, that is, TOTALLY FIX, world diplomacy. He shows that diplomacy and foriegn affairs is about knowledge manner and strategy, not experience, but if you have the first three and experience... you are there to help your country. If we have a candidate that won't have Clinton, or that Clinton can't stand, that's the "No" possibility. Dean is for it, although the poll is unclear in that regard if being a diplotmat to Europe or the Middle East may not count for some people.
- dKossers tols me that George Bush Sr was the most likely to turn on W (Kennedy had just gotten Poppy's award). Three tenths was the runaway plurality opinion that the GOP is in lockstep with W. They may be, but my guess is by 2008 they will be in pieces either way.
- Andrew Sullivan is subject to a wide range of opinions by dKospersons. It would appear all of them are bad opinions however.
- I am not a dkosser when it comes to school vouchers, you guys hate em.
- while most dkoskund know "Do Not Feed Trolls", many more than sufficient percentages exist to fatten trolls. Sure, you know thgis now, but I knew millions of seconds ago!
- only 36% concerned dkossians think the Bush Admin said there was an imminent threat from Iraq, but almost 40% thought they meant "imminent".
- I lernt: 159 is the most votes I've gotten for a poll, I think.
- I lernt: You can get a lot of votes in apoll if you ask a provocative question about Dean on dKos.
- I lernt: I can vouch for D(kos)eaniacs that yes, if you are very diplomatic, you can ask things that make their heads go explodey without getting downrated or really vicious attack responses... but maybe you better be very good at diplomacy, you know?! :)
- I lernt: 69% of dkos regulars say that Dean will not run as an Independent, UNDERSTAND? cerebrocrat even invoked dear sweet Jesus, who actually did then arrive and kept things civil. Let me tell you one thing. If Dean loses the primaries there will be lots of people calling for him to run independently, but I have to say his supporters have very good cites that show it's just not very likley to happen. See, they lied, Howard is not an outsider.
- dkos is divided on if the Plame Affair is going anywhere. People, it's impeachable, it's there till the end, 8 years (knock on wood) and it'll be knocking, at least, that whole time. I guess I don't sound convinced it'll get anywhere, but I'm convinced it's The Real Deal (tm).
- dkosopodes are apparently strong military advocates, even if mostly because it's a necessary evil. No one says it's an unnecessary evil and no one says it's "always a destructive expense" but be warned, 11 percent have said that this poll was biased.
- You prefer the respectable US cover for Krugmans book.
- You believe it's more likely that Bush is like Nixon (real diary topic) than that Edwards read Slacker Inc.'s Diary (also a true topic naturally).
- dkosticals are optimists? Well I found a lot of you think that the Republican Party is weakening or even has no future, is on the way out (10% of 65, meaning that somehow a half a person voted in my poll which is like, hats off to you sir, for that, thank you, I wouldn't have minded had you skipped it so you are due an extra thanks). Might the Democrats become the conservatives?
- dkostalites think, in clear as-close-to-majority-as-you-can-get-an-not-be-one-ness, believe that rating a comment a 0 is ONLY appropriate in the case of moral impulchritude, look it up. Ok, don't, but I did not make the word up... that is what a Berkeley Professor told me was the only thing he, a Tenured Professor, could be fired for.
- Dean is ambiguous on the Drug War.
- dkos pollvoters prefer a Multiple Party System, but I must say that the comments reveal the limits of a poll for a question like this, and that in an open debate it's quite easy to see how knowledgable people might sway the majority opinion upon closer inspection, but I still like multiple parties myself.
- dkosland might understand trolls by majority, but there is a large number that don't... nearly everyone wants to obliterate trolls, but 6% of an intimate focus group wonder "why Do The Trolls Hate Us?" (title "Trolling is like Terrorism?", which offers a subtle subtext that even behind trolling are real human emotions with more mundane and explicable causes than often appears to be the case.
- It's anonymous, no harm in telling, or asking. I didn't answer... or did I?
- In a perfect poll to use on dKos Family Fued because it had exactly 100 votes cast, we find that dkossioles think as a ludicrously large majority fraction known as 72 hundredths in some circles (pssst, 72%), that the Democratic Convention will not be brokered. Oh, I may have hid my bias well then (not really), but let me tell you... I predict it will be brokered to some degree... that is, free delegates will have the power to threaten to swing the vote and negotiation will have to occur! I predict. I'm in the decimized minority round here on that though.
- 50% of you people don't think anything about Michael Savage is worthy of a Diary Entry. I shall obey my overlouourds... unless I don't want too-ooo. (spooky voice)
- dkossers are morally ambiguous about the subject of Demonizing the Enemy. Considering it's only 2003... checks millenial clock, I think dkossers can claim a bit of advance on public average to realize in the amount of 23% that Demonization is NEVER a good idea. Others differ. They are wrong, but look, my poll lets them differ. It doesn't mean I'm right, but look, it's a fair poll again!
- 80% of a sizeable sample (by my dkospoll standards) do not support the death penalty.
- while y'all clearly say, "No Way" to Nader in a Democratic Administration, many of you would consider it... perhaps on certain conditions?
- via a couple polls (yaddayadda), dkossalobes say, and I concur, that Dean is actually not as left as Clark('s proffessed positions). Which was a suprise but you pointed me toward that info, and also, I think issues2002.org (or is it .com) has them both identifies as left of where they really are, misplaced but not misquoted on a few issues.
- we all mother-joking (new term!) hated that Koppel debate. Well, not to watch, but I mean the Koppel part! (In my case that local reporter too)
- I don't know what to make of these answers to "Conformity is...?" What? Conformity sucks, it does too, but I like you conformists if it's a matter of what tea you all agree to like or something, not something such as what colors it's ok to wear in the street without getting stabbed. See the distinction! Of course, my poll was in contest of the loaded issue of insisting Green's "get with the program and don't help elect Bush", as many would say.
- Proven: 60% of Dkossians will agree with you that Bush is not electable, an unknown but sizeable amount do so becuase it "sounds cool". Shortly thereafter unelectable happens... coincidence?
- I lernt: if I rant nearly incoherently on eight sides of the "Southern Strategy" issue, many dkosseneurs declare they believe it's not true that the South will only vote for a Southerner, and in comments many wise southerners explain some reality for us (which is still hard luck in the electoral college, but informative).
- most think Koppel's debate question about Dean beating Bush is inconsequential and stupid stupid stupid, but I say... I don't know. It dug deep, didn't it, really? Not into Dean, it dug into The Party. The Magnificent Actually Eldest Party.
- dkossers were not tightly clusterd in the options I gave them on Saddams involvement with attacks as viewed once finding him in a small hole at a farm, but the winner is "probably not". I don't know what I meant by the phrase "It's Insane Suggest". huh? I was not on Oxycontin at the time.
- I said it was not degrading to show Saddam recieving healthcare! 22% answered that I was wrong, because medical treatment is a private matter (and for other reasons), but 22% also said it was [just as] degrading for American's without healthcare to see it. Um, this wasn't exactly a real clear example of pyrrho's bias free polls, but informative.
- dkos corrected me if I thought that Baker really got the Old Europeans to forgive Iraq's debt.
- I learned Govenor George Ryan probably was guilty, even if he did stay a lot of Death Row convictions on ethical grounds in a last moment show of, "what the hell, like pyrrho said, turn out I'm guilty!"
- We liked bushin30seconds, but there were complaints too. Did you notice they removed all the video links when it was over?
- dkosicrats mostly agree, Fear of Terroism is way too high. (I hear that W and Ridge are going to issue us all mood rings only they are a new wireless technology and when they turn a color, that's the mood you're supposed to hurry up and get.)
- Unfortunately this is probably a familiarity poll more than a comparison of the contents... no offense, but that's the results I predicted based on likely familiarity... if not, I couldn't tell... still fun though, I love these worrisome sci-fi futures.
- Everyone is happy for Lenny. He's still $5#$$!! pardoned. New York Republicans, I'll tell you.
- Ollie North is dispicable (poll did not require a "no he's not" option to attain accuracy), we all agree and those of us that don't are merely wrong, that's all. See, always absolutely unbiased.
- A sizeable number of dkossophiles who are also "voted-in-my-poll"-ers think yes, dKos can be some kind or level of "think tank", depending on if that really means something.
- Idea thieving is OK, dkos said so. But you have to use the idea for real, no fair lying.
That was a lot, wasn't it? That's a look back on (2 months of) a year on Modern dKos. Thanks kos, scoop and rusty.
Gee. Thanks for telling me all this, self selected kos opinionticians.