Last night someone called to survey my opinion about politics. The man, who had an African-American accent (and who occasionally had difficulty reading the questions -- whether this reflected tiredness or poor education I don't know) announced his affiliation (Voter Consumer Research) and said he wanted to ask "a few questions" about my opinion on the upcoming elections.
After a couple of real questions everything else was a statement followed by a request to rate my reaction to the statement as "very positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative, or very negative" (no neutral option).
It didn't take me more than two questions of this type to realize it was a push poll, because the questions were heavily biased. Some statements were outright falsehoods. After answering a few of the questions with a brief argument about why the statement was false or misleading, I decided to go the whole nine yards and spent some 45 minutes spelling out my views about McCain. I decided to spend the time because it was fun - I don't usually get to talk politics - and to tie him up. Maybe even to try to put some sense into his head, though for all I know he might be pro-Obama already.
More on the questions, as far as I can remember them:
* On a scale from 1 to 10, how interested was I in the election? (10)
* What was my most important concern: national security, the economy, health care or the environment? There may have been more, and as far as the order is concerned, what I remember for sure is that national security came first. I answered national security, adding "I want to boot out the current bastards who brought us 9/11". He didn't get it at first - thought I was giving a second option - so I clarified it.
* Who was I likely to vote for: McCain, Barr, Obama or Nader (full names given). Obama.
* Very likely or somewhat likely? (Or perhaps some other adjective - very favorable or somewhat favorable, or maybe sure or unsure.) Very likely.
* What was the most important criterion in choosing a candidate. There were four or five choices, and I only remember three: sharing my values, being able to understand people like me, or putting country before party? I chose this last.
* In each of the following areas, which candidate did I think would do a better job? keeping our country safe (he waits for me to say Obama), listening to my concerns, yadda yadda yadda. After 3 or 4 I tell him to fill them all with Obama but he says he has to hear me say the name for each of them. So we play the game. Environment was there, way at the end. Not a word about balancing the budget, or taking the country out of a recession.
Then the push-polling started in earnest. I was struck by the complexity of the statements - some with three or four full sentences. But most of them phrased, as much as possible, so as to put McCain in a good light and Obama in an unflattering one. A typical example (not taken down literally, but very close):
Barack Obama says he wants to bring change to Washington. John McCain has been an agent of change and has worked in a bipartisan way to bring it about for many years. Do you regard this as very positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative or very negative?
With the first few of these I tried to explain that the statements were false or misleading, so it wasn't a matter of regarding them as positive or otherwise, but of their being false. Especially with the multiple-sentence questions, I objected strenously, said that he was engaging in push-polling (to which he replied "no, your opinion is what we're interested in") and thought of hanging up. But then I decided I'd just take the opportunity to evangelize. So I'd tell him in detail why the statement was false.
To the question "McCain wants to lower the price of gas with both energy conservation and more oil production, while Obama opposes lowering taxes on gas and opposes increasing new drilling" I pointed out how the Iraq war was is responsible for the tripling of the price of gas since 2000. I explained in detail how new drilling in the US would not solve anything.
Some other questions:
"Barack Obama says he wants to withdraw our troops from Iraq as soon as possible. John McCain says a stable Iraq is essential to the American national interest, that the surge is working and that we should stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to achieve victory. Is your reaction to this very positive, somewhat etc."
"Jewish leaders say that Barack Obama wants to negotiate with terrorist regimes" or something like that.
"John McCain has criticized President Bush for not putting enough troops in Iraq and for not changing the direction of the war sooner."
Sorry I don't remember more of these in detail. There were over a dozen.
Then he asked me to rate as an asset or a liability various characteristics such as "Obama's lack of experience", "McCain's age", "Obama voting 97% of the time with Democrats", and so on. Here at least I could give straightforward answers but I took the time to justify and clarify most of them in detail.
To wind things down he asked about age, income and race. And then finally:
"Taking into account the questions in this survey and your answers, who are you most likely to vote for now: John McCain, Bob Barr, Barack Obama or Raph Nader?" I guess any pretense that the exercise was not meant to influence me was gone by that point.