And I feel like I need a shower to wash off the yuck! Very poorly done polling, too.
I could hear a lot of background noise. The person doing the polling kept stumbling over the script. She didn't know how to pronounce Barak Obama, kept calling him Obama Barak, even after I corrected her.
The poller asked me the usual demographic questions, and asked if I had a positive response or a negative one to various candidates, mostly major parties. Dean Barkley, the Independent Party candidate was included in the Senate race. I was asked who I was going to vote for. I told her - DFL (our local Democratic Party) all the way. Then it became obvious what this was about - not the presidential race, but the Senate race.
She read a bunch of "statements" about Norm, like bills he introduced, etc. etc. Except, I knew a number of them were lies or distortions - he has not supported health care in any form, he has been terrible on veterans issues. But the statements were weasel-worded, along the lines of: "If I told you Norm Coleman supported giving everyone a pony, would be more likely or less likely to vote for him?" I said less likely in every case, because I wouldn't vote for Coleman no matter what he said. I certainly don't trust what this pollster said that he had supported. Coleman has voted with Bush most of the time, the the detriment of the state and the country. I don't know everything he has done in detail, but, as the old saying goes, you don't need to eat the whole egg to know it has gone bad.
But someone who was on the fence, who hadn't been following the issues, might not know the facts. This sort of thing should be illegal, if it isn't already.
Should I have tried to get more information about who was doing this? I don't remember what she said about who she was with when she began the call. I wish I'd taken notes, but I was in the middle of dinner. Besides, at first, I thought it was a consumer survey.
No way will I vote for anyone but Al Franken for Senate in Minnesota.