I Thought the Polls Were Over

This afternoon I took a call at work that turned out to be the Associated Press doing a poll on the outcome of the election. Realistically I probably should not have participated because they called the nursing home I run and I just happened to pick up the phone because everyone else was busy or ignoring it. When I told the guy that it was not my residence and that I had 77 people that did live there it threw him off his game. So, of course, I encouraged him to let me take it and told him he could count my answers 77 times!

The questions were the usual ones we heard thousands of times over the past 3 months such as:

How would you rate ____________ as a priority of the government? Top priority, somewhat a priority, low priority, not a priority. The blank was filled in with, the economy, the war, the financial institutions, the auto industry, tax cuts, etc.

Then there were questions about W.'s approval rating, congress' approval rating, Obama's election.

After they finished the opinion questions they went through a series of demographic questions including age, income, education, political persuasion, color of underwear, etc. The entire survey lasted about 15 minutes.

I answered the questions honestly and, in retrospect, I probably wasn't the person he was expecting to interview. I was unabashed about my opinions and I even got several laughs out of the dude.

This is only the second time in my life I have been selected for a poll, not counting the time we were selected as a Nielson family. I rarely talk to solicitors on the phone and reserve my most acerbic comments for those that try to push the issue.

There has been much talk recently about the methodology of opinion polls, whether they are skewed toward Democrats. There is also a concern as to how much we are influenced by them and what part they played in the eventual outcome of the election. The fact that many people want to vote for a winner may influence them to vote for the candidate that they are told over and over will be the winner. I used to discount such indictments but now I'm not so sure......