Gallup called me a couple of weeks ago on an early Saturday afternoon. I was surprised because it was the first time a national polling organization had called.

I was asked a lot of questions about my general feelings about the state of politics locally and nationally ("In the Democratic primary, will you be voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?" We already held our primary. "Did you vote for BO or HC?"). Answers were tightly constrained and generally had to be answered as Y/N or categories like "Very X, Slightly X, Slightly Not X, Very Not X" "On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being no X and 10 being maximum possible X ...". Quite often the question was so broad that it seemed like the results would be meaningless. ("Would you say that things are getting better or worse in your local area?")

While there were many political questions, it wasn't a national political opinion survey. It was mainly a lot of questions about health and health care ("Thinking about yesterday, did you have a headache?", "Would you say that yesterday you were Very Happy, Slightly Happy, ...", "Have you or anyone in your immediate family been hospitalized in the last 3 years?", "Is your health insurance provided by your employer, purchased by yourself, ...") It turned out, the questions were being asked for some health care advocacy company.

It was a little sneaky in the way the questions were asked. Easy, broad questions were first, and the questions became more personal as time went on (height, weight, age, race, number of people over 18 in the household, number of bedrooms, ...). The penultimate question was our family income. "Just for demographics purposes." I have a policy of not answering questions like that. She pressed a little, but not too much.

The final question was, "Can we call you again to ask you followup questions?" I said, "What happens if I say 'no'? I didn't give my permission for you to make this call to me." She said something like , "That's true; this is a random call. But we wouldn't call you back if you don't want us to (though you might get random calls again)." It obviously didn't really matter anyway, so I said yes.

It took 10-15 minutes all-told and wasn't too annoying. I don't think the results will be terribly meaningful though. I feel the same way about political polls unless they're taken the night before. "If the election were held today, who would you vote for?" is a meaningless question, IMO. I often don't seriously investigate the candidates until a week or so before election day; I'm sure others are the same way.

I think the TV talking heads like polls because they're numbers and therefore "objective". Similarly, reporting on how much money candidates have raised. It's much easier to talk about numbers like that than to spend the time comparing and contrasting their policy positions and discussing the implications of their policies.

In short, I don't think you've been missing much. :-)

I get polling phone calls with annoying frequency. I suspect it's because I live in a part of the world considered "rural".

I've taken to insisting they pay me. I figure that if they're willing to fork out money to the Kristols and Krauthammers of the world for their opinions, I should get paid, too. I tell them I get $50 an hour.

This mostly just confuses the guy on the other end of the phone, especially if he's calling from an "outsourced" location.

The bottom line is, many of us are choosing not to be polled when asked. That leaves guys like my father, who will talk to anybody...

ARGH!

WENCH JOANNE
A BLOGGER WHICH
WITH EVERY POST:
ANOTHER BITCH!

POSTINGS THAT
IN HER RUSH
HAS LANGUAGE THAT
MAKES PIRATES BLUSH!

INSTEAD OF GETTING
YE HAIR ALL MUSSED
CAN YE BRING UP
IDEAS TO DISCUSS?

ACQUIRE! MERGE! MARAUD! DILUTE! DILUTE!

ARGH!

I was once contacted for a political poll for the Boston Globe. ...Hm. I never did see the results of that poll...

Never been called. But I've only been registered to vote since early 2004. I've wondered about polls, too. It seems with these current polls, they aren't taking into account all the new voters Obama is signing up.