Thursday, September 22, 2016

Real Lie-Able Polls

I've concluded that I will no longer answer polls.  Last week somebody from the Democratic Party came and rang our doorbell.  He wanted to know whom I'd be voting for in the Illinois Congressional Elections.  I told him I will be voting but that I don't give out that information.

I am swamped with solicitations for my opinion - on candidates, issues like Citizen's United, my last doctor's visit, a recent purchase at Amazon, you name it.  Why is it that my opinion should be offered up for free?  Will my privacy be respected if I do offer up my opinion?  Or is it likely to be the basis of a slew of future such queries?

No Mas.  In my case, in particular, since I do write a lot in this blog and that is out there, if you want to know what I think, read what I have written.  Otherwise, tough gazeebees on you.

I have no way of knowing whether I am alone in this or if there are many others who have reached the same conclusion.  If the latter is correct and if those of us who are tuning out to pollsters are otherwise not uniformly distributed among the rest of the population, then the pollsters themselves have a problem.  Good.   The way polling is done now is way too much beauty pageant and not nearly enough getting at why people hold the views that they do.   At best it is measuring how people have been conditioned by the various media they have been exposed to.  It thereby becomes an accomplice to such conditioning.

We need something better. 

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