The Power, the Gold and Inside Secrets of Polling
by Rob Kall
...With polls, you have the power to influence the response. You can give more or less information. You can cherry pick the information.
For example, we asked questions about the Alito appointment. By a small margin, 47.5 to 46.3 Pennsylvanians oppose the appointment of Alito, in spite of the gung ho attitude of Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum, our senators. (emphasis mine) The people who have the most to lose with an Alito appointment, the 18-24 year olds who will face 30 or more years of right wing extremism are most opposed to his appointment, 57 to 31%, except for those over 70, who respond 58% to 38%. Not surprisingly, 66% of Catholics are supporting the appointment of the 5th Catholic to the Supreme Court. But 80% of Jews oppose his appointment. About 80% of Jews oppose most Republican policy, while 74% of Born agains are supporting Alito. 80% of African Americans oppose the Alito appointment. And here's an amazing statistic-- 65% of men and 32% of women support Alito. So much for women believing he's undecided on Roe v Wade. Another interesting group opposing Alito is the combination of divorced, widowed and separated individuals. They oppose alito 68% to 28%. Rural people support Alito 65 to 34%. It would have been interesting, with more time, to see how Alito has treated farmers, particularly small farmers. The Democrats should have polled these kinds of questions. I wonder. Did the Democrats do a poll on Alito. They should have had it running within days of the mention of the appointment of Alito. I'd really like to know. Did the DNC or the DSCC commission a poll to find out the strengths and vulnerabilities of an Alito candidacy? If they didn't, it's a huge failure of leadership. Then again, too many of the politicans think of polls for elections only.
I thought about not reporting these findings. That would be the power of the press. For every poll, when you include all the demograph stats, even a poll of 20 questions will generate at least 100 pages of results. The mainstream media report a handful of them. I was invited on a talk show and they wanted me to pick the three or four hottest findings, out of probably 1000+ findings. I went on the show having barely looked at the demographics, which I now know is where the real gold is.
I'm not done with Alito. I mention the Alito findings because, as an Alito opponent, I think it may give Santorum and Specter pause to oppose the fillibuster when they realize their constituents don't want him. It's one thing to cast a yeah or nay, another to over-ride a filibuster. And further, if the filibuster is attempted, Pennsuylvanians have even stronger opinons on the right wing's "nuclear option" of legislating the filibuster out of existence.
55% to 39% Pennsylvanians, oppose the use of the nuclear option. (emphasis mine) Now, of course, if Santorum has asked a question on the nuclear option in his polling data, then he knows how his "base" feels about it. I"m not going to provide the numbers, but I will say that the usually steadfase Republican response is much weaker on this. People prefer a more conservative response. Going nuclear is not conservative.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_060128_the_power_2c_the_gold_.htm
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