First, they called me on a Saturday morning about
Then, the survey questioning lasted nearly forty-five minutes. And it felt like taking a test. It’s been a long time since I had to take tests; I give them to my students, which is entertaining for me. But for the students, it really isn’t much fun. I wonder how many people actually stick with a series of rather dull questions for the full length of the survey? How many just start babbling random answers to get the annoying voice on the other end of the phone to go away?
They asked me what I thought about a variety of important, national questions. They wanted to know which of the various announced presidential candidates for my party was I most likely I was to vote for if the election was held today.
How many people are really paying any attention to this stuff now? The first primary isn’t going to happen until next year!
After a bunch of questions about a bunch of people I have not thought much about yet, the man on the phone finally asked me about the current occupant of the White House. The insistent voice wondered what I thought of the President, of his various policies, and of the direction of the country. Did I think the future would be good or bad? Did I approve of his handling of the economy? Do I like how the President’s handling foreign policy?
Of course, on each question, I had only two possibilities: yes or no. Occasionally, I’d get a multiple choice question. But in no case, was I ever given an essay style query. There was never room to explain that, “well, I like this aspect of the President’s policies, but I wish he’d do such and so about this problem.” You have to give blanket yes or no: no middle, no nuance, no discussion of details. Just true or false. When my tormentor asked about my political beliefs and listed off the multiple choice possibilities, I was dismayed to find what I actually am was not one of the categories. I pointed this out. “Well, you need to pick one. How about ‘c’? There wasn’t even a “none of the above.” Although my friends may describe me as odd, my ideas do fall under a recognizable label that is not all that obscure, except apparently to whoever came up with the questions.
After all the queries regarding my opinions, I faced a set of demographic questions: whether my telephone is a land line, cell, or VOIP, what my age and ethnicity might be, my marital status, my religious beliefs and how much money I make. They even asked me if I would be willing to be interviewed by a reporter later.
I can’t help but wonder, how “carefully selected” I was if they didn’t know any of that stuff ahead of time. They apparently knew my party registration, since they only asked about the candidates for the party I would likely vote for come the next election; but they had no clue about anything else until they asked.
I understand that polling is supposed to be a scientific endeavor and that the pollsters gather a representative sampling of data, so that from the thousand or so people they talk to, they know they’ve gotten a sense of what the whole three hundred million of us really think.
I am not entirely convinced. It seems to me that they are really just shooting craps, dependent upon whomever they happen to find at home on a Saturday morning with a life is so empty he’s got nothing better to do than to answer dull questions from a stranger on the far end of a phone line. Admittedly, my wife was gone at Weight Watchers and then shopping—and I’m an author who works from home and who cares for a mentally ill teenager. And so any excuse to chat with an actual human adult was a welcome thing. But how many people could there really be in my situation? And they’re going to base their polls on us?