About Those Post HC Takeover Polls On Obama
Via the Twitter of MSNBC’s Chuck FN Todd I came across this good post by Gary Langer of ABC. It does a great job of showing how some polls are designed to influence people, no gauge honest responses. In this case, it was on Obama. This one is a must read.
Polling on Presidential Pejoratives
March 24, 2010 8:27 AM
Whatever profoundly negative things people might think about Barack Obama, a new poll out today demonstrates splendidly how not to measure them.
It nails the negativity, all right; this project purports to tote up responses to a list of harsh criticisms of the president – e.g., that he’s “anti-American,” “a racist,” “wants… an excuse to take dictatorial powers,” “is doing many of the things that Hitler did” and “may be the Antichrist.”
Hot words, those. The survey, done by Harris Interactive, apparently was designed to test the theories in a book claiming the “lunatic fringe is hijacking America.” The purpose seems to have been to see how many people the pollsters could get to agree to pejorative statements about Obama. Quite a few, it turns out – but with what I see as a highly manipulative approach to questionnaire design.
I’ll lay off the sampling, though this survey was done among people who sign up to click through questionnaires via the Internet in exchange for points redeemable for cash and gifts – not a probability sample. Been there before. This time let’s just look at what it asked.
Truly a great read. So before anyone who think Government taking over health care is such a great idea that flaunting polls to prove the point is a good idea, you better make sure that the poll wasn’t in fact a trick. So yes, let’s make sure we spread this around to the local media and political pundit classes before they tape their weekend shows.
If you refuse to accept the logic of why some polls are unreliable at best, do you really think offering payment for responses of an online poll is in any way going to get you a good sampling?
