Friday, April 23, 2010

Push Poll

Response to The Peacemakers' question "Has anyone here ever been polled about ANYTHING?"

Polled?
Well yeah -
In 2003 my phone rang between this and that (before caller ID), and when I got to the "Hello?" part, the caller asked if I had a couple of minutes to respond to a supposedly objective phone questionnaire. About nuclear "energy."
I said "Sure," thinking maybe my responses to a professional "objective" questionnaire might make a difference. And in late spring of 2003 - for some reason - I was Pretty Pissed Off about things.
Imagine that - late spring 2003 and pissed off. Go figure.
Anyway, when the caller eventually pressed me about why I was so against the "wonder-solution" of nukes, I said something or other which now I can only paraphrase: something like "That nuclear shit never completely flushes down, but it creeps out of the bowl at night and clings to every living thing in the house until everything suffocates or starves. Horribly."
The caller jumped quickly to the first half of one of those sell-to-the-skeptic TV detergent ads - in this instance for the Wonderful Yucca Potty as the alternative to worse value.
I demurred.
The caller's response? A collage of factoids forming a tableau of the blessings of mineral modernity, leading to something like "Would you - given the perils of our privation of a 'viable energy source' - still be against burying nuclear wast under a hill in some far-away Nevada people's back yard - even if that meant all the children would die?"
That's what a "push poll" looks like. And I guess I'm a baby-killer.
But I still don't trust polls - even the ones whose results I agree with - unless I've seen the questions and marked in my answers on a paper ballot in November.
How about you?

2 comments:

gloryoski said...

I linked to this here http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5799#comment-406545 as a caveat to a story about a poll. :)

This story:

http://tinyurl.com/3xnrv66

Although this one could very well be right.

ellwort said...

Way belated thanks, gloryoski
- A