As Fewer Cooperate on Polls, Criticism and Questions Mount

[spooky3]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3735-2004Oct27.html

Sorry if this is a dupe--I searched a bit but didn't see it.

snip

"It's tough being a pollster these days, even in Minnesota. "It's the rhetoric of mean-spiritedness, and it's just gotten worse and worse and worse," says Daves, a mild-mannered North Carolina native.

snip

Costs are soaring as cooperation rates remain at or near record lows. In some surveys, less than one in five calls produces a completed interview -- raising doubts whether such polls accurately reflect the views of the public or merely report the opinions of stay-at-home Americans who are too bored, too infirm or too lonely to hang up.

snip

Harris Interactive now does the widely followed Harris Poll entirely online, contacting adults recruited at other Web sites via pop-up ads. They claim that their surveys are at least as accurate as telephone polls, and about 20 to 25 percent less expensive.

snip

"I'm pretty optimistic about the future of polling," says Elizabeth Martin, past president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. "The mechanism has constantly evolved, often in response to problems. I think we will find ways to continue to survive.""

[BRLIB]

1. Seems like the polls are run by the FOXes and CNNs, and other liars

because somebody has to pay for them and that's where you see the results broadcast. Whether this is true or not, the obvious hatred of these media for Kerry likely causes an inverse hatred of the non-brainwashed people for their puppet pollsters, and a "shove it" response when a pollsters calls. Why would a Kerry supporter waste their time with a pollster when they know it will be spun on FOX/CNN? And the poll not mentioned if Kerry is ahead?

I wouldn't, and I let my answering machine answer all my calls.

Possibly likely for this reason the polls may just as worthless as Truman-Dewey.

[junker]

2. Just as stated yesterday - Kerry at 68% positive words, * at less than 12%

THis article goes to the same point made over at Geo. Ures' site yesterday (urbansurvival)..

They say that polls are lame. Further Geo's web bot fellow runs vast word analysis programs which read millions of millions of current postings on the net. They found that negative words for bushies were 2.3 to each positive word.

But that is not the total story.

In their stats you can see that the amount of verbiage relating to kerry in a negative way comes from a very very small, and reasonably consistent group. The positive words though are diverse, and come from huge numbers of posters.

Further, there are only a handful of 'prime optimum word sites' for bush. THese are places where there is a positive site...that is a promo site which *does not include* defensive or other values which indicate it is a 'reaction' or 'counter-spin' site.

Basically, there ain't too many people going to the trouble of putting up sites about all the good that bushie done. Almost the entire list of over 1200 sites referenced as examples were ones where they were 'defending' bush, not promoting bush.

So the words on the bush side are positive only in that they are responding to negative words somewhere else.

The bot dude (talked to him yesterday) stands by his readings of the verbiage and the emotional quantifiers. He says Kerry has 68% positive emotive sum (summation of the numeric values which indicate an emotional quality), and bush only has 11 per cent positive.

Further the negative values against kerry rise to 14 per cent, while the negative values for bushie rise to 82 per cent of the sample taken. The is the ratio of negative/positive (emotionally weighted) words about the subject.

Now hear tell that the pollsters are admitting that people are telling them to 'fluck of and puck yourself'...makes me think polls are ONLY useful for tee vee.....you know, mesmerize the masses as some sheeit is being pulled somewhere's

[DemocracyInaction]

3. If they are going to on line type polls then it's the most out of

touch method they could possibly have. How many seniors are 'on line'---not like younger people. Who would respond to pop up ads, etc. except political junkies. This is about as accurate then as asking a kindergarten class how things are trending!! However, it pisses me because these damn things are also now part of the propaganda of campaigning ' "I'm ahead and going to be the big winner so don't be a loser and waste your vote on the other guy" blah, blah.