“Our poll's better than your poll”
is the message that Civil Beat is trying to convey in a story that
has Tulsi Gabbard trouncing Mufi Hannemann in the 2nd
Congressional District race.
The Civil Beat poll shows Tulsi with a
20-point lead over Mufi, or 49 to 29 percent. But a recent Hawaii
Poll, conducted by Civil Beat competitors Hawaii
News Now and the Honolulu Star Advertiser, gives
Mufi a 43 percent to 33 percent lead over Tulsi.
Civil Beat defends its results with
this rationale:
Civil
Beat uses interactive voice response technology, also known as
touch-tone polling or, critics say, "robo-polling." The
Star-Advertiser uses live telephone interviews. Though there are
downsides to touch-tone polling, Civil Beat believes talking to a
live person can be intimidating and could drive some voters to say
they support the better-known Hannemann even if they really don't.
Nice
try, but I have a very hard time believing people would be more
responsive to a computerized poll than one taken by a real live
human.
Then
there's the issue of who gets called. So far as I've been able to
determine, the calls are made to landlines. And as a recent National Health Interview Survey found:
More
than 3 of every 10 American homes
(31.6%) had only wireless telephones (also known
as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) during the
first half of 2011.
And
as Huffington Post reported:
Over
the years, [senior CDC scientist Stephen] Blumberg has found that
lower-income people are more likely than higher-earning Americans to
have only wireless phones. Younger people and renters are also
quicker to shed traditional landlines.
So
surveys conducted by calling landlines are not going to
accurately represent the voter demographic. The bigger question is,
do political polls have any real value? If the S-A and CB can come up with such
different results, doesn't it seem to indicate it's all rather
meaningless? Are people so brain dead that they need to be told how
others are voting so they can determine how to cast their own ballot?
Something
else caught my eye today, a headline that speaks to the very different
world we live in. Used to be that factory workers had to worry
about getting crushed by equipment or losing a limb on an assembly
line. Now, they're facing another threat: chronic exposure to an
artificial butter flavoring ingredient.
It
seems the ingredient, known as diacetyl, has already been linked to
respiratory and other health problems among workers at microwave
popcorn and food-flavoring plants. Now a new study shows it may
worsen the harmful effects of a protein in the brain linked to
Alzheimer's disease.
But
no worries, folks, you just go right ahead and keep on eating that crap. If the TV doesn't destroy your brain, the popcorn will.
Finally, here in America, another weekend, another mass murder by semi-automatic weapons, this time by a white supremacist killer who used to be a member of the Army's psychological operations division. Great. It brings to mind that line in the old Frankie Goes to Hollywood song, "Two Tribes:"
Are we living in a land where sex and horror are the new gods?
Posts
15 comments:
Robo Polling should be used for one way communication only. To deliver a message. The company I work for never uses Robo Polling. You may be polling a child or someone in this case who may not even be registered to vote. Sounds like "last minute desperation"!
And as far as pre buttered artery clogging pop corn @%&^(!^^ yuk!
I always hang up if it's a computer. Polls could throw election results by discouraging people to vote if they think their candidate is too far behind or way ahead.
If it bleeds it leads.
If it screws it's news.
Sex and horror were the old gods, too. They just didn't get as wide-spread exposure.
Roaring 20's? Remember?
20% right, 20% left, which leaves 60% brain-dead Americans.
Than again, what benefit is there in listening to brain-dead self serving
politicians ..
Time to start that garden, get out of the game, help your neighbor
Chief Perry's wife isn't convinced of all this political season mus slinging. She endorsed Shay.
Perry's wife supports Shay, so we should....not!
It had nothing to do with Shay supporting the chief's pay raise.
Humor is good. Lets not be hating for the next few days. Worked in my garden today and even had time to say hello to my neighbor
Vote for the candidates that will do the right thing.
Is it too much to ask if we expect them to obey the law?
And it may be too late. Too many people now to sustain a habitable environment and no end in sight. Well, an end but not exactly what I was led to believe in. My bad, too, being a consumer of more than my share.
fearless prediction primary winners: Tulsi, Mazie, Shay; for council: Nadine, JoAnn, Jay, Gary, Tim, Mel, Kipukai.
Hard to beat a P.R. machine and a paper that has an inept reporter who won't or doesn't know how to ask questions.
Have any of you seen the Q&A of the council candidates on Hoike?
It's obvious who's the weakest links are.
We should have Kollar and Shay do a Q&A before the election.
Will Shay plead the 5th and ask for special counsel so he can give opinions instead of Shay answering questions?
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