Time to skew the unskewable once again - beware of push polls
A very intelligent local professional Democratic party operative called me Saturday morning to let me know of the latest insidious example in "push polling" - that is where you will get a telephone call at home from a well spoken American telemarketer, almost always on the weekends or at night, asking very leading questions that are difficult to discern the true nature of, and if you answer them "wrong" or incorrectly for their purpose, they hang up or disconnect before you have a chance to protest or probe.
This latest batch in undoubtedly done back one of the more wealthy of the back bench candidates for US Senate in Georgia. My guess would be David Perdue, cousin of former Governor Sonny Perdue, and one with enough of his own money to spend on polling this early out in what is less than a year sprint for many. He will be playing catch up for the next nine months to try and see what sticks and what fall flats with the voters.
I expect hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on commercials in the Atlanta market alone. Ad rates are substantially less expensive in Albany, Cordele, and Macon, if you can still buy TV spots specific to Cordele. Satellite and cable are two different worlds when it comes to commercials. I would suggest Michelle Nunn reserve all the spots during the Georgia Gang for the next 11 months.
He will closely follow the roadmap that Sonny took to Governorship a few years ago, but sadly for him that campaign strategy is horribly dated and almost irrelevant. Lucky for the latest Perdue, the Republican party as an entire demographic is glacier-like slow to embrace social media change and new technology, so many of the people he wants to reach (age 50+) are still clutching to their landlines and only have cell phones for emergencies.
Sure there are the savvy dozens who do have accounts onMyspace Facebook and plant videos on YouTube. But so far there is no sterling Georgia equivalent of a Nate Silver to really let us know what is happening here without some sort of financial skew or bias. I am sure all early polling will have all the Republican candidates swirling in the 13 to 19% range with Kingston and Broun ahead purely on name recognition. I would be very surprised if we do not see those two members of the House of Representatives in a Republican run off for Senate in July of next year. I would not be surprised to have a candidate or two drop out near the new year due to lack of traction.
So here are the spoilers, the cheat sheet, not that I am advocating lying to pollsters who call you. I am the Chair of the Oconee County Democratic Committee for my third term, but I cannot recall the last time I voted in a Democratic Primary outside of the quadrennial White House races at least since I moved to Oconee County in the early 1990s. I vote in the off year and sometimes even the four year Presidential slots if the nominee has largely been determined by Georgia's turn in the local Republican primary. If you want to get to the core of the stinking new push polling going around the 706 lately, you are going to have to say you do that. Otherwise it is "BYE BYE."
Then the flood gates may be opened to a vast array of slogans and issues. I would suggest marijuana and the environment as topics Republicans have NO CLUE how to handle (neither do the Democrats either, but that is for another post) and suggest topics to blow their mind like treating the mental health disabilities better or better testing for learning disabilities or more teenage pregnancy prevention. You probably are not going to get the chance. They will go for the emotional triggers of abortion and gun control, and there are ways to answer those leading questions to diffuse their ammo against you, but better let that detonation go off another time as well.
While I have never actually heard this question used in a poll, this is an example of what you would get asked at the "meat and potatoes" section of the polling.
Minimum wage paid pollster at telemarketing firm:DO YOU SUPPORT MURDERING BABIES? and if you get this kind of question, you can safely assume the polling is being done by Paul Broun or Karen Handel or someone on the far right reproductive nut job brigade. Is Gingrey still running? Apparently so. Expect some kind of repressed Republican ridiculous eruption about rape, incest, pregnancy, mandatory vaginal ultrasounds, birth control, anal sex, bestiality or something else in the fornication and sexuality realm completely irrelevant as the weeks ensue like clockwork.
I would love to hear from anyone who has managed to field any calls recently in Georgia and managed to survive the weeding out process. Heaven forbid you get a true cross section of opinion and interest.
This latest batch in undoubtedly done back one of the more wealthy of the back bench candidates for US Senate in Georgia. My guess would be David Perdue, cousin of former Governor Sonny Perdue, and one with enough of his own money to spend on polling this early out in what is less than a year sprint for many. He will be playing catch up for the next nine months to try and see what sticks and what fall flats with the voters.
I expect hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on commercials in the Atlanta market alone. Ad rates are substantially less expensive in Albany, Cordele, and Macon, if you can still buy TV spots specific to Cordele. Satellite and cable are two different worlds when it comes to commercials. I would suggest Michelle Nunn reserve all the spots during the Georgia Gang for the next 11 months.
He will closely follow the roadmap that Sonny took to Governorship a few years ago, but sadly for him that campaign strategy is horribly dated and almost irrelevant. Lucky for the latest Perdue, the Republican party as an entire demographic is glacier-like slow to embrace social media change and new technology, so many of the people he wants to reach (age 50+) are still clutching to their landlines and only have cell phones for emergencies.
Sure there are the savvy dozens who do have accounts on
So here are the spoilers, the cheat sheet, not that I am advocating lying to pollsters who call you. I am the Chair of the Oconee County Democratic Committee for my third term, but I cannot recall the last time I voted in a Democratic Primary outside of the quadrennial White House races at least since I moved to Oconee County in the early 1990s. I vote in the off year and sometimes even the four year Presidential slots if the nominee has largely been determined by Georgia's turn in the local Republican primary. If you want to get to the core of the stinking new push polling going around the 706 lately, you are going to have to say you do that. Otherwise it is "BYE BYE."
Then the flood gates may be opened to a vast array of slogans and issues. I would suggest marijuana and the environment as topics Republicans have NO CLUE how to handle (neither do the Democrats either, but that is for another post) and suggest topics to blow their mind like treating the mental health disabilities better or better testing for learning disabilities or more teenage pregnancy prevention. You probably are not going to get the chance. They will go for the emotional triggers of abortion and gun control, and there are ways to answer those leading questions to diffuse their ammo against you, but better let that detonation go off another time as well.
While I have never actually heard this question used in a poll, this is an example of what you would get asked at the "meat and potatoes" section of the polling.
Minimum wage paid pollster at telemarketing firm:DO YOU SUPPORT MURDERING BABIES? and if you get this kind of question, you can safely assume the polling is being done by Paul Broun or Karen Handel or someone on the far right reproductive nut job brigade. Is Gingrey still running? Apparently so. Expect some kind of repressed Republican ridiculous eruption about rape, incest, pregnancy, mandatory vaginal ultrasounds, birth control, anal sex, bestiality or something else in the fornication and sexuality realm completely irrelevant as the weeks ensue like clockwork.
I would love to hear from anyone who has managed to field any calls recently in Georgia and managed to survive the weeding out process. Heaven forbid you get a true cross section of opinion and interest.
Comments