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Press '2' For Bush...
Telephone poll | Today | Me

Posted on 07/25/2004 8:42:21 PM PDT by Andonius_99

Fellow freepers, for an interesting tidbit of "humor," I thought I'd like to share a story with y'all.

I'm housesitting for my parents right now and at about 6:00 or so, the phone rings. I check the caller ID and it reads "Unknown Number".

Immediately I go into time-to-make-fun-of-another-telemarketer-without-them-realizing-it mode.

I pick up the phone and hear a slight pause...suddenly, a voice comes on the line:

"Hello, this is the 1 Minute Presidential Poll. Please stay on the line to answer this two question survey."

I figure, "What the hell, I'll do it. It's only two questions, who can it hurt?"

Voice returns:

"If you plan on voting for John Kerry in the upcoming election, please press '1'. If you plan on voting for President Bush in this upcoming election, please press '2'."

Seeing as how we're all of like-mind here, I believe most, if not all, of you can figure out which button I pressed. (For those in the dark, I pressed 2.)

I wait...

I wait...

I wait...

Voice returns:

"Thank you. Question Two: If you vote for John Kerry, what is your reason for doing so? Press '1' if you are voting strictly for the Democratic Party, press '2' if you just want to get rid of President Bush."

This is where it got interesting. I pressed 2 in question 1. This raises two questions:

1. Why, if I pressed 2 for President Bush in the 1st question, would it ask me another question regarding only John Kerry?

2. If this poll is going to be referenced by someone in the media, does my input by pressing "2" on the first question get saved even if I don't complete the survey? IF it doesn't get saved, this poll will obviously be slighted towards skerrykerry. And if this poll does get used in the media, wouldn't this possibly be that type of poll that could push the swing voters over to the Kerry side? I say, let's keep an eye on 'Dem.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bushcheney04; godubyago; indecision2004; skerrykerry
Has anyone else gotten any of these phone calls?
1 posted on 07/25/2004 8:42:22 PM PDT by Andonius_99
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To: Andonius_99

Sounds like it was supposed to say Thank you and hang up after you said you were going to vote for Bush. I've gotten survey calls like that, when they don't get they want to go on and ask more questions about, they just say thank you. Good bye.


2 posted on 07/25/2004 8:44:16 PM PDT by Hildy ( If you don't stand up for what's RIGHT, you'll settle for what's LEFT.)
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To: Andonius_99

Sounds like you just added to a push poll's datafile.

The only polls that count are the polls on Election Day - the ones the Socialists will try and tamper with.


3 posted on 07/25/2004 8:48:43 PM PDT by Old Sarge
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To: Andonius_99

Push Poll!!


4 posted on 07/25/2004 8:49:41 PM PDT by GeronL (Time for a Constitutional Amendment banning Government giving money away to anyone or anything...)
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To: Andonius_99; Hildy

The 'RATS could just be building a database of likely 'RAT voters. That way on election day, they can concentrate on calling people on that list to make sure they vote.


5 posted on 07/25/2004 8:49:57 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative (Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
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To: Andonius_99
It's a "Nuanced" Poll, This is how John Kerry can be shown in a statistical tie with George W. Bush even though he is booed at Boston's Fenway Park earlier tonight
6 posted on 07/25/2004 8:51:03 PM PDT by MJY1288 ("KERRY" & "EDWARDS" ARE TWO "JOHNS" THAT NEED FLUSHING!)
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To: Andonius_99
Not a push poll. A serious screwup. I used to work at a market research firm, and this sort of survey can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up. One coding error like this and the numbers you get are worthless.

I recall having to kiss some serious butt on a senior vice president of a Very Large Company when one of my programmers omitted a single semicolon from her code. We re-did the whole thing at our expense. The question here is - will the company that did it sell the numbers to the Democratic Party (the apparent client) as good because they're what they want to hear? That's how some of the crap you read in the papers gets that way, and why a lot of people are shocked to wake up on the day after the election to find out it was wrong.

7 posted on 07/25/2004 8:55:32 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: MJY1288

Hmmm. I watched my lame local news channels for the sight of sKerry throwing the ball like I do. Funny, they didn't mention booing, although I heard Drudge mention that on his radio show tonight. Do you think I can get an update on the Today Show in the morning?


8 posted on 07/25/2004 9:11:26 PM PDT by ntnychik
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To: MJY1288

> This is how John Kerry can be shown in a statistical
> tie with George W. Bush even though he is booed at
> Boston's Fenway Park earlier tonight.

An unbiased poll would alternate which candidate is
[1] and which is [2] on every other call. So there's
a 50% chance that JfK would be [1]. Curious that it
happened to fall that way, unless ALL the calls fall
that way.

Yes, most of the polls are rigged, but they are
amusing to dissect when we capture one.

Whatever, let the Dems think that JfK has a chance,
until after their orgy this week, when it will be much
harder to replace flipflop and moptop with someone that
has a chance (not impossible, mind you - just harder).

As to Fenway, it could be that baseball fans are by
and large not Kerry fans. After all, a majority of
Mass voters did vote for him (unless MA is more
corrupt than I suspect - and I'm originally from there).


9 posted on 07/25/2004 9:16:42 PM PDT by Boundless
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To: ntnychik
The Soldier who tried to catch Kerry's "Girlie Man" pitch was allowed to sit next to John Kerry for the 1st inning, after that he was gone.

The DNC decided that Al-Jazeera could broadcast from the Convention Center, but they would not be allowed to display their logo.

Now we find out that TaRaaza told a reporter to "Shove it" for little or no reason...

This has not been a good day for the Kerry Campaign :-)

10 posted on 07/25/2004 9:19:04 PM PDT by MJY1288 ("KERRY" & "EDWARDS" ARE TWO "JOHNS" THAT NEED FLUSHING!)
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To: Andonius_99

I was polled by an "unbiases" pollster last week. I blasted the "John/John" ticket, and her questions became labored, her voice began to shake badly, and I knew just by the questions that it was a demonrat poll. However, there were no trick questions, just straight forward, no nonsense questions, so I was pleased with that. I'm sure that because I live in a Liberal Bastion Socialist Republic (State), they probably took for granted that I would fall all over myself praising the "John/John" ticket.


11 posted on 07/25/2004 9:20:54 PM PDT by Iam1ru1-2
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To: Andonius_99

This was a screw-up by the company making the outbound calls. DTMF (push one, push two) technology is outdated and software based.

The latest technology is speech recognition, and the best of it does not rely on software, but on simple flow charts.

The political action organizations that do this stuff are mired in the past, and haven't caught up with the latest delivery systems available.


12 posted on 07/25/2004 9:56:35 PM PDT by norge
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To: Andonius_99

I got hit at 6:46 this evening. My phone account is supposedly set up to refuse blocked calls. Moreover, I have CallWave installed on my computer so I don't miss important calls and it is also configured to refuse blocked calls. I'm also on the national "do not call" register. The call still came through. I refuse to accept the idea that our political pissants get some sort of special exemption.

If anyone knows from whence this call came and has contact info, I'd really like to know so that I may call them back and comment at length on their ancestry, intelligence, integrity, hygiene, sexual orientation, etc.


13 posted on 07/25/2004 10:19:26 PM PDT by JackelopeBreeder (Proud to be a mean-spirited and divisive loco gringo armed vigilante terrorist cucaracha!)
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To: MJY1288

I think a girly man pitch, and referring to the ump as a ref, ought to go down in history with even more infamy than Dukakis in a tank wearing a helmet. Even 'rat baseball fans will remember GWB's perfect strike in the '01 World Series, FROM THE MOUND!


14 posted on 07/25/2004 10:49:25 PM PDT by ntnychik
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