Posted on 10/15/2008 7:30:00 PM PDT by Syncro
EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT SAY THEY'D NEVER LIE TO A POLLSTER
October 15, 2008
With an African-American running for president this year, there has been a lot of chatter about the "Bradley effect," allowing the media to wail about institutional racism in America.
Named after Tom Bradley, who lost his election for California governor in 1982 despite a substantial lead in the polls, the Bradley effect says that black candidates will poll much stronger than the actual election results.
First of all, if true, this is the opposite of racism: It is fear of being accused of racism. For most Americans, there is nothing more terrifying than the prospect of being called a racist. It's scarier than flood or famine, terrorist attacks or flesh-eating bacteria. To some, it's even scarier than "food insecurity."
Political correctness has taught people to lie to pollsters rather than be forced to explain why they're not voting for the African-American.
This is how two typical voters might answer a pollster's question: "Whom do you support for president?"
Average Obama voter: "Obama." (Name of average Obama voter: "Mickey Mouse.")
Average McCain voter: "I'm voting for McCain, but I swear it's just about the issues. It's not because Obama's black. If Barack Obama were a little more moderate -- hey, I'd vote for Colin Powell. But my convictions force me to vote for the candidate who just happens to be white. Say, do you know where I can get Patti LaBelle tickets?"
In addition to the social pressure to constantly prove you're not a racist, apparently there is massive social pressure to prove you're not a Republican. No one is lying about voting for McCain just to sound cool.
Reviewing the polls printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post in the last month of every presidential election since 1976, I found the polls were never wrong in a friendly way to Republicans. When the polls were wrong, which was often, they overestimated support for the Democrat, usually by about 6 to 10 points.
I refuse to be polled. The last one I hung up on.... keep it quiet.
What do we make of the 16% of voters who tell the pollsters that they would lie to pollsters?
If they would lie to pollsters, aren’t they lying when they tell the pollsters they would lie to pollsters?
But, then if they are lying when they say they would lie to pollsters that means they would always tell the truth to pollsters, which would mean they were lying when they said they would lie.....
*Does not compute.* *system failing...*
They’re all lying. It’s so much fun to mess with them and telemarketers.
Rules!
What if those 84% are lying? Or what if the other 16% are lying?
I’ve had my fill of pollsters trying to steer public opinion with their b*llsh*t polls - my standard response when I’m called by a pollster is “I don’t do polls - goodbye”. And until I have some say in how the questions are phrased and how they’re interpreted, that’ll continue to be my answer.
What’s especially important is that everyone realize the greater the refusal rate, the more people pollsters have to contact - and I’m pretty sure in order to get statistical significance, the number of folks they have to contact in those circumstances goes up exponentially. So every time you blow off a pollster you’re not only making their life’s more complicated, you’re making their racket more expensive and less credible.
With a bit of luck, if enough people tell them to p*ss off, they’ll end up out-of-business, or at least totally discredited.
I never lie, except when when I say “I never say”. :)
We also don’t talk to them at exit polls either. My husband hates them.
So do 40% of the people they contact (including me). I contend there is no science based way to compensate for this.
If a rocket’s sensors gave now reading 40% of the time that rocket is going to crash, no mater how clever the programmers are.
Whenever I go to a website and am asked for personal info I always lie. I take 20 to 30 years off my age, give myself a masters degree and tell them my income is over 250,000 per year. When asked for my zip code I tell them it's 90210.
95 PERCENT OF ALL AUTOMOBILE DRIVERS CLAIM THEY ARE "BETTER THAN AVERAGE" DRIVERS...
From this we can calculate that everyone is a liar.
Worth remembering.
In a company that I used to work for, we were required every three months to do a “survey” of our clients which involved general business trends and hiring forecasts and such. There was a deadline date and most of the time my observation was that just before the end of the day, people were sitting down at their desk and filling in the questions in order to turn in the sheets. They never called and just made up the answers.
Could that happen with some of the people these pollsters hire? Nah....probly not. I mean look at the good record of hiring people to register voters.
Of course anyone who would lie to a pollster would have no problem saying they never would.
How many of the 84% were lying.
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