Posted on 10/22/2008 4:28:13 AM PDT by jerod
Almost all polling is still done with people who have landlines.
Who has landlines?
I don’t. A couple of years ago I did but I dropped mine, and I’ll bet a lot of other people dropped theirs too. If you have a cellphone, you can call anybody anytime you want. Why bother paying two bills?
So who are the people with landlines?
I’d venture to say that poor people and older people are probably more likely to have landlines. Young people, rich people and conservative spenders, those who are smart enough to figure out that 1 bill is better than 2, do not have landlines.
Poor people and old people trend more Democratic than most voters. Therefore, I believe the polls during this election are much more skewed in favor of Democrats than in any previous election.
It’s just a theory, but we’ll see come election night.
D.J. DRUMMOND: "The polls are wrong this year, very wrong." I have been saying this for months, and I have backed up my claim with both statistical and anecdoctal support. The claims I have made have inspired some, caused others to laugh in derision, and brought others to test their assumptions and revisit the hard data. Along the way, there have been a lot of questions about how and why the polls could be wrong. The most common complaint, is that for all of the polls to be wrong, there would need to be some sort of conspiracy, or else an incredibly stupid decision made across the board. Well, I am not a big believer in conspiracies, but I do think that the polling groups have fallen into a groupthink condition. I wrote earlier about the fact that of the major polling groups handling national and state polls, all of them are based deep in pro-Liberal, anti-Conservative territories.
...The NCPP has also posted a list of "20 Questions a Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results", which I strongly recommend every one to read and memorize. Those questions include these very important queries, that I fear most people do not often consider...The thing most folks forget about polls which get published in the media, is that the polls' first need is not to accurately reflect the election progress and report on actual support levels; it's about business. A poll needs clients to survive, and the media - always - wants a good story more than they want facts. So polls sell that story...I direct you to another of my past articles, where I noted the NCPP's record on poll accuracy. From what I see here, if Gallup is having problems, it's likely just as bad or worse for everyone else.
“Yep! that’s me, old and poor.”
Me too.
I knew I was old and poor but you didn’t have to tell everyone. You must be a city dude and of a younger generation. We have a landline because there isn’t good reception here. With the iffy cable service we’re throwing caution to the wind just having the computer hooked into that. And with the electricity iffy as well, we have an older phone that connects directly to the phone wire rather than going through the electrical wire. With an electric water pump, we also have a bottled water supply. And I stop here before explaining our “back up” for the septic system.
Me too on the landline for DSL. An additional issue is who answers landlines. I know my McCain, well really Palin, voting wife never answers. I am not sure if there is a systematic bais on who screens calls and who always answers, but I wonder.
I’m in my 40s and my wife, daughter and I only have cell phones. We are definitely middle class. I have a lot of colleagues at work - mostly younger - who have ditched their landlines. My neighbors (in the 20s) only have cell phones. I think the “only have cell phones” demographic is younger and yes, maybe upper middle class. They also tend to be more Democrat.
“Reverse 911? For WHAT?”
I’ve had a couple for severe weather warning and boil water alert.
remember this “land line abandonment” was used during the dole race too.
This push polling is unprecidented.
even CNN with the heavy left “focus group” giving the live editorializing during the debates.
Remember there was a study that found the crawling line real time opinioning was influencing the PERCEPTION of the candidates comments.
Candidates should forbid the real time editorializing during the presidential debate.
I was just going to say caller ID; I really don’t pick up 800 long distance stuff that looks like solicitation at all anymore, and that’s a recent change. There’s no way they’d get me, and I’m probably pretty representative.
The only “poll” that’s going to matter will be held on election day. Get out and vote and bring someone with you!
Part of your theory is a bit off. It is not money that may be having the Elderly landline based but technophobia, some older folks pick up on this stuff quickly some don't. I know of one Senior trying to save a phone number and accidently dialed 911! The local cops showed up in less than 5 mintues flat kudos to them, but I digress :-),
Yes many have dropped landlines and gone to cells to stay away from telemarketers, pollsters etc. Some still keep a landline as a backup, but caller ID allows you to screen out the telemarketers and pollsters. If you tell no one your cell, these annoying calls can't find you.
The bottom line is they are probably getting a very skewed picture, how twisted we will find out on the 1st Wends. of November.
......Dish Network that need to be connected to landline......
Why does Sat TV need a telephone line?
As an old one contemplating ditching cable and the land line this comes as a revelationo
I have a landline, a cell phone and I just ordered a 12 gauge pump and 500 rounds of double ot buck!
“I would not be without a land line.....no one I know at work or among my acquaintences only has cell phones”.
...EVERYONE has caller ID though. If it’s a number I don’t recognize I NEVER answer it. Nor do any of my conservative friends. No time or patience to talk to an idiot pollster. Libs answer their phones PRAYING that it’s a pollster. (well, they’re not praying just “HOPEing”) BWAHAHA. Get it?
That’s me. Haven’t had a phone line hooked up for years.
This is a good point - I don’t answer calls that might be telemarketers, etc. either. Unless it came up on the caller ID that it was Survey USA or another recognizable pollster, I wouldn’t answer it.
Here’s a weird thing - I have been getting regular email surveys from Zogby for years, on a variety of issues. I’m in his database as a conservative Republican from PA. This election season, I haven’t received a single Zogby survey, other than an occasional chance to answer questions about my consumer habits. Why would that be?
Obviously you’ve never been through a hurricane or two.
Forgot to add: Thanks to my land line I knew exactly when I could return home after my first hurricane: call home, answering machine picks up, power back on.
That's a good question and one that I've never really gotten a straight answer to. At least on one--dish or directv, I don't remember which--you can get it without the landline but you have to pay an extra $5 or $10 a month, or something like that.
Satellite is already going to have major problems when fiber is rolled out in more areas; it makes no sense to me to tie a product that you are trying to grow to a dying one.
Caller ID helps, if we don't know the number, we don't answer....
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