As my Dad used to tell the family, "Never praise tator... it only encourages him."
Back in 1992, my lovely, sweet, and beautiful oldest daughter suggested that our radio stations could improve our news clout if we did polls on the local elections.
As a side note let me state that all my daughters are lovely, sweet and beautiful. I can't be too careful. Did I mention ditto for granddaughters?
Meanwhile back at the polls, Her idea was to go to the various boards of elections and ask for voter lists in precincts where Voters News Service had purchased voter lists for their exit polls. These precincts were the bellwether precincts VNS had identified in our coverage area. We then polled these precincts for local races and broadcast the results. The polls turned out to very accurate when the actual votes were counted.
On election day we staffed the precincts and exit polled them. VNS had exit pollsters at the same precincts. Our people discussed our results with the VNS pollsters. VNS pollsters were nothing special. VNS just ran an ad for people in the local papers. The gave the respondents they hired an afternoons training and sent them out to exit poll on election day. The VNS pollsters were all local people and it was not too hard to get them to let us see the local exit polls of national races they had done for VNS.
We did some polling on Perot as well. For Perot voters we wanted to know if they had voted in 1988 and if they had for whom they voted. We asked if they would have voted in 2000 if Perot had not been on the ballot. If they would have voted with out Perot on the ballot,we asked for whom would they have voted instead.
That was her first attempt to understand fringe voters. The results of that polling was nearly identical to the analysis of the 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000 election returns I have posted on this thread.
She found out some other things by polling. People attracted to fringe parties feel helpless and in the control of bad people. Those on the left rant about how government has failed them by not taking care of them. Those on the right rant about how government has enslaved them. Both of those opinions are held by people who see themselves as unimportant pieces of property owned and controlled by others. It is their excuse for not being able to achieve what others have achieved. It is an excuse for their own failure.
The fringe people see themselves as not in control of their own lives. They see themselves as helpless victims of the powerful people who run things. For the left fringe the powerful people who oppress them are the corporations. It is those evil Corporations whose greed and evil ways have prevented them from achieving the utopian existence that would have been their destiny.
The right fringe see an enslaving conspiracy made up of Republicrats who are out to keep them in subjugation with restrictive laws that insure their failure. The fringes have the biggest inferiority complexes one can imagine. They use it as an excuse for their own failures and limitations.
You can present the right fringe with a million examples of how different Republicans are from Democrats. They will not accept the proof. They can not give up the belief that the major parties are a cabal of evil allies who exist for the purpose of oppressing them. For were they ever to leave the safety of their fringe beliefs, they would have to admit their lack of achievement in life is a function of their own shortcomings and not the work of an evil society.
Fringe people have a common mantra. It Is: