We got a call from somebody doing a poll a couple of weeks ago. I was at work, so my wife agreed to "take a ten minute poll". The first question was "On a scale of one to five, with one being poor and five being good, how do you rate the President's handling of the economy"? My wife said "one", and the "poll" was suddenly over after one answer. I guess she answered wrong.
I get called for polls very rarely because this is how is typically goes.
"Hello Sir, blah, blah, blah, We'd like your opinion.
1st question Are you a republican or democrat (or some question to determine that)
Answer: I don't vote for republicans or democrats under any circumstance.
Poll taker: Well good day sir and thank you for your time."
They aren't interested in opinions, they are only interested within a certain framework and IMO to drive an outcome. Most polls IMO are not about getting your opinion but instead to measure the level of saturation of their own media for public consumption. If polls show the saturation has been effective in getting out a certain narrative based on poll answers then they know in effect it worked. If the results show the narrative as not effective, they re-enforce the message or change it but the ulterior motive is still not what it would seem. This is also why most pollsters are of a certain slant, democrat pollsters, republican pollsters, right, left, yes even libertarian and most all are to drive an outcome.
I posted what I did mainly for the fun of mullet fishing for TOS and I hooked him on the first strike but I do agree this poll just like so many are very skewed. TOS has a good point in that regard. Even many of these straw polls I question because it's not a measure of the broader public but rather it's how effective a given campaign is able to move it's volunteers to load the voting results. That just measures how active a given campaign's volunteers are instead of what the overall public is thinking.
I'm in agreement with the late comedian Bill Hicks in that I'd like to see all marketing people go off somewhere and just die. OK beyond such absurdity stop taking part in any poll, decline or refuse to take part. Don't grease the very skids they use to then manipulate us with. If you do take part, lie and I mean lie big time. Tell them whoppers but sell it as truth. Skew them back.
Stop being marketing pawns!