The treat I got for Halloween
Last night in the middle of trick or treaters coming to the door I got the best Halloween treat ever. I got a call that popped up as research center on my caller id and spent nearly 45 minutes taking a poll about politics in Texas. I love political polls. There were some national questions but most were local. The questions ranged from who should take Kay Bailey Hutchinson’s place once she is elected governor (wow, I sure didn’t remember that elections) to if deregulation of electric service in texas was positive. My pollster had a speech issue that made me wonder why they would have hired her to be on the telephone but with careful listening and asking for her to repeat the questions several times we made it through.
I was really struck by how they were simplifying incredibly complex issues and expected an agree or disagree answer when there really isn’t a simple agree or disagree answer to be had. I attempted to answer all the questions but did have to answer one with the question is worded badly and can’t be answered in that form. I wonder if the other people who take it realize if the question is worded to such a point that neither answer is really true that they can “mark” it badly written and unanswerable. At points it was a push poll. I wouldn’t say all it was though but there were a few interesting questions like, “Since the public schools are failing our children, would you approve of a voucher system that would allow our children to go to better private or parochial schools?” I felt like an idiot answering that one no and what I really wanted to say was no, but I tend to feel that the public schools should be competitive and any student should be able to choose their school. If a bad school doesn’t get its act together then it would close by lack of enrollment. I suppose that is really a topic for another day though. I was happy to take the poll even though some of the questions were outrageously simplified and am wondering if it was a private poll or public one that will be in the news after it’s done.
