You call that a poll?

So, tonight I got a call from a pollster. My wife rolls her eyes, because I love it when pollsters call.

I love to give my opinion, and I love the process by which the opinions of ordinary folks like me "go national," as it were.

Boy was I horrified by this pollster.

More below the fold

The pollster was nice, friendly, and quite pleasant. She had a very slight accent, but nothing distracting.

But within a few seconds of the poll beginning, I realized that I was on the phone with someone who was barely literate and completely underprepared for her job. Not only could she not pronounce the names of many of the politicians about whom she was asking, she got some people flat wrong.

For example, she asked me my opinion on how Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, pronounced here [phonetically transcribed] "Meck-kel," was doing in his job. When I corrected her she said "oh," and repeated the question, this time pronouncing it "Mick-Con-lee."

She asked my opinion of the job being done by Sharon Morgan, the County Democratic Party Chairman. His name is Shannon Morgan.

She asked about Brett "Gooth," the Republican scumbag known hereabouts by his real last name "Guthrie."

She asked about "J. Marsh Hugggs," the man tied to Ernie Fletcher's hiring scandal, but known as "J. Marshall Hughes" in this part of the state.

Other politicians about whom she asked me I was able to recognize only because I keep up on politics. If I were someone who didn't follow politics, I'd like have no idea who she was trying to ask about.

On the longer questions ["Do you feel that the country is headed . . ."] her reading skills seemed on par with a 3rd or 4th grader.

So what? Well, this sort of thing irks me for a couple of reasons:

1. I believe that we are at a critical juncture in our nation's history. Peoples' voices need to be heard. I would suspect that most people would hang up on her long before the end of the survey.

2. I worry that in the process, many liberals who would normally respond to polls might not.

Within that, a Republican with whom I work has told me that conservatives in this area network with each other to respond to polling--that if someone gets called they send out e-mails and such letting each other know that a pollster is calling. They coordinate answers ahead of time in order to skew polls in directions they want to go. They are dedicated to making sure their fellow conservatives answer these pollsters with the most conservative answers possible in order to try to sway local opinion.

3. Finally, I wonder what this means nationally. I didn't catch the name of the polling firm, but if she is calling people nationally to find out about how the country is leaning, she could be turning people off left and right.

At the end we talked for about a minute, with me asking her if they were polling the Democratic Primary race, she said no but that she was interested in it. Like I said, very friendly.

But . . . you call that a poll? I don't. I call it sloppy.