Apparently Rasmussen Reports has been doing some polling by phone here in Wisconsin (obviously not shocking, given that it’s an election year), and while some of the polling is pretty straightforward, asking about the possible matchups in the U.S. Senate race, and the possible matchups in the gubernatorial race, as well as asking opinions on health care reform and the Arizona anti-immigration law, some of the poll is downright strange. For instance, at one point during the poll, it asks, “could a group of people selected at random from the phone book do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress,” giving the respondent the option of choosing yes or no as a response, and the followup question asks the respondent to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the statement that the “United States of America is the last, best hope of mankind.”
Listen for yourself:
[audio:http://bloggingblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Rasmussen_Congress_America_05_25.mp3]I don’t presume to be an expert on the methods behind how political polling is conducted, but the two statements I highlighted seem more than a little odd to have been included in a political poll conducted by Rasmussen. I’d expect the two statements I highlighted to be included in a poll by a second-rate pollster with an agenda, but not from a pollster with the reputation of Rasmussen (even if Rasmussen is inherently biased towards conservatives). To be honest, I half expected to hear a question asking if the respondent believed President Obama was really born in the United States.
Since Rasmussen’s taken a turn towards the bizarre with this most recent poll, I’ve come up with a few statements the folks at Rasmussen should start asking folks to respond to in future polling:
- Do you think MacGruber could do a better job as a lawmaker than the current members of Congress?
- Do you believe that Iron Man is the last, best hope of mankind?
- Do you agree or disagree that UFO’s are using brain control waves to influence members of Congress?
Feel free to add your own odd questions you’d like to see the folks at Rasmussen include the next time they do some polling here in Wisconsin.
You know, that first Rasmussen question you reference was made famous by William F Buckley, Jr.
Yeah, I did know that.
Still seems like an odd thing to me.
They aren’t the only pollsters making calls that favor Republican ideals. Last week someone called me to rate candidates for state and federal posts but never referred to anyone by name. Just by party. Wanted to know things like would I consider voting for the Democrats who stole money from the education funds to pay for other things. I just laughed at several because they were so wildly biased that there is no way you could answer without supporting their suppostions except to vote neutral. LOL!
Push polling seems to be all the rage this campaign cycle….
Then again, push polling has been popular every other election cycle.
Those two bizarre Rasmussen questions are probably designed to identify Tea Party sympathizers. They likely want to know how many there are in the voting public and how well specific candidates are perceived by the TP’ers.
Walker or someone is pushpolling against Neumann. I received a call last night that purported to be a survey, but was really designed to bash Neumann. The questions primarily tried to link Nancy Pelosi and and “big spending”…I hope Walker’s campaign is caught and discredited for conducting what may be an illegal election activity.
I wouldn’t be one bit shocked to find out that Walker’s campaign has started push polling….they seem to be floundering right now.