>>>I was called by a pollster last night. The questions surprised me. Not once was I asked who I would vote for or if I had voted. Yet the purpose of the poll was determine who I would vote for. At the end of the poll, I asked the fellow how could he tell who I would vote when that question was never asked. He informed me that they could tell by how I answered the questions. I wonder...
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>>Among persons I know personally, this Gallup (http://www.gallup.com/tag/Election%2bTrends%2bby%2bGroup.aspx) has been quite accurate. If someone I know is older, churchier, less educated, whiter and less educated, maler, whiter maler, more conservative and Republicany, whiter, Souther they are usually for the same one of the candidates. If someone I know is younger, less churchy, more educated, less white and more educated, femaler, less white and femaler, more liberal and Democraticy, less white, less Southern they are usually for the same other candidate.
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>>References to polling result appear to cut two ways: 1) supporting your position when your candidate is ahead 2) totally meaningless and fraught with big margins of error and bias when your candidate is behind. Maybe we should do polling about polling to resolve this?
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>I really really want to ask about some of those, but I'll refrain and stick to only a couple 'less inflamatory' ones:
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>1) What's the difference between a 'male' and a 'maler?'
>2) What's the difference between a 'female' and a 'femaler?'
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>:o)
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>Now, I am white (although I have enough Ojibwa to claim American Indian if I chose and have relatives on a reservation if that makes any difference), was raised in 5 states (WI, CO, OR, CA, AZ) although I was born in the north (WI) and currently live in the South (NC), spent years in the military and traveled extensively, am female, 48 yrs old, had an education grant under Carter which was taken away when Reagan entered office, entered the military and benefited from Reagan's military salary increase, college educated, middle class (I think), share approx 50% of Dem views and 50% of Repub views, not very churchy but consider myself spiritual, have a parent who is about 50/50 Dem/Repub but was pro-Dem when I was growing up, and have a sister who spends 12-16 hours a day campaigning for Obama. What am I? :o)
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A contrarian ;-)