Thursday, September 17, 2009

Odds and Ends

-Interesting array of Virginia polling results this week. We'll go in the field there next weekend. My big question is what is the best way to ask about the thesis controversy and really get an idea of the impact it's having? We're open to suggestions on how to do that most effectively.

-Yesterday we mentioned that Cory Booker was one of only five Democratic politicians we had polled on this year who had net favorables with Republicans. The others were Lisa Madigan, Andrew Cuomo, Mike Beebe, and Jack Markell. Madigan passed on her chance to basically have her pick of promotions, it'll be interesting to see what Cuomo does.

-It always amuses me when people google the phrase 'Public Policy Polling is biased.' They've already made up their mind, but they're looking to someone else to give them the 'proof.' Last year it was always Republicans doing this but so far in 2009 it's actually mostly been Democrats. Of course when people do this search it shows up on our web traffic reports, so we always know that something's coming. When it happened yesterday it actually turned out it was the Republicans and honestly that's our preference! With the weekly dose of bad news we've delivered Democrats over the last three months it's nice every now and then for the other side to be mad.

-I talked about the current state of North Carolina politics with Bill LuMaye on WPTF in Raleigh yesterday: audio here.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

Maybe you should split the thesis question up into a few questions:

"How much have you heard about Bob McDonnell's thesis?"

"How important an issue is the thesis too you?"

"Does the thesis make you more likely to vote for Bob McDonnell? Does the thesis make you more likely to vote for Creigh Deeds? Does the thesis have no effect on who you will vote for?"

Maybe just that last question if the poll is long, though the top two could be informative as well.

Anonymous said...

I think you could do a whole poll on the thesis :)

Jeff's questions are good. How about:
1. In his thesis, McDonnell said (insert statement here). Does this make you more likely to vote for him, less likely to vote for him or no effect?

2. McDonnell's thesis was written 20 years ago. Do you think he has changed since then? (yes - a lot, yes - a little, no)

3. How much of what you believed 20 years ago - a little, a lot, none

 
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