Our first poll was, without dispute, the first complete poll commissioned by a progressive news organization, and possibly, the first commissioned by an internet only web media site. We solicited questions from our readers, our pundit writers, other progressive commentators, radio talk show hosts and whoever else we could reach out to. This time we are also reaching out to bloggers.
How it works:
First, to get an idea for how we did the poll and the kinds of questions we asked, I suggest you take a look at the polling articles and reports we published regarding our first poll. Check my article archive for articles dated from Jan 16, 2006 through February 16.
Our goal is to ask questions that mainstream polls won't ask. Last time we asked if voters would support the requirement for free political ad air time. The response was a resounding yes. We asked a number of questions on voting and showed that less than 15% supported electronic voting without paper ballots. We asked about impeachment and we'll be asking more questions on it, with the changes in the conversation that have been taking place, especially since the legislatures in California, Illinois and Vermont have proposals for impeachment before them and we have over 500 articles on our Bush: Reasons to Dump/Impeach subject page
Demographic questions:
It is routine methodology for pollsters to ask questions on age, gender, education, income, party affiliation... and then they can get creative-- religion, military family, union family, NASCAR fan family, frequency of attending church... We intend to ask some different questions to see if they tie to other voting considerations or issues. We will also do a demographic against demographic analysis which will be able to inform us what percentage of Democrats and Republicans are Catholic, Jewish, Black, over 50, etc. We're looking for creative demographic questions. Semi facetiously, for example, what color clothing do you wear most often. Blue, Red, black, brown?. Or, what TV news show do you get your news from: Fox, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, other TV
So... please post your suggestions for issue questions, for demographic questions. We'll pick the ones that we think best reflect our goal of posing questions that you wouldn't see in mainstream media polls. We ARE looking for media co-sponsors. If you are interested in your site or print publication co-sponsoring the poll, for a very reasonable price, let us know.
Here are some possible topics. Part of the art of polling is phrasing the questions.
Here are some topics.
-impeachment
-immigration-- serious penalties to employers
-paper ballot/electronic voting issues
-9/11 and responsibility of Bush admin/ conspiracy theory
-Censure of Bush
-Iraq war
-Bush lied to bring us into war
-NSA Spying ordered by Bush
We'd also love your input on the phrasing of the questions.
So... let lose in the comments below, or email me at rob@opednews.com.
