A Political Pollster Finally Called Me!

I promised myself I wouldn't write another political post anytime soon but here I am four weeks after the last one and I'm breaking my word. Don't worry, I promise it's not going to be a rant type post that will burn your eyeballs out if you support the Republican ticket. A telephone call from a pollster made me change my mind. At first I thought, Hell no! I'm not taking part in a political poll. But then I remembered how many times I've wondered, who are these people that take those polls? The media loves quoting them.  

Edited to add: The poll itself was taken the morning of the last day of the convention, before Trump's speech and the Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan performances. And this post was written two days before Biden dropped out of the race.

I must say the pollster was very professional. She didn't try to lead me in any particular direction and she didn't react in any way to my answers. It was a long poll taking over 25 minutes. The questions started with the basics: my age, sex, level of education, income, marital status and race. She asked who I voted for in the last election, how likely am I to vote in the next. Did I belong to a union? What are my views on abortion? Then it got down to the nitty-gritty of the call. Did I see any of the Republican convention? "Yes, most of it." Did I see any of the coverage of Trump getting shot? "Yes." Did it make you more likely or less likely to vote for him or no change? "No change." How much do you know about J.D. Vance? And she listed some multi-choice answers. I picked the one that I'd never heard of him before Trump picked him for his Vice President. 

She asked me what two things about the convention stood out the most. I wanted to joke that all the people wearing sympathy patches on their ears cracked me up. Oops, they call them solidarity patches.

But I replied that I thought Sarah Hunkleabee Sanders did a good job fulfilling her mission. The pollster followed up by asking what I meant and I told her Sanders's speech was intended soften Trump's image for women voters, make him seem more likable to that demo-graph as did the speech given by Trump's 17 year old grand-daughter. I had to repeat my answer a couple of times so the pollster could write my answer down word for word. The most genuine smile I've ever seen on Mr Trump's face came after that young girl finished. It made me wonder where has that guy has been all these years. I didn't mention that during to poll.

My answer about my second take-away from the convention was about how much I hated seeing Nikki Haley's speech. That I used to like her and thought she's was a good person to have in government, but her reversal in now kissing Trump's butt after months of saying he's unfit for office proves her values and moral compass can be bought off. (I've since learned that Vance did the same, exact thing.) What I didn’t tell the pollster is the night that J.D. Vance spoke I sat down to watch the convention and I fell asleep while he was on! So there may have been other, more noteworthy take-aways for me if I hadn't slept through his appearance. I did catch some of the highlights later that night but I've been watching both the Republican and Democratic conventions with every election since they've been televised so I felt bad about missing an important part of this one.

After the questions about the Republicans the pollster started in on Biden. She didn't ask me if I thought he should drop out of the race and that omission seemed telling to me. A hint about who contracted the poll? I asked that question but the pollster she said they are not given that information. She did ask me about six other Democrats going up against Trump and how I would vote. For example if the election was between Harris and Trump which one would I pick? If you're a long time reader of this blog you'll know I wouldn't vote for Trump if he was running for the county dog catcher. Which reminds me there was a funny meme on Facebook about Babydog, the bulldog that the governor of West Virginia was pulling around the convention floor in a cart. The meme said something about him keeping the dog away from Kristi Noem, the woman who was on Trump's short list for V.P. She's the North Dakota governor who bragged in her autobiography about how she shot the family's 18 month old puppy in a gravel pit because "he was untrainable." She thought it made her look like she was strong enough to make the tough decisions but it just made her look thickheaded for not taking the advice of her editor and others telling her not to include it. Even after they pointed out the uproar that Mitt Romney caused when a photo surfaced of him on vacation with the family dog in a cage strapped on top of his station wagon, she wouldn't back down about putting the puppy killing in her book. Killing that dog also made her look cold-hearted for not re-homing it to someone who just wanted a family pet and not a hunting dog.

There was only one question I refused to answer and the pollster came back to it three times before giving up. It was the one about do you think the country is headed in the right direction. I've always hated that question because 'the right direction' is too ambiguous. If you answer 'no' they assume you are not happy with the party currently in power. But I think you can say 'no' meaning you're not happy with how the government in general has become so Tribal and how 'compromise' has become a dirty word. We've been on that trend since 2010 when Mitch McConnell announced to the world that his job as senate minority leader was to make sure that Obama was a one term president. That's when the party quit representing the people who elected them and the Cult of Personality was born in the Republican Party.  ©

Until Next Wednesday.... 

No matter how you vote, you've got to admit this meme is funny, given the fact that both Trump and Vance have immigrant wives