MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Wow. What a ride. The polling project is almost finished. Only a few releases remain, including getting the cross-tabs and all of the files online. Also, Joel will have more later on The Terrorism Threat Index soon.

What have we learned from our poll? A lot:
  • In our first release, we learned that accurate public polling is not the sole province of campaigns and commercial news organizations.
  • In our second release, we learned that Democrats were more worried about terrorism than Republicans.
  • In our third release, we learned that few Americans were following the advice of the department of homeland security.
  • In our fourth release, we learned why Americans support and oppose the war in Iraq.
  • In our fifth release, we learned that Murtha's troop deployment plan in incredibly popular. We also learned that it is about the only idea nationwide where partisanship does not have an impact on its support.
  • In our sixth release, we learned that Republicans don't care whether or not Bush breaks the law.
  • In our seventh release, we learned that fear pushes the country to the right.
This was an amazing, month-long process, and it all came from the community. First, we asked you if you wanted us to run a poll, and in our most heavily voted upon poll every, nearly 4,000 of you said yes. Next, we asked for your input on what questions we should ask, and over three threads (here, here, here), you gave us more than 100 suggestions. After that, we joined forces with Start Change, and hired a pollster, Joel Wright. We then finished up the questionnaire, and put the poll in the field. You guys have helped us out to the tune of nearly $17,000. We made our methodology public. Mystery Pollster nodded approvingly. The above results show the fruits of our labor.

This was an exhaustive process, and a lot of "Thank You's" are in order.

First, I'd like to thank the more than 100 commenters who helped us form the questions. I hope it is clear that your suggestions made a huge impact.

I'd like to give a big thank you to all 414 doors to the poll. We will be sending you the complete cross-tabs over email soon. You guys are the ones who made this happen. It is amazing that you guys managed to raise nearly $17K for this. Thank you!

I'd also like to thank Matt Stoller, who emptied out his saving to pay for the poll. The check we sent came entirely from him. The money you guys raised wasn't available until the end of January. Only now has Matt been reimbursed. His enthusiasm for this project made it possible for me to fulfill a long-time dream of my own.

I would also like to thank Start Change, Crooks and Liars, Digby, Fire Dog Lake and a couple Dailykos diarists for helping us out with donation links. This wouldn't have been possible without them.

I would also like to thank everyone listed above for helping us promote the poll, as well as Atrios, Talking Points Memo, kos, Peter Daou, Jonathan Singer, Scott Shields, Mystery Pollster, US Newswire, and National Journal. I'm sure there were a bunch more people who linked to us, and I wish I could thank them all personally. Over 250,000 people have seen the results of this poll, and there is no way we could have done that on our own. Thank you everyone!

I would also like to thank Jerome Armstrong, who first told me about Joel Wright, and who started my career as a blogger.

Finally, I would like to thank Joel Wright and Joel Wright Consulting Services. His seemingly endless enthusiasm for our project was remarkable. He completely believed in what we were doing, and did everything he could to make the poll as accurate as possible. Throughout the whole thing, he kept telling me how we were going to shake everything up with this poll. I think he was right. A lot will change because of this poll, and along with everyone else I have listed, he made it possible.

And now, I have one final question for all of you. Do you want to do this again? There are more barriers to cross, more ground to cover, and even trendlines to be built. Shall we do thing again, perhaps in the spring? Take the poll in the comments.

Tags: Activism, Blogosphere, Media, polls (all tags)

Comments

14 Comments

Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Do it!

by Scarabus 2006-02-02 12:17PM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Great work.

Take a month off (from polling, not blogging) and come back with some ideas for a new poll and we'll be ready with our suggestions.  Three new polls before election day in November could have a significant impact on netroots activism and the campaigns of passionate progressive.

Ask us for the funding and I suspect we'll find it.

by Arthurkc 2006-02-02 12:40PM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Before I say "yes" or "no" to another poll, I'd really like to know... How has this poll shaken things up?  In order to "shake everything up", I would think the poll would have to have a big impact.  In order to have a big impact, I would think it would, first off, need to be viewed by a large audience.  Since no "main-stream-media" reported one smidgen of the results of this poll... not one... (Google or Yahoo for yourself) (U.S. newswire ran a press-release verbatim that Chris put out).  Nobody outside the "blogosphere" saw it... therefore, this was not a large audience.

Chris claims, "Over 250,000 people have seen the results of this poll."  How did he measure that?  And if it's indeed true (surely it's an "upper estimate")... this represents LESS THAN 1/10 of 1 percent of the American populace. (and and everyone who saw it was a progressive blog reader that already agrees with us anyway!).  Compare this to O'Reilly's shitty "Factor"... He averages 2,325,000 viewers a night!

http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/politics/ca blenewsratings.htm

Our little poll, released over the course of a month, has received the viewership of 1/10th  of what O'Reilly's show gets in one hour in one single EVENING.

Now, I truly believe that before we start saying, "YEAH!!! SIGN ME UP!!! LET'S DO ANOTHER!!!"  We really need to ask ourselves "what did this REALLY accomplish?"  Did it REALLY shake things up?  and if so, HOW?
Because from what I can tell, nobody... and I mean NOBODY... heard about it.

I realize that this was an experiment, and I'll not be too hard on the community for it (gotta try it once)... but I truly think that before Chris et al. ask us for more money for this, the folks at MyDD must look deep inside themselves and ask... "Am I doing this because I believe it's an effective tool for progressive change?"  If so, explain to the community HOW that was.  Or... "Am I doing this because I REALLY REALLY REALLY like to crunch numbers... and my own numbers are more fun to play with."

by NCDem 2006-02-02 01:01PM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Maybe. NCDem makes some good points. What was our goal with the poll? How close did we come to meeting our goals?

I don't care that the poll may have had a very tiny impact, as long as that was not the goal. If the goal was to get us a handle on how to proceed to do other things, then sure we can do it again even if not a large audience sees it.

I donated a small amount. I regret not spending time on vetting the questions. Hindsight says that I would have liked an Iran question or two. I don't know if I would have thought of that when the questions were being vetted or not.

More generic trend-line questions that aren't so suseptable to being answered by looking at your party loyalty would be nice. Moral political type questions maybe. At the start lots of trend-line type questions might be good as some get whittled down, that leaves others for long term trend tracking.

This is hard work figuring out all this stuff.

But mostly I clamor for more definition of goals so we can better measure results and can plug those goals into possible actions or vice versa.

(O.T. Note to myself! This spellcheck is driving me nuts. Maybe it's better for diaries. Why should I care for a quickie comment.)

by Jeff Wegerson 2006-02-02 01:21PM | 0 recs
I Think This Was Fantastic!

Actually, I'd like to see this become a monthly event in time for the 2008 elections.  The first time out there are bound to be problems, but the amount of insight we gleaned from this--even before looking deep into cross-tabs--was truly significant.

Others are saying that we didn't get M$M coverage, so that must mean its a failure in terms of having an impact.  I don't think so.  There's a lot of information here that can be food for thought.  There's a real opportunity for op-ed writers to pick up on this, even if reporters don't at first.  But now that the first poll is done, it should be much easier to get some serious coverage for the second one.

People should take a look at the poll reports at the PIPA website.  If we write up the results in this sort of format--using the posts generated so far as rough draft mnaterial--it will be an excellent calling card for approaching people in advance of the next poll.

The problem is, of course, that lots of news outlets have their own polls, and they just like to promote them.  But there are lots of folks out there who don't have their own polls, or who are qnuinely interested in the new insights we can provide.  We need to get coverage from these sorts of people first.  And build a track record.  But this definitely is a very solid start.

by Paul Rosenberg 2006-02-02 02:03PM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

by fred 2006-02-02 02:32PM | 0 recs
Ditto to Rosenberg

And....

this poll asks questions that the traditional media's polls will not, including, most importantly, on the Murtha proposal and impeachment.  As to the former, it cannot have escaped Cong. Murth'a attention, his staff, and sooner or later all his friends and allies.  Eventually it will add traction to the debate on alternatives to staying the course.

As to impeachment, a series of polls will show whatever support impeachment earns.  If -- and we cannot know this -- events move the numbers on impeachment, the existence of this polling on the question will eventually embarass the tradtional media into including questions on the issue on their more publicized polls.  That alone would be a major achievement.  Moving issues from the blogosphere to the traditional media, and widening that path with use over time, are important goals, too.

by Arthurkc 2006-02-02 02:50PM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

I don't know what the timing should be, but I agree that we should do this again.  Maybe in the spring?  

I watch my donations carefully since I am retired but this one was worthwhile.

Grandma Jo

by JWC 2006-02-02 04:38PM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Yes. I'd like to see what trends emerge as we approach the election.

Keep up the good work.

by misscee 2006-02-03 10:55AM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium


It is important to have some trendlines AND important to ask typical questions to see where we fall (approval etc)-- BUT...

We NEED to ask the questions the other outlets won't ask.

1) IMPEACHMENT

2) NSA SPYING

3) GOP BUDGET CUTS AND IMPACT / MEDICARE PLAN AND BLAME?

by jgkojak 2006-02-02 07:46PM | 0 recs
One more question:


Please don't label this as tin foil hat-- but--

I would love to see a REAL POLL ask the question:

Do you believe George W Bush or members of his administration knew of the impending attacks on 9/11 but failed to act for political reasons?

You know why???

I think the answer might be a little higher than we think.

by jgkojak 2006-02-02 07:47PM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Found this poll quite informative. I'd definitely like to see another one in the near-future.

As a New Orleans boy, I'd appreciate a question about federal responsibility for Katrina clean-up. Since the vast majority of devastation was caused by the failure of levees built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, how liable is the U.S. Government? (In my estimation, Powell's Pottery Barn rule should apply - you break it, you fix it.)

And, although I'm not sure how you'd do it, I'd like to see a poll devoted to fleshing out the specious stereotypes used to describe the Democratic and Republican Parties. Such as the portrayal of Dems being wasteful with money and soft on defense, although the facts show this to be an accurate description of the Repubs. Just how prevalent are these stereotypes? How do we get around them, or shatter them for good?

by paulrobeson 2006-02-02 08:59PM | 0 recs
Separate issues from hot button names and terms

I vote heartily for a continuation of the polls but with a caveat.  The problem throughout is that the questions don't get around the demonization of each side by the other.  Takek for example Q19 and Q20.  Any reference to "Bush" and "security" is a red flag waved before the angry bulls on the right.

For example, I think that if you were to ask "Do you think our government should be given to monitor our activities and investigate us without warrant or oversight?" I think you'd get very different responses from attaching the question to Bush-and-national-security.  

The words "Bush-and-national-security" are magic dividers.  Thanks to Limb-Rove, a vast majority of the right will defend Bush at all costs and  vast majority of the left will reject anything associated with Bush.  If the right are presented with a question about their privacy in terms which ties it to the concept of [for example] "being investigated by Democrats without warrant or oversight" -- well...

by Bean 2006-02-03 03:10AM | 0 recs
Re: MyDD Polling Project Compendium

Definitely, do another independent poll. But please swing even further away from 'polling as usual'. I would like to see more of the 'big picture' issues facing us in a party-neutral manner to tease out strong positions that our progressive leadership can hoist up.

I am concerned about how Americans foresee the future in general. Are they hopeful or filled with dread? That kind of data is extremely valuable to put into context all the other positions. And it could be probed easily with a question such as 'Do you think your children will live in a better world?'  I would love to see how that question breaks down through socio-economicaly as well as with party afiliations. Questions like this also can bypass the pat answers, rehearsed and obvious. These are the types of questions that probe beyond the party reflex.

And how about global warming? Is that a topic relevent to our lives? Should we guage the level of interest, understanding, concern or dread on that topic? It is that kind of questioning that could reveal hidden leverage topics that could dramatically swing elections, media coverage and public discourse.

How about the Hydrogen economy or renewable energy? Do people expect that to happen? Would they support it? Do they think we are 'addicted to oil?' Do they think there are viable alternatives?

And on foriegn policy, let's not fall into Bush's trap. There is a world outside of the Middle East! How do people foresee China? India? EU? Russia? The WTO?

I could go on and I know each question cost money... But I think you see my point, to expand the question beyond the 'existing' dialog, to help stimulate the political discussion beyond the narrowly 'framed' topics to extract potential fertile platform planks, policy initiatives and positive, progressive, inspiring political action.

We are the one's we've been waiting for... Which means the wait is over... Let's get busy!

by grover 2006-02-04 02:07AM | 0 recs

Diaries

Advertise Blogads


----------- myDD - skin -----------