Tag: primary elections

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POLLSTERS: DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL ME

Do you believe in polls?  Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t.  Like most people, I believe what I want to.  If I see a poll favoring my candidate of choice, I’ll hope it’s right.   On the other hand, if a poll favors a disliked candidate, I’ll doubt its accuracy.  When I am asked to take part in surveys and polls,  I always decline.  Pollsters: don’t ask my opinion, don’t tell me  your skewed results.

Pollsters: Don't Ask, Don't Tell Me which candidate I favor
Pollsters use landlines, phones & the internet to invade our privacy.  Pollsters: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell me

Most  polls are conducted  via cell phone or landline.  Those are possibly the most irritating calls one could receive.  Anyone with common sense refuses to answer calls from an unfamiliar phone number.   Consequently,  A  poll  based on the opinions of those who do answer doesn’t really tell me anything.

Many polls are taken over the internet.  Poll takers and politicians invade my Facebook, Twitter, and Email accounts.  If I log onto various online  news reports, I’m often  interrupted by a question about   Donald  Trump or Joe Biden.

The bad part about answering a survey or poll is that you’re now on someone’s sucker list.  First, you will be inundated with requests for contributions.  Next, you’ll  receive numerous newsletters and e mails meant to alarm and enlighten you .

How do these people get access to my social media?  I’m  tired of spending so much time deleting them.  I click on unsubscribe, and beg them to leave me alone, to no avail..  No, I don’t want to hear from their relatives, either.

Back to the accuracy of polls.    A poll is just a picture of what people are saying or thinking on a particular day. Voters are fickle. They can easily change their minds the next week or month, depending on current events. For example,  the coronavirus pandemic. Or the protests after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis..

Every day, the polls tell us which candidate is favored,  disliked, or disapproved of . But you know what?  I’d just as soon believe the odds coming out of Vegas.

Pollsters:   Stop calling  me during dinner,  or any time at all.  Discontinue invading my social media online.   Don’t ask what I think or tell me how I feel..

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DO YOU VOTE IN THE PRIMARIES? IF NOT, WHY?

 

My state has the distinction of having had the lowest voter turnout in the primaries this spring: 20%.  And yet, my hometown in Indiana  is considered a bellwether city, having predicted the outcome of every presidential election except two since 1888. And they haven’t missed in 60 years.  Clearly, Hoosiers do vote, just not so much in the primaries.


Statistically, college graduates are more likely to vote than the rest of the population.   My husband and I both have post graduate degrees, but we don’t vote in the primaries, because in order to do so, you have to vote as a Republican or Democrat, and we are neither.  For example:  We strongly disagree with the Republican stance against Planned Parenthood.  We disagree with Democrats on the idea of universal health care.  Consequently, we tend to vote for a particular candidate who more closely represents our views, rather than the party he/she is affiliated with.  We’ve voted for both Republican and  Democratic candidates for years.  And of course, we always voted for that Hoosier favorite, Evan Bayh, no matter what he was running for. There was a true gentleman and a scholar, and his leaving politics was understandable, but depressing.

 

Sometimes, if we don’t care for the candidates from either party, we choose the one we dislike the least.  

 
I know, the party activists would accuse us of apathy and lacking in patriotism.  But we aren’t activists.  We wouldn’t have the energy for it, at our age.  We only know about the newer candidates from what we see on TV, which may or may not be accurate, and it’s often easier to vote for or against an incumbent, because  he/she  at least has a track record. So now, we can just sit back, relax,  and make our own  independent decisions  in the fall elections as to who would best serve the needs of our fellow Americans.