Political Polling?

I've had pretty strong opinions on poltical polling...everything from how they're not "news" yet reported on as if they have high-level importance to how they can influence elections to how I've never been the one asked to participate in the poll.

Until yesterday.

I got a call that started off asking me if I was a registered voter in Denton County and if I had a few minutes to take part in a poll. Since I've barked about not having been asked, I said I'd do it.

There were obligatory questions like my age, occupation, approximate income level, how likely I was to vote in November and other stuff you'd expect.

Then there were some questions about whether or not I've heard of this or that candidate or ever voted independent of parties & other stuff like that. So far, so good.

Then I was asked if they could read me some statements and my reply to each one would be whether or not each one would cause me to vote "strongly more in favor" or "mildly more in favor" or "mildly less in favor" or "strongly less in favor" for the candidate. Those were my choices.

That's when I figured out was really going on:

A commercial for one of the gubernatorial candidates.

The statements went like this: "If (candidate A) said they would raise teacher pay while cutting taxes..." "If (candidate A) said he'd levy penalties for businesses that hire illegal immigrants..."

The competitors statements went like this: "If (candidate B) said she'd been convicted for failing to have receipts for her expenditures..." or "If (candidate C) said he'd had little experience in government and wouldn't know what to do his first week in office..."

There were about 30 questions like this. Two-to-one with glowing ideals from Candidate A and silly to damaging statements about Candidates B and C. I didn't stop the caller...at this point I didn't want to be rude since I told her I'd participate but I went from excited to bored and more or less checked out of the deal. She was nice enough and thanked me for my time.

But I'd rather have just had a call from someone saying they'd like to take 3 minutes of my time to tell me why their candidate is the better choice.

But frankly, I'd have ignored that.

Which is why I'm guessing they do fake "polls."

So, I brought it on myself, I guess.

Dangit.