>Door-to-door "polling" can be used (and was used by some J.O.I.N. locals
>in the mid-60s) as an organizing technique. The questionnaire can be
>designed to lead people to think about topics that they had never
>focused on before, and of course (as you point out here)the questions
>can be designed both to provide information _and_ to pose hypothetical
>situations.
That's a version of what's known in the trade as a push poll, most commonly used in political campaigns. A rep of Candidate X calls up, posing as a pollster, asking: "How would you feel if you heard that Candidate Y likes to have sex with dogs?" Well not exactly that question, but you get the idea.
Doug