> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> 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.
Yes, that's push polling to influence opinion. There's also the benign form (for which I'm not sure push polling is the right term--does someone know a different one?), where it's used just to identify potential supporters on whom one can then focus get-out-the-vote or other organizing activities.
All the best,
John A