As I mentioned in
my previous post on the polling project, we have a made a decision on which pollster to use for our first poll, Joel Wright of
Wright Consulting. I would like to tell you a little bit about Joel Wright, and about how we arrived at this decision.
The criteria we considered when selecting a pollster included all of the following:
- Cost. Since we knew these polls would be funded with grassroots money, it was important to choose a pollster who would be at least relatively inexpensive.
- Methodology. Over the past two years in the blogosphere, I have spent quite a bit of time discussing, critiquing, and otherwise trying to understand the basic theories behind different public survey methodologies. Given this, it was personally important to me to choose a pollster who used a survey methodology that I had not spent a significant amount of time complaining about. Finding a pollster who used survey techniques that posed a smart challenge to dominant political survey methodologies would also be a bonus.
- Location. Since another purpose of this poll was to challenge conventional wisdom of the polling establishment, we also wanted to find a pollster who operated primarily outside of the Washington DC news and polling establishment. After all, the revolution will never come from within DC, and it will be a little hard to challenge conventional wisdom while using the mechanisms that have produced it.
- Support. Finally, we wanted to find a pollster who was supportive of our reasons for conducting the poll and who is a progressive him or herself. The primary reason for this is that, hopefully, this poll will not be a one-time shot in the dark, but rather the start of a serious, long-term project here on MyDD. We thus wanted to find someone with who we could develop a long-term relationship, and who would be excited about being a part of an insurgent, progressive polling project.
With these criteria in mind, we went ahead and contacted six or seven different polling firms to ask about their prices and let them know what we were doing. Once I talked with Joel Wright, however, I knew I had found the pollster I was looking for.
For starters, Joel Wright is based in Arizona, not Washington DC. Secondly, a quick look at his political client list shows that he has consistently polled on behalf of Democratic candidates and progressive causes. Third, he uses an effective, cutting edge polling methodology known as "psychographics" that Democrats sorely need. Jerome and Markos wrote about Joel Wright and psychographics in Crashing the Gate:
Called "psychographics" or values-based research, the practice is used regularly among the private sector to fine-tune their marketing campaigns. This sort of polling is nearly nonexistent in Democratic circles, especially inside the beltway. Joel Wright, who has done over fifteen ballot measures and initiatives in Arizona over the past twenty years, is a rare exception. Wright told us, up in the Arizona mountains where he lives, that "Republicans are successfully moving into this area of voter targeting and contact-based on political decision making. They are blending values and psychological measurements with demographics to build a comprehensive, deep and multidimensional picture of voters. That allows them to understand and reach deep psychological and values dynamics and hot buttons, which simplify decision making for voters. In my view, Republicans are focused on talking to people, human beings, while Democrats continue to talk to categories and characteristics."
Wright added, "And on the Democratic side, this works fine for the gravy train beltway pollsters. The work is quick, easy for them. And lucrative." Wright scoffs at the conventional wisdom that polling is only a "snapshot" of the electorate, a moment frozen in time. "The snapshot concept means that polling has a limited shelf life, it gets old, `yellowed,' out of date," he says. "So, Ms. Candidate must have her beltway pollster blow in, provide a simple crosstab update, who then mails the bill and blows town for his or her next client. This happens repeatedly over the course of a campaign. Values, psychology and the meanings voters internalize over a lifetime on political concerns do not change dramatically over short periods of time, particularly a twelve-to-eighteen-month campaign. The idea of a snapshot actually means more jobs, more billing, more production for the pollster." Just like the media consultants, there are less than a dozen Democratic polling firms that do the lion's share of the party's top races each cycle. And similarly, the pollsters' cartel is rewarded for longevity and connections, rather than innovation and results.
Even beyond all of these good reasons, I knew we had found the pollster we were looking for when I called Joel last week. Before I told him about our project, he stepped right into the conversation and told me he had already read about it on MyDD. Pretty cool.
All of this makes me more and more excited about the polling project. All, remember that the discussion on question refinement is still open, and we will continue it tomorrow. We are looking to get the poll in the field by the end of next week.
