Reflections - WPR and St. Norbert College - Spring 2011 WI Survey

I'm A Mac, You're Sarah Palin - PCMag

The Poll - it is what it is?  Why are there skeptics and why are there proponents and do those implying meaning really provide answers or appropriate context?  It seems that polls just provide another opportunity for partisans and journalists to expound yet another narrative!

Questions about polls:

1. What's the universe - land line, random, adults.
2. What are the questions and how were they presented - verbal script read to respondent?
3. What's the time frame - 4/5 to 4/18.
4. What are the socio-economic and demographic background of respondents - not reported.
5. What is voting background of respondent.
6. What future changes to the social environment are likely to occur if these same questions were repeated in the future or had been asked in the past.

This survey is a small sample of Wisconsin residents (adult) who are reachable by land lines at an unspecified time of day?  It is a sentiment survey.  The small sample makes questions 4-6 interesting if gathered but statistically moot.

This survey - it is what it is!  By question inclusion it provides some ideas in those arenas about what this universe of people think.  That begs the question as to how representative of Wisconsin residents it is.  The legislature has recently implicitly changed the definition of resident when is comes to voting.  The means of sample and administration of the survey introduce other questions.  We already know that we have no information about age of respondents, or voting habits or geographical dispersion and most importantly intensity of response.  The latter being represented by what are you going to do about any of the things represented in the questions?

We do have other indicators!  Supreme Court elections, JFC regional hearings, Rep. Ryan town hall meetings, rallies and recalls, etc.  This survey is what it is!

Footnote:  Surveys have been done, and perhaps appropriately managed, or not, but imagine Google, Yahoo, FaceBook, or Apple running these  - given what they already know about us!  Of course then the problem would be finding the bias by whether you have a computer and internet access!

WPR and St. Norbert College - Spring 2011 Wisconsin Survey

Ancient History

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

More for the footnote : 4/24 (irony I see this now)

I'm A Mac, You're Sarah Palin PCMag

From Source -

The results of a survey of 388,315 Hunch users

 Among the more provocative findings:
► 58 percent of Mac people are "liberal," as compared to 38 percent of PC people
► 67 percent of Mac people have completed a four-year college degree or higher, as compared to just 54 percent of PC people
► 52 percent of Mac people live in a city, while PC people are 18 percent more likely than Mac people to live in the suburbs and 21 percent live in rural areas
► Mac people throw a lot more parties than PC people
► Mac people are more confident about their verbal abilities but less confident about their math abilities than PC people
► Mac people are more likely to see random people as "similar," whereas PC people are more likely to see them as "different".

Mac vs. PC: A Hunch Rematch - HunchBlog