Politics: Polling drama: One pollster calls out another, calls for a duel
- Using all negative statements, rather than a mix of negative and positive ones, reflects another non-standard approach, one that can further bias responses.
- ABC Director of Polling Gary Langer • Regarding the problems he found with a Harris Interactive survey on “wingnuts” who dislike President Obama. The survey, which suggests as many as 40 percent of people think Obama is a socialist (among other things), also uses the leading phrase “here are some things people have said about President Obama,” with Langer finds particularly troublesome. He calls it “a highly manipulative approach to questionnaire design,” the kind of thing that persuades many respondents into biases. Harris Interactive must be smartin’ about this. source