Poll: What Texans are worried about
The economy clearly leads Texans' list of concerns about the country in the inaugural University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
The most-mentioned items are all about the pocketbook: The economy, unemployment/jobs, and federal spending/national debt.
Taken together, those three things were mentioned by 53 percent of the poll's respondents. Only two other issues — political corruption/leadership, and health care — were mentioned by more than 10 percent. Immigration was the most-mentioned problem facing the state of Texas, mentioned by 19 percent. Jobs/unemployment, the economy, and border security were the only other issues that were top concerns to ...
Comments (6)
observant1
The writer should have mentioned right up front that this was an Internet poll, instead of burying that information in the last graf. Internet polls are very dubious because those who respond select themselves. Telephone polls, or door-to-door polling, would provide more reliable information.
TimtheRockstar Gahagan
It makes me feel good that Texas is on the right track, well at least compared to the Nation. Glad I am a Native, makes me realize why it is all worth it.
TimtheRockstar Gahagan
observant1, you discount Internet Polls because they are new, and you feel that they can be swayed in some manner that you technically do not understand. This is true of every poll, Telephone, Door-to-door, and all polls are flawed. If you go Door-to-Door in low income neighborhoods vs. middle class or wealthy, your responses will be different.
I would like to point out that Internet Polls fall two specific ways.
1) Stacked because of a viral campaign that drives a single group's view's or causes to vote.
2) Stacked demographically due to Internet Enabled voters.
The second is what should worry anyone that is on the 'other' side of the outcome of the poll. This is due in part to "Internet Enabled" voters are statically more educated, more informed, and spend time making themselves aware of the issues.
If the issue is the poll is driven by that demographic then those that rely on the uneducated, ignorant masses to drive policy and support there issues should be on NOTICE. You can only poke the sleeping bear so many times before *we* wake up.
observant1
TimtheRockstar, thanks for commenting on my post. I do not discount Internet polls because they are new. I discount them because they are not accurate. I do not believe they are swayed by technology that I do not understand. They are swayed by technology that is evident to anyone: the respondents select themselves. In a true and accurate poll, the person polled has no idea they are going to be polled until the polltaker contacts them and starts asking questions. In an Internet poll, the person polled proactively chooses to participate and answer the questions. There is no way to guarantee that such a poll will reflect the demographic, geographic, economic and political makeup of the polled population. Someone who knows the subject inside-out is Prof. Cliff Zukin, a political scientist and poll expert at Rutgers University. He says, “Online, Internet, opt-in polling, where people volunteer to be respondents, doesn’t really have a basis in scientific validity."
TimtheRockstar Gahagan
This might be true, but once the poll-taker indicates it is a poll, the polled person, at that point has to opt-in. This is exactly the case here, it is like listening to a homeless person on the street, you don't wait to hear their plight, you make a decision, based on a simple tag line or sentence whether you wish to continue to listen, give input or not.
It is very difficult to create a poll where as the polled person has no idea what they are being polled on. It can happen, and does with personality tests, but that is because the sheer volume of questions creates a situation where as the polled answers many questions that are off topic to either validate the answers of, or mask the real questions.
I guess if you expect lab monkeys to respond to stimuli based on zero information, then the science behind your logic holds true. But then again we were not talking about lab monkeys, but educated people that will either take part or not. Hence my point, people in scenario 1 or 2 from above. That is like saying if you Candidate A gives a person $10 bucks and drives them to vote, they would be completely objective on which candidate to choose. Human Nature is hard to combat, but those that SEEK to give input are then ones that many worry about, not the sheeple, who just blindly follow along.
AustinPolitico
Texas is the most likely of all the states to weather the storm of this financial meltdown. I'm happy to see that many people realize we are on the right track -- but need vast improvements.