What's on Your Mind? Do the Pollsters really want to know?

In the print edition for the last few months, we've been doing a quick feature where we note the issues and developments that polls seem to think are the most pressing to Americans. A reader and a community member noted it in last Friday's the gina & krista round-robin which led to e-mail requests that we show online only readers what they're missing?

Generally, we collect a month's worth of polling and note the 'big questions' in print. Since we just did that a few weeks back, we're only covering two weeks worth here.

What's on your mind? The DNC wants to know! They care about what you care about!

Which is why the first question in their latest survey/send money request is:

Which of the following issues is the most important to you? Please rank from 1-10 with "1" being the most important to you.
___ Improving public education
___ Protecting the environment
___ National security/foreign policy
___ Economic/tax policy
___ Reproductive freedom
___ Social Security reform
___ Civil rights and liberties
___ Health care affordability
___ National energy policy
___ Other _______________

Now with two-thirds of the public favoring withdrawal of troops from Iraq, you might think Iraq would pop into the DNC's brain but, you'll note, it didn't. They note: "Response Requested within 72 hours." But it took longer than that for it to arrive from DC!

People For The American Way wants to know what you think too, in nine questions or less to which you can answer "Yes," "No" or "Not sure." Ten! If you count the most pressing question:
will you send money? (They helpfully suggest these progressively larger amounts: $25, $35, $50, $100, $1000 or "Other." Since "Other" comes at the increasing end of the scale, don't you dare fill in $10!) In their nine questions, the issue of an illegal war (or even impeachment for it or any other action by the Bully Boy) is raised zero times.

This is People For The American Way's survey which they are asking that you "Please Return By: August 11, 2006." If you think it looks a little like their last survey ("Please Return by July 28, 2006), you are wrong -- it is the exact same survey. Question five still starts with Sandra Day O'Connor. Word for word, every question is the same. The only differences are your "Survey Registration Number" and the "Please Return By" date. A lot of orgs waste money creating new polls, you don't have to worry about that with People For The American Way.
They'll keep asking the same questions, over and over. Maybe next year they'll ask of your feelings on illegal war?

In the latest survey, they include a free bumper sticker, at least. (The one before had a book marker.) Which is more than you can say about the DNC.

The Sierra Club doesn't play. It doesn't pretend to want your opinion. You better be sitting when you open their envelope, however, because they've packed more in there than the ads in a Sunday newspaper. They give you not one but two calender "strips" you can "affix" to "your PC keyboard, your desk or anywhere else you need a calendar." You could probably even affix them to your wall calendar! Which might make more sense since, when the calendar runs out, you can just toss it as opposed to scraping it off.

Not content to want you to turn over your personal interior space to ad for them ("Founded 1892" the calender proclaims), they also provide you with a "decal" they think will look lovely on a car window. It features a man hiking -- apparently there are no women in the Sierra Club? -- and, of course, their "brand." Think of all the fun you'll have in a year or two scraping that off the window!

They offer you what we're guessing is a very wide and very long bookmark (forget about using it with paperbacks) that features two women hiking (because women read and men drive? -- is that the thinking?) in front of Sequoias. On the back they encourage you to: "please join the fight and the Sierra Club today." First rule about Sierra Fight Club? No one is allowed to read paperbacks or soft cover books!

Having stroked your ego with freebies, they think it's now time you pay for the meal. They have a special $15 dollar membership rate ("limited time only") and you'll get the "official Sierra Club Expedition Pack" ("FREE"). Like the inverse of a car commerical, they explain:

This lightweight sturdy backpack is not just for trailblazing!
Its rugged good looks are at home on the city streets or trekking up a mountain path.

Is it a backpack or a Ford Explorer? We're so confused.

And, most important, they need you to sign their petition cards to Bully Boy (oh, those poor sad fools thinking he gives a damn about petitions) and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.

LIVESTRONG doesn't want your opinion either. It just wants your money. Let's hope the generic "Dear Friend" plea doesn't arrive at the wrong homes, after all this is professional French hater Lance Armstrong's group. Lance's crowd knows how to open on a happy note:

This year, more than one million Americans will hear their doctors say those life-changing words -- "You have cancer."

What? You thought it was going to be, "You're pregnant"? After depressing the hell out of you, Mitch Stoller wants you to "dig down deep and give a generous gift." And to show you generousity is a two-way street, they include 24 address labels.

A hilariously stern "send money!" letter came in from an NPR affiliate reminding one of us that 2006 was almost over and if we didn't send in our money soon ("this is the last reminder" appears first in the second sentence) we wouldn't be 2006 members! The fact that the person this was sent to cut off NPR in 2004 makes the sentence: "We simply can't afford to lose you" all the more laughable. See if you don't roar when, for the fourth time, the letter states: "P.S. Again, this is your last renewal notice." To stress that point, they underline "your last renewal notice."

The New Yorker sends one of us a renewal notice even though there are 18 months to go before it's time to renew again. Rolling Stone, by contrast, only sent out their renewal notice (and their issue with the cardstock cover warning that your subscription was running out (or, as they delightfully put it: "is beginning to gather some moss") six months early.

Though we're not crazy about the name, Progressive Patriots Fund (what's next, Good Progressive Patriots Who Love Mom and Apple Pie Fund?) they at least have their eye on the ball, something we can't say about the DNC, raising the issue of the illegal spying on American citizens immediately. We also agree with their "Statement of Principle to the Democratic Party:"

I am disappointed that the Democratic Party is not taking a strong enough stand agains the outrages of the Bush Administration. It is my belief that the only way to win this November and take back the White House in 2008 is to confront President Bush's dishonesty and illegal conduct. I believe the President has broken the law, has not been truthful, and must be held accountable to the same laws as the rest of us. I call upon the Democratic Party to stand up against the abuse of George W. Bush.
Respectfully signed: ________

Did someone say "2008"? Wait, wait. The primary runners are known and Zogy's got them!

If the Democratic primary for President were held today and the candidates were Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Russ Feingold, Al Gore, Mike Gravel, John Kerry, Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack, and Mark Warner, for whom would you vote?
Who is your second choice?
If the Republican Primary for President were held today and the candidates were George Allen, Sam Brownback, Bill Frist, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, George Pataki, Mitt Romney, and Tom Tancredo, for whom would you vote?
Who is your second choice?

Condi's not in the running! Say it ain't so, Zogby, say it ain't so! On the Republican side, does Hagel still own an interest in the voting machines? If so, isn't it likely that he might be (intentionally or not) Republicans first and second choice in the GOP primary? On the Dem side, of that list, we'd say right now Russ Feingold's the only fighter among them. But we'll give a nod to John Edwards (mainly because Evan Blah trashed Edwards' main issue -- one more issue than Blah's come up with) last week. Some of our wacky fellow lefties linked to that without grasping that Blah's whole "Dems have done too much for poor people, let's get back to the middle class" wasn't only poverty-phobic, it was a slap at Edwards.

It's interesting that Zogby wants your opinion on 2008 now, in 2006, but doesn't provide you with an "Other." (In fairness, the DNC probably wouldn't either were it not for the fact that they want you to send money.) It's not as though "Other" isn't an option they've offered in previous polls -- such as the, we're sure, life shattering question of which death of a sixties rock god (or goddess, they listed Janis if not Cass), do you regret the most?

Zogby came via the phone, the others came via snail mail. Prompting us to once again quote Cedric's response to these repeated, eternal requests for money: "Get your hands out of my pocket!"

In Hannah & Her Sisters, Barbara Hershey's live-in lover Fredrick says, after a night of watching TV:

But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.

Fredrick might want to find a place on his list for the direct mailers.