One of the beauties of an online magazine is that you can do a lot of things you shouldn't really do in print--like have a ten-word subtitle for your publication.
I have always been a big believer in the title/subtitle format: that is, think up a short and catchy title to grab readers' attention, and add a more informative subtitle to make 'em want to read more.
In the case of Public Opinion Pros: An Online Magazine for the Polling Professional (and Everybody Else), the idea is to make apparent that while we are largely geared toward people who conduct or analyze surveys for a living, there is also plenty here to interest and enlighten any nonspecialists who happen to stumble across our site.
Reeling those folks in is a bit more of a challenge, however, when it comes to some of the more technical aspects of polling, which is why we generally confine those topics to our "From the Field" department. In this issue, though, we are making an exception, by presenting as an upfront feature the first part of a three-part series by Larry Hugick and Stacy DiAngelo on the weighting of preelection polls by respondents' party identification.
Now, as a general rule, I personally would rather sit through six consecutive hours of Walker: Texas Ranger reruns than read a lengthy discussion involving the intricacies of weighting data. However, this is the very sort of thing of which more people need to have a better understanding when they are indignantly declaring, "You can't possibly tell what millions of Americans are thinking by asking a thousand of them questions."
On top of that, and of concern to polling professionals and lay readers alike, is the fact that the issues surrounding the weighting of survey results by party ID spawned a controversy about polling--and pollsters--during the last presidential election the likes of which has rarely been seen, with accusations of partisan bias aimed at some polling organizations, charges of survey results being influenced by pollsters' personal religious beliefs and other questionable motivations, and even a flurry of reweighting of other people's polls after the fact.
And Hugick and DiAngelo make digging into the subject easy, by presenting a clear, highly readable, and comprehensive analysis that will sustain readers' interest over three issues of POP, whether they like to read about matters statistical or not. Heck, it might even get some of them riled enough to want to join--or rejoin--a debate that is sure to continue through the months and years to come, right into the next presidential election.
Another debate that will certainly go on for quite some time is the role of religious groups, especially evangelical Christians, in the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004. Also in this issue, we feature an intriguing study by Kenneth Blake, Robert Wyatt, and Holly Warf that poses the question, just who are the evangelicals? And once you have found them, what can you say about their voting choices as a predictor of election outcomes?
In our third feature article, Kate Stewart presents the findings of a Belden Russonello & Stewart survey that assesses Americans' preferences in community attributes as they pertain to the ongoing "smart growth" versus sprawl debate over development, and in "From the Field," Thomas Marshall takes up the so-far neglected but important question of a need for standards in the publication of secondary analyses of survey results.
Finally, for "In Print," we break with our usual practice of presenting selections only from books published within the last two or three years to showcase this year's winner of the AAPOR Book Award--Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations, by Howard Schuman, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria Krysan.
It's all a good read, and we think you'll get a lot out of it--whether you're a polling professional, or a part of everybody else. Enjoy.
—Lisa
Ferraro Parmelee, Editor |
