As pollsters in New Hampshire all know by now, statistics are useless if the underlying data are bad. So everything turns on whether voters are being truthful to pollsters or not. In different parts of the country this plays out in different ways. up in the Northeast, irate voters are likely to lie to you or just hang up. Here in the South, there’s a bit of the opposite problem, especially since local residents aren’t as hardened to the daily barrage of media, research, and campaign polling as in IA and NH: folks are simply too nice. And that means they’ll tell you they’re supporting your candidate when they have no such intentions, just to be polite.
So sussing out the real answer is a bit more subtle, like most interpersonal communications in the South. A lot is captured in the tone of how the person responds to you saying, “I volunteer with Obama for America.” When you ask someone how they plan to vote, you’ve got to take anything other than enthusiasm (for whichever candidate) with a little salt.
But there definitely is enthusiasm out there. One voter we reached identified himself as a Clinton supporter. We persisted and asked if there was anyone in the house who was planning to vote for Obama. The young man responded that his brother was — at which point, in the background someone started chanting “O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!” — but that he was only 15. A number of older women we reached would respond, in the same way, “There’s no one else!” when asked which of the candidates they were supporting: “Senator Obama.”
Those are the real poeple who make up those polling numbers.
