Monday, August 23, 2004

Mom and Pop Pollster--A little history We own a Mom and Pop Bath store in Northern California.  Located in the heart of wine country, we have customers from all over the world and of course a lot of local Californians as well.  Over the years we have chosen to learn more about our customers and consistently ask:  Where are you from?  First time to wine country?  Where are you staying?  Where did you eat?  You know, the type of chatter that makes retail more enjoyable.  For a few years now, our interest in politics consumes most of our energy however it is important in our store to be non-partisan.  We for sure are selling lots of soap and candles to Republicans as well as Demos and others.  But we have to make a living and not get in arguments with our customers!  Recently I heard a reporter recounting an incident where he was buying TIME Magazine and the 20 something white American clerk looked at the picture of Kerry and Edwards on the cover with the headline "The Contenders".  She looked at the reporter and asked:  "What are they contending for?"  My hair stood straight up and it became clear to me that the youth of the country must get involved in the process.  Afterall, it is these same kids that are going to be making decisions that affect my life as I get older.   I mulled it over for a few days and realized that we have a lot of kids come to our store.  After a discussion with Pop Pollster, we decided to create a questionaire for kids 12 - 18 years old.  We wanted to know what they know and if they have an interest at all in politics.  Afterall the Heritage Foundation is pumping millions of Republican dollars into our colleges and universities trying to swing the vote of that age group.  So our questionaire was born and we offered the kids free bath salts if they would fill it out.  That became no problem.  Kids love to participate in things and probably would have done so without the bath salts.  The result was astounding.  We asked the basic questions:  Who is president?  Who is Vice President?  What party affiliation?  Who is running against them for those two offices?  Do you know your parents political affiliation? Do you go to public or private school?  You know--the basics.   There were a few kids that knew everything.  But the majority knew very little.  We had kids answer the president, vice president question with George Bush and Al Gore.  We had kids that had no clue who was running against them.  So my favorite story was about the 14 year old kid that was filling out the form.  I know her and her Mom who was in the store shopping.  I noticed her going to her Mom to answer one of the questions and said "no, you need to do this. Don't worry it is not right or wrong or good or bad, just do the best you can".  I then saw her mother (40's) go to another customer (older lady--60's)  They were all looking really puzzled with a "no clue" look on their face.  I'm wondering what could these three women from 3 very different generations not know on this simple little questionaire.  Finally the mother came to me and said "Who is the vice-president? none of us knows".  My jaw hit the cash register.  Ok so the 14 year old didn't know.  Many of them did not know but the other two women??  How can that be?  Here is a man who has single handedly dealt our country a horrible blow in several areas not to mention his charge to war.  And they don't even know who he is!  ARRRGGHH.  Tomorrow I'll continue the saga of the next poll we created but for now--gotta go sell some soap! Stuart 8:49:14 AM    comment []

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Mom and Pop Pollster Reports Reporting from the beautiful California Wine Country, I wanted to share some interesting polling information that we have collected in our small retail store in a high traffic, tourist area.  The news that there was no bounce coming out of the convention convinced us we needed to find out for ourselves what people were thinking.  Just simple questions:  Who are you voting for?  What is your political affiliation? Are you registered to vote?  Are you going to vote? The process as well as results to date are most intriguing and I decided it was time to share some good stories.  Keep in mind that many of our participants are from out of state.  In a future blog, we'll report the breakdown between California and all other states.  We all know that even though Caleeefornia is run by an acting govenor or is that a govenor that used to be an actor (AGAIN!), that we still swing on the liberal end of the spectrum and barring any horrible occurances between now and November 2, we'll probably vote Democratic. We started our poll on August 2,  just after the Democratic convention.  After watching all the Sunday morning shows touting that there was no bounce from the convention, we made our decision.  Our results for the last 20 days are: Out of 181 respondents 125 voted for Kerry, 39 for Bush, 13 undecided, 2 for Nadar, 2 for the Liberterian candidate.  Only 1 person checked "maybe" under the question of whether or not they would vote.  The dialogue we have with these people is remarkable.  Having this poll sitting on our counter signals the "ok" to talk politics in a store that has nothing whatsoever to do with politics.  Several stories come to mind and I will try to share the ones that I found to be the most compelling. A lady from Delaware-in her 60's I'm guessing-with a slight hint of an accent said that she was waiting on her citizenship papers to come through so she could vote.  "I've lived in this country 40 years and just became a citizen.  When they asked me why at the citizenship interview I said 'To vote the bastard out of office' " She was from Germany originally and said she never felt the need to become a citizen but she can't bear not to vote this year. Some people act as if this poll is the real thing and want to fill out several forms.  No--sorry! Canadians seem particularly outraged by what is happening in our country.  One gent really wanted to fill out the form but I politely declined while getting him to talk more about his opinions.  He said the Canadians were laughing out loud in 2000 when "Jeb pulled the election for his big brother".  Now 4 years later according to this Canadian fellow, they are crying at the mere possibility that it might happen again. One Canadian visitor explained that our connection (the two countries) is so close that whatever happens with us greatly affects them.  Good point. The most moving was two older gentlemen from Southern California--Orange County to be exact (the conservative stronghold of the state).  These were well dressed, well jeweled tourists visiting wine country--giving their wives free reign in the store.  The first one filled out the form and commented that we must change "regimes" before the draft was reinstated.  He feared most that his grand children would be sent off to a war like Iraq.  Totally senseless and unnecessary.  I could tell he was very emotional about it and tryed to be non-commital by saying "these are interesting times".  The other gentleman said "these are very sad times" and proceeded to fill out the poll.  Seems that these two Vietnam Vets were more concerned about the war than any of the other issues on the table. And did you know that in Germany they show John Kerry films almost daily touting his Viet Nam days and his rise to power?  The German's it seems really like this guy.  Imagine that!  Well stay tuned for more news from Mom and Pop Pollster.  Every day brings new insights and conversations.  We hope you'll let us know what you think or what other information we can gather that might be of interest.  On my next blog, I'll tell you how the whole polling idea started--even before the convention! Stuart   1:38:14 PM    comment []