Environmental lead (Pb) and crime
At Mother Jones, Kevin Drum has an in-depth article on the hypothesis that environmental lead is a likely root cause of the increase in cri...
Friday on WNYC – Sam and Josh
Tomorrow afternoon at 1:20pm Eastern, Josh Gold and I will be on the Leonard Lopate Show to talk about the neuroscience of being undecided. I’m told there will also be someone from the Pew Center to talk about polling. Tune in – WNYC, 93.9 FM, 820 AM, and online streaming audio.
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I listened to you on Lopate. (I liked the question that you asked the pollster about indirect questioning.) I have two questions.
1) The pollster proposed that persons are undecided because they’re cross pressured. But maybe decided persons are equally cross pressured but were somehow better able to make that decision?
2) If voter turnout is so high this year, why isn’t the % “undecided” lower?
Frank – I think you are right. The pollster’s answer was rather weak, and showed that he didn’t really get what Josh and I were saying. These guys need to read our op-ed, or perhaps my book! If polling organizations asked matched questions to both decideds and undecideds, this issue could be resolved.
The answer to your second question is related. The state of being undecided is not being uncommitted. Equally likely is the possibility that these people are not good at reading their own internal tendencies. Such people will behave the same in this and other years.
I talked to one of the rarest of creatures, an African-American planning to vote for McCain, at work today. She is definitely cross pressured but is very decided about her choice. Her personality is very extroverted and she knows her mind. I wonder if the parent or spouse (or BFF) of an undecided voter would be able to accurately predict how their undecided one ends up voting. Can someone else read a tendency that they cannot?