TRI Ep. 40: Hearings, Spies, and Kill Switches from The Winston Group on Vimeo.

TRI Ep. 39: “Departures, Borders and Soccer” from The Winston Group on Vimeo.

TRI Ep. 38: “Mama Grizzlies,” Jobs, and Remakes from The Winston Group on Vimeo.

TRI Ep. 37: Elections, Laffer Curve & MTV from The Winston Group on Vimeo.

If I was given a survey about my experience at AAPOR thus far, I would absolutely say I have a “strongly favorable” view of the conference! Sessions kicked off this afternoon and I sat in on two fantastic panels: one about ABC News’ groundbreaking research in Afghanistan (check out my writeup at Pollster.com- it includes an interview with ABC News’ Gary Langer and D3′s Matthew Warshaw) and one on AAPOR’s cell phone research task force.  The research in Afghanistan had many items that were unsurprising – for instance, that levels of civilian casualties play a large role in how people feel about the direction of their country and other indicators of optimism.  However, did you know that while  60% of Afghani adults have cell phone access, that is over four times as many as have refrigerators? To me, that’s the most hopeful item.  In conversations after the panel, Warshaw told me about how Afghan women can use cell phones to text in requests to local radio stations, something they couldn’t do verbally due to social norms and customs. Can you just imagine? For some reason, that fact both made me incredibly sad about the lack of liberty that women have in Afghanistan and yet also optimistic that communications freedom has the power to really change Afghani society.

The other panel, on cell phone survey research, was of particular research to me.  Since I’m focused on understanding young voters, landline-only surveys are not helpful at understanding the large cell-only population of young Americans.  But while cell-phone surveys are necessary and possible, they bring a whole host of new problems to survey research.  What if people are driving or are in public?  Will they give different answers? Will they drive dangerously? Do they require remuneration for use of their cell minutes? What if their area code doesn’t match their current residence? What about people who have a cell-phone AND a landline…they’re technically twice as likely to be contacted for the survey, so how do you handle that?

The panel addressed the existence of these concerns and proposed considerations for researchers when engaging in cell phone research.  I’m looking forward to briefing my WG co-workers on the findings when I get back from Chicago.

Watching programs like Explorer always leaves me with a profound sense of…well…”what am I doing with my life?”  For these journalists and explorers, they travel to rainforests and maximum security prisons, they cross into North Korea and Tora Bora.  I walk six blocks to a desk with a computer every day and fear bumblebees.  Shows like that highlight the magnitude of beauty and suffering in the world and remind me to constantly keep asking questions, really taking the time to appreciate the world I live in.

I also found myself thinking about the politics around a show like Explorer.  For the natural history segments in particular, I couldn’t help but wish that the conservative movement would give a bit more attention to issues of conservation.  Reading everyone from Burke to Kirk will show you how a lot of the great thinkers whose work undergirds the modern conservative movement would likely favor preserving the natural beauty of the past against forces that want to mar them in the name of “progress.”   There’s a reason that only two letters separate “conservative” and “conservation.”  I see no support in almost any good conservative literature for the squandering of resources and the destruction of natural beauty.  This is why I get frustrated when some modern conservatives cheer for everyone to leave their lights on unnecessarily on Earth Day, as if to make a clever point.

Yes, many Democratic and liberal policies aimed at protecting the environment either don’t address the problem or create massive economic burdens.  I think there’s plenty of evidence that the market can handle a number of consumption based environmental problems.  Did the government mandate that more people buy hybrids? No. Gas prices went sky high, people looked for alternatives, and Toyota had the Prius on the market.  Companies that failed to adapt, like some domestic automakers, were left struggling (and later requiring government bailouts.)

But one of the things that makes America so fantastic, so exceptional, is its natural resources and landscape.  Conservatives spend a lot of time focused on protecting social norms or trying to preserve the things that “make America great” culturally.  But there’s too little time spent on preserving what makes America physically astonishing.  America’s national parks have been touted as our nation’s “best idea.”  There are many, many times when you’ll see a debate, say, at a town level, where a large store wants to come in and build on a piece of land that was previously the woods.   There’s an automatic assumption that the conservatives would support the “bulldoze away, make a dollar” philosophy, and while I’m not suggesting we ought to all take a page out of I Heart Huckabees, I’m merely suggesting that the definition of conservatism also include preserving the natural things that make America great, or at the very least giving those things greater weight when conservation and other interests conflict.

We had high hopes for the iPad – particularly for presentations – but for that function, the device has come up short.  Chris did a great post over at TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) about the deficiencies of Keynote for iPad.  But while that may be a disappointment, I have to confess that I’m being won over by the device.  I spent an embarrassing amount of time perfecting my skills at “Flight Control”, a game that basically instructs you to land airplanes on runways and not let any crash.  I love how I don’t need to lug my big laptop and power cord around to use the internet at home, which is basically the only thing I use my laptop to do.  I also love how I don’t need to contribute to the worsening of my eyesight by reading tiny text on shrunken websites on the iPhone.  And the typing? I am a perpetual skeptic when it comes to keyboard-less typing, yet the iPad (when held landscape, not portrait) “keyboard” lets me type almost as fast as a regular keyboard, something I was not expecting at all.

Give Chris’s column a read if you work with presentations and have thought about getting iPad for business purposes.  But if you’re like me and just want a bigger screen for the internet and a few addictive time-wasting games, sock away some cash and consider picking up an iPad!

I am, however, a big fan of many of the things he says and it is headlines like these, via Reid Wilson (Gingrich: GOP Should Be “Party of Yes”), that are great examples.  I understand that being in the minority means having little if any control over what comes before Congress.  But today more than ever before, the message is driven not just by those who have the microphone but by those who have the most interesting thing to say.  Republicans may not be setting the agenda these days but simply standing athwart Pelosi crying “stop!” is not going to win us back the trust of the American people.  I’m looking forward to seeing clips of Newt’s speech if they are available after SRLC and I hope that the folks who hear him take the message to heart.

Recently, the staff all worked on a major analysis of Tea Party voters.  There’s been unending discussion about what the “Tea Party” really stands for.  Is it just a handful of folks with posters who rally outside the Capitol?  Is it just another name for the conservative Right?  Or is it something more?

Our findings (which you can read here) painted a picture of a Tea Party movement far broader and less homogenous that may have been expected.  As a result, the memo has started turning heads. David, my boss, is on MSNBC this morning for Chuck Todd’s show “The Daily Rundown” to talk about it.  Just this morning, I joined Amy Holmes (love her!) and John McCaslin on America’s Morning News to discuss the results.  We really made sure that our analysis was just that – an analysis, not a memo advocating for or against the Tea Party movement.

As a result, our memo is getting press and attention from a huge array of news sources – from HotAir to Instapundit to FrumForum to The Daily Caller to The Hill to the LA Times to the St. Petersburg Times to the WSJ to Reason.com to HuffPo (and 3,000+ comments!)…ok, you get the picture.   I wrote some things myself, at National Review and then at The Washington Examiner.

At any rate, if you’re interested in checking out our memo or any of the many, many related news stories, I suggest you take a look and of course leave your thoughts in the comments.  Of course no poll is perfect and there’s no way to quantitatively capture everything about a movement, but we feel good about the fact that our survey tries to stick to the basics – demographics, top issue, basic attitudes – in order to shed a little bit of light on a movement that is making a mark on this year’s political environment.

(Edit at 1:16 pm: Also picking up the memo and covering it? CBS News, Hotline, The Fix at WaPo, and now Five Thirty Eight. And if you’re by a TV tonight for Glenn Beck, we are pretty sure he’s going to discuss our data as well. What a day!)