8th District Committee Members Question Last Week’s Southeast Missourian Survey
Staff Reports
UPDATED Licking, MO – As the results of last week’s Southeast Missourian poll of 8th district republican committee members reverberates through the 8th district, several
of the nearly 50 members of the over 80 person committee who did not respond to the survey are advising the public not to take the survey seriously.
While most everyone on the committee seemed entertained by the survey some questioned how much should be read into the results, “While I laud the Southeast Missourian for their attempt at polling the nominating committee for the 8th Congressional District; unfortunately, the amount of data collected really provides no usable indication to the general public or the candidates themselves, as to the arc of this nomination process. Personally, I am a public supporter of Todd Richardson and I was not a participant in the poll, and I know for an absolute fact that numerous Richardson supporters were not participants. Additionally, I am aware of supporters of other candidates that did not participate. To their credit, the Southeast Missourian stated in their article that the poll was unscientific and to that end, let the reader beware! As a participating nominator, I can testify from my discussion with many committee members, that many members are still undecided on the candidates and I am impressed with the overall deliberative attitude of the nominators. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the polling attempt fell short of providing useful information”, said 8th district committee member Jeff Shawan.
Most committee members had only read the version of the story containing the results on online which as Matt Sanders Managing Editor of the Southeast Missourian noted via Twitter did include an explanation of the survey’s methodology, however the print edition had a more detailed account of the methodology that was used to collect and tabulate the results. Several were unaware that the results were including the top three choices only totaled together from under 30 committee members.
In the survey the committee members’ third choice was given as much weight as their first. A fact that would have skewed the results from respondents from committee members such as Dr. Beverly Peters, “Since it was “unscientific,” my third choice was simply on a whim. I had no idea it would have the same consideration as my other two choices, both of whom I really believe in. The poll was one of the more light-hearted things I’ve done as a part of this process. Obviously, it is not in any way indicative of where this race stands, as only a handful of us participated.”
One of the key leaders in the process, Texas County Republican Chairman Bob Green commented that he didn’t feel comfortable offering his opinion, “I am taking this process very seriously and I am very much looking forward to the public forum where this will be decided next week. I don’t think its necessary to share my view with anyone else. I have to be honest with you I don’t even have a third choice at this point.”
Another leader in the process from the western side of the district who was a key figure in the Ron Paul movement and did not participate in the survey commented on the condition of anonymity, “I personally know nearly 25 members of the committee and I can assure you there were two candidates whose votes were sorely underrepresented and one whose votes were greatly exaggerated. While I would never work with the main-stream media in a survey like this several people used the extra votes to be subversive to other candidates. Further, any newspaper even loosely associated with the Daily American Republic has a stain it in my opinion.”
Chairman of the 8th congressional district republican committee Eddy Justice commented, “I give credit to the Southeast Missourian for their ready admission that their poll was unscientific. Considering the size of the sample group and the questions asked, it will be interesting to compare the poll results to the actual outcome of the nomination meeting.”