After I graduated from Betty Owens secretarial school in March 1975, my first job interview was with The American Bible Society for a secretarial position. My application was rejected. Too aggressive, I was told - though carpentry was part of my lineage. Next interview, advertising agency BBDO, which decades later was subsumed by OMD, to be hired in the TV programming department to work for Bob Levinson and Paul Wigand. Within months I wangled a job as commercial traffic coordinator for Chrysler, which shortly thereafter morphed into an assistant national TV buying position...

In my view, the crux of the problem associated with presidential polling is panel participation, or more appropriately, nonparticipation. Unlike television research, small sample size in this environment is not nearly as problematic. But for some of the pollsters involved in a recent conference call I heard last week, nearly nine out of 10 people initially chosen to participate in the poll refused to participate. Which means quite literally, if a researcher went up to the door of ten houses on a block (or in a grocery store or more likely on a telephone) nine shut her down before answering …