Democrats' Survey and Town Hall Meeting
Bruce Borgerson, 13.09.2005 15:52
A Town Hall meeting in Phoenix caps a summer-long polling project by Jackson County Democrats. Alan Bates, Peter Buckley and Dave Gilmour will give reports and take questions.
Jackson County Democratic Party leaders have called a Town Hall Meeting for Thursday night, September 22, at 7:00 PM in the Phoenix High School Auditorium. At the event, Jackson County's three Democratic legislators will present brief reports, take questions from the audience, and respond to prepared questions based on results of an exhaustive opinion-gathering project that involved nearly 1500 area residents. The meeting is free and open to the public.
Legislators confirmed to attend are State Senator Alan Bates, State Representative Peter Buckley, and County Commissioner Dave Gilmour. Congressman Peter DeFazio and Senator Ron Wyden will be in Washington, D.C. for the new session of Congress, but have indicated that they will submit written responses to key questions.
Each of the elected legislators present will be asked to respond to questions that were developed through the local Democrats' unprecedented "Listening to the Grassroots" project. With the goal of gathering thoughts and concerns directly from the voting public, party volunteers set up a booth at three summer events: The World Wellness Weekend in Ashland (June 18 and 19), the Ashland Fourth of July Celebration, and the Jackson County Fair in Central Point (July 19 through 24).
A total of 1492 respondents filled out the opinion cards, with the majority indicating that they were registered voters in Jackson County. Since many participants gave more than one response, a total of 2747 comments were tabulated, sorted and analyzed. A summary report was prepared from the raw data and questions developed for the legislators.
The Jackson County listening project was discussed informally at statewide Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO) quarterly meeting in mid-July, coincidentally held in Medford. Although complete results were not then available because the County Fair was held the following week, the complete results and preliminary analysis were forwarded to the DPO's Jenny Greenleaf in late August. Ms. Greenleaf serves as a committeewoman representing Oregon Democrats at meetings of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
"The Jackson County Democrats' project was the most comprehensive recent effort in the state to talk to people about issues that concern them," said Greenleaf . "We were very impressed, and the information was sent to the DNC to help with the work they are doing to understand what common values all Democratic candidates can run on."
More on the Survey Project
As part of a nationwide reappraisal within the Democratic Party, Jackson County Democrats designed a “Listening to the Grassroots” project to gather the thoughts and concerns of the voting public about their government.
The project involved nearly two months of preparations. Party volunteers set up a booth at three summer events: The World Wellness Weekend in Ashland (June 18 and 19), the Ashland Fourth of July Celebration, and the Jackson County Fair in Central Point (July 19 through 24).
"We had three days of opinion sampling in Ashland and six in Central Point, which worked out to represent a good cross section of county voters," said Christine Haynie, chair of the Democrat's Precinct Organizing Committee and spokesperson for the project. "True, that doesn't make it a scientific poll, even though we talked to almost 50% more people than are questioned for most national polls. Also, because we could ask open-ended questions, we were able to hear concerns voiced with subtle differences, something that can’t be done in a rigidly structured poll."
The methodology of the opinion sampling was straightforward. Passers-by coming booth were asked to fill out a card with answers to two questions, the first asking the issue of greatest concern, and the second asking what the government could or should do about it. Over the ten days of canvassing more than 100 volunteers were directly involved in the outreach effort.
After the last batch of responses was received from the Central Point fair booth, an ad-hoc subcommittee of the JCDCC sorted and analyzed all the responses, prepared a summary report, and developed the questions to be presented to legislators on Thursday night, September 22nd at the Town Hall Meeting at Phoenix High School. "The complete results won’t be revealed until Thursday," noted Haynie, "but in general we found that local residents' top concerns revolves around the Iraq war, health care, education, and a strong perception that government is not being responsive to ordinary citizens."
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