Polled Over: What to Do With All This Attention?

I mean, seriously, suddenly the presidential campaigns are polling me?

Like many of us lucky-enough-to-live-here, I'd long ago resigned myself to the fact that when it came to presidential elections and Alaska's THREE electoral votes, we were going to be treated like the gawky, intelligent, ugly duckling girl at the high school dance. (And believe me, I know from which I speak on that one.)

So there we stood against the wall, nobody paying us the slightest bit of attention.

But this year, suddenly, we're swans! I've answered four polls in the last month. Four!

And you can often tell when someone is calling who is unlucky-enough-to-live elsewhere. The first poll came from the Obama campaign right while I was elbow deep in red salmon, putting away the fish we'd caught the day previous. Hoping to save us all the trouble, I announced immediately that I was voting for Obama. Simple, yes? I even volunteered that I was one of those rare creatures, a bona fide Fairbanks progressive in this sea of red.

Nope, the poor volunteer had to run through all the various questions designed to tease out the nuance of how a voter was inclined.

There is no nuance left when you are a progressive Alaskan who has lived under nearly eight years of Dubyah, four years of which included the governorshuip of Frank 'the least popular unindicted governor in history' Murkowski, and have faced the prospect of the entirety of your adult years being spent with Don Young representing you in Washington. None.

After the fourth question, the S.O. shouted in the background, "She's a fisher woman!" And I explained that I was actually pretty busy with the salmon processing. The pollster got the hint.

I'll say this for the Begich campaign poll that followed within minutes of the first call: in the midst of that poll, I asked to hurry it up because of the busy with our salmon thing and the caller thanked me and cut it short.

Last night I got a robo-poll from what I presume was the McCain campaign. It went thusly:

• Was I going to vote for McCain, Obama, or some other people whose names I couldn't be bothered to listen for? I pressed the key indicating Obama;
• Then came a couple of questions about how I felt toward either candidate had changed based on recent media coverage;
• Then came the question that I suspect is a feeler to see whether the issue of taxes should be how the Republicans play here - who did I feel was more likely to raise taxes? I chose 'neither.'