http://tinyurl.com/3nwpl9

Please forward!

Please take a moment and give us your thoughts on our 8 questions. We’d love it if you passed the word to your friends. We’re shooting for 1000 responses.

Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/4tbzz8
Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eightquestions
Blog: www.eightquestions.info

Thanks!
-Kyle

I want to know what you think. Here’s a quick EightQuestion survey about this very topic:

http://tinyurl.com/336ghz (don’t forget to tell your friends)

Check back here next Friday, April 11, for an update. Or just subscribe to our RSS feed and we’ll notify you of the update automatically. How convenient.

Kyle

Let’s start with what political parties are represented by our participants. More than 56% were Republican; 9% were Democrat, 16% claimed to be independent, and another 19% claimed “none.” Is that because you hate the establishment or because you never registered to vote? Who knows.

While I’ve watched and engaged in my own conversations about the issues, it’s no surprise what ranked as the top issue for our respondents: the economy (79%). In all, I listed 17 different issues and asked each participant to select which issues played a role in their voting decision. Here are the top five:

• Economy (79%)
• Ethics (72%)
• Foreign Policy (67%)
• Faith (63%)
• War, Family (58%)

It’s interesting to note that Veterans (16%) and Technology (19%) were the least important issues to the participants.

The focus of this survey was to find out who people would vote for today. Sixty-one percent said that they would vote for John McCain, 34% for Obama and only 5% for Hillary Clinton. As with any election, there are always a few write-ins. This survey had three people list Ron Paul as their candidate.

Something I found a bit disturbing is that 47% of the participants said they would still vote on decision day even if they were unable decide on one candidate. Maybe I should have followed up that question by asking if they would have just voted party lines? Twenty-six percent did say that they wouldn’t vote at all, and 28% said they didn’t know if they would or not. I’d just like to say, if you don’t know, do the research so you can be educated and informed.

Speaking of research, 81% of the participants said that research would be their main external influence in formulating their voting decision, followed by friends (40%), family (37%), media (33%), church (30%), parents/pastor/mentor (12%) and coworkers (5%). It appears that celebrities don’t have as much say as you’d expect. Not one of the participants cited them as an influence.

On the question of faith and their voting decision, 91% of participants declared that faith was a central influencer.

In the “sound off” box, we found one consistent comment, “I really don’t like any of the three.”

Based on this survey, it looks like John McCain is going to take this election by a long shot … that is if the remaining 47% of the population can make their decision before election day.

• Male (58%), Female (42%)
• Median Age: 32
• 56% of participants were ages 25-34

Take our EightQuestions survey here. We’ll report our findings on Monday, March 31, 2008.

Tell your friends: http://tinyurl.com/yp7k55

Don’t forget that all answers are anonymous.

As our culture and generations seem to get further and further away from the liturgical and threads of faith that used to dictate the foundations of our society, I thought it would be interesting to ask people what they knew of Good Friday and see if and how they observed the holiday. Here’s what I found out.

By and large, corporate culture isn’t observing the holiday. Sixty-nine percent of the 94 survey participants companies were not given Good Friday off from work. However, 34% reported that their company did close early.

When asked what the purpose of Good Friday was, 84% of the participants knew that it was to remember the death and burial of Jesus Christ. A remnant thought it might be to begin the celebration of Easter (6%), others (7%) thought it was to remember and celebrate the goodness of Jesus’ work on earth, and finally, 3% simply thought it was an excuse to get a day off from work.

Surprisingly, 76% of the participants said they were NOT going to Church on Good Friday, but 61% of them said they would observe the meaning of the day in their own way. Not surprising, 83% planned to attend an Easter service this past weekend with 79% intending to participate in an Easter dinner or gathering with friends and/or family.

At the end of the survey, we offered people to give their thoughts on the holiday in whatever capacity they’d like. While most of the 16 comments informed us about Eastern Orthodox observances or their confusion on why Easter moves every year but Christmas doesn’t, I did find two comments that were worth noting:

• I honestly do not know how to celebrate Good Friday, besides thinking, “Oh yeah, it is Good Friday, thank you for dying for my sins, Jesus.”
• We actually have a family tradition … where we turn off all the lights, and other electrical products in the house; respecting the darkness of the earth, and having some silence to commemorate Jesus’ death. And on Easter Sunday we turn the lights back on in celebration of his resurrection.

Now that Good Friday and Easter have passed, how did you celebrate the Holidays?

—Kyle

• 94 total participants
• 56% male, 44% female
• 57% of participants were between 25-34
• Average age was 32
• Median age was 29.5