Caller ID v Cell Phone

James Taranto, in his Best of the Web Today column, has a post about the fear that people without landline phones will skew the polls.

The Associated Press reports on a problem with public-opinion surveys - the rapid growth in the number of Americans who have no landline phone, only a cell:

Survey research depends on contacting random samples of households with landline phones. [Pollsters] worry that if the trend continues they could miss a significant number of people and that could undermine their ability to accurately measure public opinion. There could be implications for politics, government policy, academia, business and journalism.

The problem, it seems is that they simply can't contact enough liberals:

Those who only have cell phones are significantly different in many ways--typically younger, less affluent, more likely to be single, and more liberal on many political issues--from those who can be reached by landline, an AP-AOL-Pew survey finds.

To which I respond, "get over yourselves." As a conservative member of the "Caller-ID" demographic, I am equally unreachable. Several times this year the word "Gallup" has appeared on my display, and I have each time refused to answer. Those of us that pay for Caller ID are probably older, more affluent, more likely to be married, and more conservative on many political issues. Where is the hand-wringing that we are under-represented in the polls?

Perhaps they need to do a little research into the likelihood of a Caller ID customer versus a Cell Phone-only user actually voting in an election before they get themselves all worked up about the people they are missing.