The obvious first step was to visit the state and talk to people, to learn how they perceived the world and what mattered to them. We couldn’t generate questions until they had introduced themselves to us, in their own way and in their own environment. Once we had a better feel for what Virginians cared about and how they approached things, we could then structure specific questions for quantitative research. Politics and culture are so intertwined that one cannot usually study one without the other.
