homegame

Polls

In a nation of 300 million, we can't ask for a show of hands every time some question comes up, be it "who should be president" or "does Studio 60 suck or what?". So we got polls.

Maybe show of hands would be better. The following polls are generic ballot questions from five polls taken over the weekend, all from polling and news organizations of the highest reputation. The point that follows is non-partisan to the max. It's about math and mass society.

Pew: D 47-R 43
Post/ABC: D 51-R 45
Gallup: D 51- R 43
Time: D 55-R 40
Newsweek: D 54-R 38
CNN: D 58-R 38

So according to the masterminds of opinion samples, the Democrats are favored in tomorrow's election by somewhere between 4 and 20 points. Somebody's wrong up there. Somebody could be mismeasuring one-sixth of the electorate. Some distinguished newsgathering organization is stuck with a false premise. Maybe all of them are. This spread makes each survey incredible, not to the poli sci majors maybe, but to normal people. What's the point of these damn things? If I'd written an article the day before a Super Bowl saying the Pats would win by a margin between 4 and 20 points, my boss would've flown on-site and killed me at the pregame brunch.

All political journalism is based on polls. Without them, Chris Matthews would be struck dumb, and the Washington Post would be nothing but the funnies and the classified ads. And news organizations must stick with the polls they commissioned. So today, CNN will be forecasting a Democratic sweep while ABC will be focused on a Republican rally. Someone will be slinging bullshit. There's an excellent change all five polls will be bullshit.

Perhaps it's time to remove the rectal thermometer from the body politic. If we had to fly blind in a non-poll universe, we couldn't see less than we do now.

posted by Michael Gee @ 11:22 AM