Polls are Unimportant According to one Author.

[gjohnsoniv]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/signal/national-polls-meaningless-stage-election-135415586.html

While I do agree to some extent that polls don't tell the whole story, it is funny seeing how they all of a sudden don't matter when it comes to a tie. It's a complete 180 from what they were saying last week. In other news, people named Sandy tend to donate more to Obama versus Romney.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Especially when Rassmussen was right last time. Even Gallup is showing Obama going down. Minimise

the damage any way you can.

[Guest cardcutter]

Fact: pollsters live and die on how accurate they are on election day.

Fact: most do have their own agendas.

Now to reconcile the two seemingly opposing facts the polls have to swing closer and closer to the truth as the election nears.

I usually don't pay much attention to them until about the week before the election. I especially don't follow the network polls.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

The agenda part is not a necessity. I just don't know of any closer than Rassmussen. If his is an agenda driven

one, then why did he show McCain losing last time? There are others, maybe, but most may have an agenda.

Internal polls by candidates should be showing them how to modify their campaigns, which is usually the case, but

the ones like the CBS/Gallup and others may have an agenda. I don't understand why they would, except to keep

voters away from the ballot. That's a dumb way to manipulate an election, but is probably true.

We are a poll driven society nowadays, and we shouldn't be, and that higher form of math called statistics can do

much good or harm, depending on who is doing the numbers, not in elections, but on everything else.

[Jonnin]

There is only one poll that matters. And it is almost here.

[Guest cardcutter]

" the ones like the CBS/Gallup and others may have an agenda. I don't understand why they would, except to keep

voters away from the ballot. That's a dumb way to manipulate an election, but is probably true "

The networks are so in the tank for lib dems it is scary.

Rassmuesen is about the best. I do trust him.

Over sampling to get a desired result has been shown quite a bit this cycle. Mostly by cbs,nbc,abc, and ap.

If you have a poll that says what you want it to say it can then become news and dominate the news cycle for days.

that in turn drive the opinions of the sheep.

Fortunately this time the networks have overplayed their hand and are being seen for what they are.

Edited October 30, 2012 by cardcutter