Emphasis in Bold added.
My take on polls? Here:
http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=798211&highlight=#798211
We all know that there are tremendous varibles in polling, as the post points out.
However, what's most disturbing to me is that we're all blitzed with polls 24/7 and it seems they've become the SUBSTANCE of the news!
Are we really so poll-obsessed that no news program can spare us the "poll of the moment"? Can ANY serious issue be examined without beating our brains out with polls? I'll bet if we took a poll on that 80% would agree with me!!
Democrats Offer to Let GOP Keep Some Seats
by Scott Ott
(2006-10-19) — With Republican electoral prospects dimming by the hour, Congressional Democrats today offered to forego “the embarrassment of counting the votes” from the upcoming national elections, but to let the GOP keep some of its seats in the House and Senate.
“It’s kind of like an out-of-court settlement,” said presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA. “We’ll let our friends across the aisle avoid the humiliation of a public thrashing by our strong, attractive Democrat candidates, but we’ll demonstrate mercy by conceding a few seats, so that Republicans have at least a token voice in national affairs.”
An unnamed spokesman for the Republican National Committee (RNC) called the Democrat offer “gracious”, and said the two parties were negotiating over when and where Interim House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-IL, will give the concession speech.
Republicans have staggered in recent weeks under a barrage of painful publicity ranging from plunging fuel prices, to record stock market closes, to the Bush administration’s failure to produce inflation despite growing employment, reduced tax rates and soaring tax revenues.
Meanwhile, Democrats ride a wave of public adoration due to the party’s clear, positive vision for protecting the civil rights of foreign terrorists, retreating from Iraq so that rival Muslim sects can work out their differences without American interference, and restoring the Clinton era “spirit of cooperation” with North Korea.
While some critics have suggested that both parties wait until the American people speak at the ballot box before declaring winners and losers, Rep. Pelosi called that kind of thinking “a quaint relic of ancient history, made obsolete by political pollsters and media pundits.”
“After all,” she said, “just because we’re the Democrat party doesn’t mean we have to be slavishly democratic. Some things are better decided by a few smart people behind closed doors.”
Can't remember who said it, but someone in 2004 after the election described exit polls as the easiest to "fix" -- not too hard to pick precincts that tend to vote a certain way, etc.
Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Autobiography of Mark Twain