“This thread is perfect evidence of why... because they are held accountable for only one poll - the last one.”
You are cherrypicking though. I don’t pay attention to one poll. I pay attention to the average. The industry average stayed pretty constant. There was no gigantic move at the last second.
Look at the RCP averages. No big swing period.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html
I pay attention to polls, not averages.
A better method than averaging may be a median so outliers on both ends get tossed.
I hope no one listens to Zogby/Newsweek/CBS again after this election.