[Friendofgeorge]

IMHO and I have held this for years now, the “science” of political polling is long dead!

All they do is manufacture opinion, and I do not care if it`s Fox or Rasmussen or whatever, they are all garbage.

Newsweek I guess is the worst of them all, but really not much better than Fox and Ras, Fox is done by a liberal outfit of Manchester.

Sometimes I really think the conversation in the “news room” goes something like this.....

“Hey Charley, I am done with my Sarah Palin hit piece, what drawer are the Palin polls in? There`s one in particular that I am looking for, that would be perfect for my article.”

For the record... I have held this view before I even heard of Sarah Palin.

I am talking pre 2000 that the science of polling is dead

[zzeeman]

I agree wholeheartedly. I never really looked too deeply into it but it seems that at some point in time (probably decades ago), someone realized how "polls" could be used to manipulate public opinion and since that time more and more are used exactly for that purpose. I've also noticed that we are now bombarded with polls constantly, and there are polls about every possible issue imaginable.

I realize that I was a lot younger then, and most likely a lot less aware of things, but my memory in the 1960s is that there was maybe a few polls on a Presidential election, maybe one or two within the last month or so. Like I said, there may have been more than that and I don't remember them, but I know for sure that there wasn't anything like what we are bombarded with now, daily polls about elections more than a year away. It has to be crystal clear to anyone with more than a few brain cells left that the whole purpose of this constant "polling" is to manipulate public opinion. Just look at how much we are being told about the "front-runner" in the Republican race when the first primaries and caucuses are months away, and the field hasn't even been filled in yet!