NBC/WSJ Poll: The Agony and the Ecstasy (Rush Limbaugh's "must read" analysis)

RushLimbaugh.com ^ | Oct 11, 2013 | Rush Limbaugh

[Liberty Valance]

"The third news-cycle pox: Polls. Polls provide a ripe source for conflict because pollsters regularly reduce complex questions to queries of mind-numbing simplicity: Do you want America out of the war? Would you like it if the government guaranteed health care? Should the government guarantee full employment? Should we spend more on education? Should we cut your taxes? The answer to each of the above is, “Well, sure!” But note that the questions are asked in a vacuum, as if the object of a respondent’s desire could be had for free, without consequences. Pollsters routinely ask if people would like something unobtainable - guaranteed employment, for example - and politicians take the wistful answers as holy writ. Someone opposed to a guaranteed employment scheme can expect to be accused of supporting joblessness or hating the poor, at which point the mud would fly on both sides - all because of a poll question based on an idiotic assumption. Dumb questions beget dumb debate. In short, media organizations have been seduced by process, conflict and polling stories, and along the way have sacrificed the tradition of looking for creative ways to understand and explain the world. They have become hostages to the easy and shallow stuff and strangers to stories that touch people’s hearts and characterize their actual lives. Indeed, journalists seem to have developed an elitist contempt for the daily concerns of viewers, listeners and readers - and the public has noticed. This explains the across-the-board slippage in newspaper circulation, and viewership of broadcast and cable news."

--Tony Snow

[BluH2o]

Polling is no longer a reflection of public opinion; polling is the creation of public opinion. Polling is an effort to manipulate and move public opinion.

That's exactly right.
Polling data can be minipulated in many ways to get the response desired ... it's been an ongoing issue used by the liberal media and others for some time now. I'm sure the Republicans have their finger on the pulse of public opinion with their own polling data ... which is far more accurate.

[Rockpile]

I just restocked my bathroom with poll paper.

I prefer Northern.