That’s a Clown Question Poll
Veteran blogger Betsy Newmark observes firsthand how the MSM makes the sausage:
I was polled on Sunday by PPP about politics in NC and, for the last question, they asked “Who was more responsible for killing Osama bin Laden, Obama or Romney?” I was just flummoxed. I couldn’t figure out what it was doing in a poll of standard questions on whom I was going to vote for or if I approved or disapproved of certain politicians. Well, now it’s clear what the purpose of the goofy question was – to generate stats so they could make fun of Republicans. Well, I’ll confess – I answered “not sure.” That wasn’t because I wasn’t sure but it was my way of registering how ticked off the question made me. As I tell my students, one problem that we can’t account for in polling is that people lied. So I lied. Now my answer is part of a Comedy Central gag.
If that’s indicative of the quality of the rest of the MSM’s polls, DaTechGuy may be on to something regarding his skepticism.
Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt brings in Michael Barone and Fred Barnes to make sense of the polls, and the MSM’s non-stop spin cycle.
(H/T: Ace of Spades.)
Update: Speaking of polling, “The San Fran Fed Asks What People Think Of QE3: The People Respond.”
“Weimar” is one of the more popular answers.
The modern post-Watergate history of polling is that the polls furthest out from an election can be ‘tweaked’ to get the proper results, as long as the final polls are close to accurate, since there’s no quantitative way to prove a poll on Sept. 18 (or July 27, or Feb. 3) about the November election is wrong no matter what results you come up with.
But when you look at how overtly the people sponsoring the majority of the polls are shilling for Obama this year — with more fear of losing than there was in 2008 — and it’s no surprise that the poll questions would be equally overt in trying to skewer the numbers, in hopes of depressing conservative Republican turnout, convincing squishy moderates to go with the ‘winner’ and to get Team Romney to panic and start making wild moves (and admittedly, there are a number of people on Team Romney, who — like those running Team McCain four years ago — are tied into their faith in the polls so much they’re perfectly willing to panic, even though the debates haven’t taken place yet).