"I've Got Your Poll RIGHT HERE"

by The Cranky Media Guy

Pollsters

Polling is the new religion in this country. The results of this hooey get reported on every news show as if they were Holy Scripture. That's because we've turned politics into sports and God knows we need our box score(s). I mean, Great Googly Moogly, how would we know who's "leading" if it wasn't for polls?

There's a dirty little secret about polls, however. Actually, there's a couple of 'em. First and foremost, a lot of pollsters aren't exactly what you'd call "independent". Zogby who gets quoted all over the place, for instance, is a Republican. This doesn't automatically mean that his results are partisan, but the sub-questions may be. (See below). The Democrats have their own pseudo-objective scorekeepers, too. Since the network news people are well aware of the biases of the pollsters, why do they act as if their findings are handed down from Mount Ararat? Well, now that they've got about eleventy-seven news channels, they've got to fill all those hours with something.

OK, now that we've revealed that these guys and bought and paid for, will it surprise you that the questions are bogus, too? How are you supposed to answer a question like, "Would you rather vote for Al Gore or get a swift kick in the nuts?" "Would you be more or less inclined to vote for George W. Bush is you knew that Al Gore was willing to sell America's nuclear secrets for a box of Cracker Jack?" Okay, slight exaggeration, but they're not exactly trying to be objective; remember, they're cashing checks written by one of the parties.

This stuff would be almost laughable if it wasn't for the fact that its taken seriously by news people and therefore by the public. The polls show one guy or the other "leading" and weak-minded yahoos who think that the object of voting is to be on the winning side make their decisions based on them. It's a real case of life imitating art (or life imitating fraud or something like that).

There is something you can do about this, though. Arianna Huffington, along with Harry Shearer and a few other people, have come up with a little pledge you can take that says you will refuse to cooperate with pollsters. Screw these clowns! Take the pledge. Go to ariannaonline.com and sign up. Let's put an end to this cheesy little business.

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