Polls

The Polls have spoken! And the Polls say that Americans are terrified of Dâ'ish! Well, if they weren't before the polls, they are are more likely to be so now.

The poll I saw was the Times/CBS poll and it was a telephone poll, conducted on both cell and landlines. There were approximately 800 respondents and weighted slightly toward the Republican side of things. These 800 people now represent the heart and soul of America. What a farce!

If you have a landline, you are certainly more likely to be over the age of 60. Not certainly over the age of 60 but more likely. If you have a landline OR a cellphone and you answer phone calls when you don't know the identity of the caller? You are most likely to be desperate for a conversation. Very desperate. We have caller ID for just this reason...screening out salespeople and pollsters! There are millions of people that are not interested in polls. And, as we know, millions more that aren't even interested in voting. Of any kind.

I can see that the 800 respondents are not at all like me or most of the people I know. I am over 60 but I don't answer the phone, landline or cell, when I don't know the caller. I have voicemail...leave me a message.

If the pollsters had told me what the question was going to be and how they intended to conduct the poll, I could have saved them time and money and given them the same result. Just give me half the money budgeted for the poll and we would both be happy.

I'm not bringing up something new. I read an article, in the Economist? not long ago, about this problem. Pollsters are finding it increasingly difficult to find a method of polling that will be close to accurate. Their reputations are at stake and after the polling failures during the last election, they are desperate to find a method that will work for them. I don't think this one will do it. But, in the meantime, the gullible among us, and there are far too many, will be hiding under the covers.