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By Tom Pain
May 30, 2006 I've been listening to the liberals crowing about the supposed results of recent political polls showing the President's popularity at all time lows. Ed Abraham correctly pointed out that, even if the polls are accurate, they do not mean that Americans are moving left. If Bush is less popular, it is because he moved to the left. But can we really trust political polls? When a news organization is consistently biased towards one side of an issue, aren't you inherently suspicious when they then produce a poll that says people agree with them? Don't you suspect that if the poll produced the opposite results they would not publish it? Do you know how easy it is to manipulate a poll to produce whatever results you want? Slight changes to the wording of questions can produce significant variances to the results. Am I being too cynical if I suggest that some news organizations are corrupt enough to run multiple polls, with slightly changed questions, and then choose the one that produced the best results for their purposes? What about "propaganda by omission?" What about those pollsters that only test one side of an issue? Say Smith is running against Jones in a Senate election. The corrupt pollster decides to ask his survey group, "Is there anyone you think would be a better Senator than Smith?" How many people would answer "yes" to that question? Probably most of them. Would those results allow the pollster to run a headline such as: "Strong Majority Believe Smith Not the Best Candidate for Senate." How valid or meaningful can that poll be if it does not ask for opinion on Jones as well? It essentially tells us nothing about the potential result of the election. Likewise, recent polls that only ask for the President's popularity without asking for an opinion on the opposing party's platform, tell us nothing meaningful. Ann Coulter nails this issue in her column of March 22. She notes, "liberals love to pretend public opinion is always in the process of shifting in their direction. They can't win elections * Democrats have gotten a majority vote in a national election only two times since FDR was president (Lyndon Johnson in '64 and Jimmy Carter in '76). But they're always experiencing an upswing in the polls." She documents these headlines (below) from the NYTimes, one of the news organizations consistently opposed to Bush. If they are to be believed, Bush's popularity would have been in the negative numbers leading up to the ‘04 election: * Poll Finds Most in U.S. Support Delaying a War (2/14/03) * Opinions Begin to Shift as Public Weighs Costs of War (3/26/03) * World's View of U.S. Sours After Iraq War, Poll Finds (6/4/03) * Study Finds Europeans Distrustful of U.S. Global Leadership (9/4/03) * Despite Polls, Pataki Backs Bush on Iraq All the Way (10/3/03) * Poll Finds Hostility Hardening Toward U.S. Policies (3/17/04) * Support for War Is Down Sharply, Poll Concludes (4/29/04) * Rising Casualties, One Falling Poll (5/2/04) * Polls Show Bush's Job-Approval Ratings Sinking (5/14/04) * Bush's Rating Falls to Its Lowest Point, New Survey Finds (6/29/04) Yet, she notes, " * despite the fact that every single man, woman and child in America opposed the war in Iraq and despised George Bush (her sarcasm) * a few months later, Bush won re-election against well-respected war hero John Kerry." How can poll results like those be understood? Can anyone actually believe those polls were intended as fair, impartial surveys of public opinion? She next documents the NYTimes poll results after the election: * Americans Show Clear Concerns on Bush Agenda (11/23/04) * Public Voicing Doubts on Iraq and the Economy, Poll Finds (1/20/05) * Bad Iraq War News Worries Some in GOP on '06 Vote (8/18/05) * Support for Bush Continues to Drop as More Question His Leadership Skills, Poll Shows (9/15/05) * Iraq's Costs Worry Americans, Poll Indicates (9/17/05) It's insane. If I were an honest liberal with integrity (??), I could not stand in front of anyone and quote those headlines with a straight face. To associate myself with such blatant manipulation would torture my soul. Yet, liberals are doing it everywhere, including here on U-K. I've not heard one liberal question the accuracy or fairness of these polls. I'll leave you with more of Ann's zingers: "The media are constantly telling Americans what they believe: You are dissatisfied ... You are getting more dissatisfied ... You are slowly becoming utterly dissatisfied ... Your dissatisfaction is now reaching a fever pitch!" "Despite the fact that * according to the polls * the "American people" are fed up with the war Iraq, only a few hundred anti-war protesters showed up in New York City last weekend (early March). The naked cowboy in Times Square gets a bigger crowd than that." "Despite the fact that polls show the public is ready to throw in the towel on Iraq, members of the House of Representatives, or "the people's house," recently voted 403-3 against withdrawing the troops." "Despite the fact that 70 percent of the public thinks Bush is doing a lousy job, when they had a chance to put someone else in the White House a mere 15 months ago, they decided to keep him." "There is, however, one poll taken by millions of Americans every day, year in, year out. Based on plummeting viewers, circulation numbers and ad rates, we can say with some certainty, the American people are beginning to loathe the liberal media. ‘Touche', Ann! Run the lying distorters out of business! ------------ About the author Tom Pain: Just an American boy with so much common sense, it hurts. Email: thomas.pain@direcway.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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