So much for the value of political polls

Bleh! Again, as if a self-respecting (not a Clueless Old Liberal type for sure) conservative leaning individual needed this information to know that polls are not worth the space they occupy.

Accurate polling is damned near impossible given the bias of the individuals that create the poll questions, make the surveys, collect the data and compile it all for consumption. There's always some bias slipping in along the way. It seems that the news above tells us all that there was a hell of a lot of BIAS involved and slipped into the polls conducted during the last Presidential election -- tons of it coming from the falsified answers that were supposedly provided by the cats and dogs that were interviewed along the way.

More Proof that Bush Stole the election!

This isn't exactly a surprise is it? Everyone with any sense knows that polls are pure bull and are meaningless.

This isn't exactly a surprise is it? Everyone with any sense knows that polls are pure bull and are meaningless.

Everyone, that is, except for a certain Clueless Old Liberal that keeps pointing to polling data trying to support the most unsupportable positions ever in the hopes that he'll someday wake up and see liberals in control again.

This isn't exactly a surprise is it? Everyone with any sense knows that polls are pure bull and are meaningless.

Tell that to Klink. He'll argue with you on it.  

Tell that to Klink. He'll argue with you on it.

Not if you dont engage him! I quit long ago. As bad as Davad70 is, at least he will debate you, until he runs out of excuses that is.

As for the article:

There are fakes and frauds in every profession. The actions of certain individuals within a profession do not speak to the profession itself. Does one doped Olympian indicate that all the Olympics are fake and "anyone with any sense knows that human being aren't really capable of those physical feats"?


As for the comments:

(shakes head) More "everyone that x is y" claptrap and Colonel bashing.

Are you guys real or just a really bad AI with only three responses?

Your biases, bashing, and constant stereotyping contrary to proven reality seriously call into question your intelligence.

The comments in this thread are just more of the insanity and stupidity that has frankly caused me to hate Conservatives. As much as you all think you're accomplishing with your smallmindedness and bashing of the left, the real legacy you are leaving is to create a disquieting and disgusting caricature of the right.

When I first came here I hated Liberals and saw them for as a great an evil as anyone else here did. After nearly three years here I not only have much greater sympathy and respect for Liberals, but I've actual grown to hate Conservatives.

Are you guys really proud of yourself for this stuff?



(Is that lively enough for you, MM? )

Gene - if you've followed, at all, any of the so called COL's many rants that are wrapped around poll results that seem to support whatever his bashing topic of the week is, then you'd be pretty tired of the bias and slant in those polls and the use of polls to support any stance at all.

I'm sure that conservatives put together their own biased polls too, but the time frames referenced in the original article here very closely relate to the time frames when polls were clearly indicating that liberalism was on the rise. Seeing the results of the polls, and then seeing the methodolgy behind the polls -- including changing respondent's sex, or other vital statistics as necessary, or worse, just making up results as the pollsters saw fit -- shows where the problem was all along.

Am I generalizing if I say that the pollsters were likely liberals, poorly paid or at least not highly compensated individuals? Probably, but also probably not far from the mark. How do I know this? Well gee, the COL's own statements have said time and again that the GOP is wrong for America and doesn't care about the working poor, many of whom still side with the liberals/Democrats. The Democrats still preach that they are there to help the working poor, to keep out the likes of Wal*mart and other bastions of industry and business that would take advantage of the working poor.

So, is it really that much of a leap to find liberal bias in most political polls, especially those that organizations like CNN/USA Today/CBS/NY Times and others make such heavy use of?

I'd say that anyone with high school Geometry would be able to lay out a pretty convincing proof. Never mind the people that took Logistics and Probability in post high school educations.

Oh, for the record, again I could speak of what would seem to be biased polls from the conservative side too. For example, the recently scandal ridden former head of, or at least very important member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that was trying to bring in outside monitors and polling data to show a liberal bias in the PBS system was probably very guilty of same, though on the surface I think he started out trying to do the right thing.

He was convinced of what many people have accused PBS of: having a liberal bias. PBS is required by law to be non-partisan, and it would seem to make sense that monitoring PBS' content to make sure it's not tilting one way or the other would seem to be a good thing. Apparently the thought of having such monitoring was too much for some noted liberals to take though, and they worked to get the guy fired claiming he had actually broken the laws that he seemed to be trying to insure compliance with.

I use the liberal label here because the people that were involved in firing the guy actually call themselves progressives/liberals, and are clearly aligned with the Democrats. The man in question was clearly aligned with the GOP, and clearly was a conservative.

Both seemed to have knoble goals in mind, but unfortunately the conservatives lost as the liberals made a big scandal of the whole thing.

Again, there are biases on both sides, but more frequently than not -- at least in recent history -- the biases that come shining through seem to be on the liberal side.