Gramps
Mayor
I do not put much faith in polls. I have been involved with the taking of and the interpretting of polls and can understand that the purpose for polls has as much to do with influencing people's intentions as it does calculating what they intend to do. Polls are primed like a thirsty well to pay-off the results they want (a temporary slurp) instead of indicating how much water the well contains. Geeographics are a favorite tool of pollsters and play into the where as much as anything else to arrive at stats -- even on a small scale. An example is the town where I live. There are the customary two sides of the track and pollster only need to be selective which side of the tracks they make inquiries to bend the results favorably one way or the other. Take the farm belt as an example -- ask the farmer if you want to put a rightwing outcome on the poll or the urban dweller for an opposing view.
BUT the results can whittle away at the intentions of readers by suggesting their candidate is either favored or not as popular as they thought and as a result change a few dense minds.
I've had enough hands-on experience with polling and other sorts of politicking ploys to realize that man-on-the-street interviews are staged more often than not but made to appear a random cross-section event. Polls are a tool, a very important tool (from the sponser's point of view) for influencing the outcome of an election but can be statistically flawed by the pollster who in most cases is on someone's payroll and who will do as directed to earn his paycheck. As for volunteers who do the polling, well even though no money changes hands for their services they can be rewarded in many ways where their futures with a party are a consideration.
Politics is no different than sporting events that Lombardi described by explaining, "winning isn't everything, it is the ONLY thing" that matters.
But, I suspect you already knew this even if you refuse to believe it.
Gramps
BUT the results can whittle away at the intentions of readers by suggesting their candidate is either favored or not as popular as they thought and as a result change a few dense minds.
I've had enough hands-on experience with polling and other sorts of politicking ploys to realize that man-on-the-street interviews are staged more often than not but made to appear a random cross-section event. Polls are a tool, a very important tool (from the sponser's point of view) for influencing the outcome of an election but can be statistically flawed by the pollster who in most cases is on someone's payroll and who will do as directed to earn his paycheck. As for volunteers who do the polling, well even though no money changes hands for their services they can be rewarded in many ways where their futures with a party are a consideration.
Politics is no different than sporting events that Lombardi described by explaining, "winning isn't everything, it is the ONLY thing" that matters.
But, I suspect you already knew this even if you refuse to believe it.
Gramps
