Personally, I think the short-term polls are BS, if not down-right manipulated by their compilers.
Like any good game, the media thrives on creating the impression that this race is more volatile than it actually is.
So much of polling is subjective upon deriving a broad enough base of participants from across the country. Those types of polls take time to execute, and certainly are less volatile than short-term, spontaneous polling based on relatively small groups of individuals numbering under 1,000.
Any statistician will tell us that when the sample group is smaller, the variations are more extreme from top to bottom. Broaden the sampling base and the poll becomes more credible.
Kinda similar to the media failing to report the 271 page rand report on education advances in Texas, despite the fact that it was quite thorough and underwent peer review. Yet they will dedicate inordinate amounts of air time to a 14 page non-reviewed, non-detailed working paper that claims Texas education standards are terrible.
This is sound bite, rhetorical, propaganda at its worst... and the polling procedures are no less guilty of participating in these less than scientific stunts.
And btw, if you all doubt Texas' education record, you have only to look at the praise that the White House heaped on their advances (notably showing their partisan bent by failing to provide any credit to Bush)
Regards,
Ron
Regards,
Ron |
