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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Selectric II who wrote (28015)	10/8/2004 7:52:19 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Gallup s*h ============================ Sept. 29, 2004 \| In mid-September, a Gallup poll giving President Bush a 13-point lead over John Kerry left many election watchers scratching their heads; several other national surveys from the same period all showed the race deadlocked. Gallup's credibility has since come increasingly under fire. In Tuesday's New York Times, MoveOn.org ran a full-page ad questioning the company's methodology in light of the religious views of its longtime leader: "[George] Gallup, who is a devout evangelical Christian, has been quoted as calling his polling 'a kind of ministry.' And a few months ago, he said 'the most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God.' We thought the purpose is to faithfully and factually report public opinion." A June article published in the Texas magazine the Baptist Standard sheds more light on George Gallup's paradigm for the company. "For the past half century, the Gallup Poll has been phoning strangers, asking personal questions and then telling the world what Americans believe on topics from prayer to haunted houses and the afterlife. The Gallup Poll's fascination with religion and spirituality has had little to do with the usual rationale for polling -- a client's need to accrue market research data. Instead, the polling giant has been probing the inner life of Americans for a far more personal reason -- the boss wants to see souls saved. "'The most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God,' George Gallup Jr. said** after giving the spring commencement speech at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. 'When I ask a question on these subjects, what I'm always trying to find out is, Are we doing the will of God?'" The Baptist Standard also reported that while Gallup recently stepped aside as the company's leader, his vision remains intact. "Questions on religion and spirituality are sure to continue, Gallup said, under leadership that shares a keen interest in the topic. Frank Newport is editor in chief of the Gallup Poll and vice president of the Gallup organization in Princeton, N.J. His father, John Newport, served more than 40 years as a philosophy of religion professor and administrator at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. "And because George Gallup Jr. still carries his pocket-sized notebook, for scribbling down survey questions that might come to him at any hour of day or night, his ideas might even find their way into a questionnaire now and then. "'The inner life is the new frontier of survey research in coming years,' Gallup said. 'We know so little about mystical experiences, yet the religious dynamic is perhaps the most powerful of all in American culture. This is a way to unite our country on a deep level and produce a more peaceful world.'" In a press release late Tuesday, Catholic League president William Donohue labeled the MoveOn ad "slanderous" and held investor George Soros personally responsible for "impugning the integrity of all Christians." (He also falsely claimed that MoveOn has compared President Bush to Hitler, in reference to a TV spot created for a MoveOn contest by an individual not affiliated with the organization.) Regarding Gallup's discussion of his religious ideals, "those guilty-as-charged lines were read by Gallup at a commencement address he gave at a theological seminary," Donohue said. "No matter, George Soros, the billionaire left-wing Bush-hater who funds the website (MoveOn.org has compared Bush to Hitler), has discovered the real reason why Gallup is manipulating the public: Christian bias is at work. In doing so, Soros has impugned the integrity of all Christians. Only secularists, apparently, are capable of rendering an objective survey. "For the record, in the final poll before the 2000 election, the predictions of Gallup and Zogby proved to be the most accurate. So what should we make of those who did the polling for USA Today/CNN, ABC news, CBS news, and all the other survey houses who offered the most faulty predictions? According to Soros's logic, it must be that they have more of those biased Christians working for them than Gallup." Donohue didn't bother to mention that less than two weeks before the photo finish in the 2000 race, Gallup's national tracking poll had Bush up by a whopping 13 points. And perhaps he overlooked the Baptist Standard article, excerpted above, regarding George Gallup's continuing participation in the company's work. "Finally, George Gallup Jr. retired on May 31 and hasn't conducted a poll since," Donohue concluded. "So much for MoveOn.org's accuracy." salon.com