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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mrknowitall who wrote (5438)	9/26/1998 8:32:00 AM
From: dougjn	Respond to of 67261

Despite all the detailed knowledge of polling that you display, I don't really buy your bottom line. If what you said were really how it works, one would except widely differing poll results at any one given moment in time, especially with highly contentious subject matter. That isn't what we have at all. We have poll results from four or five different organizations which all tend to come in within a few points of each other on certain key issues. Such as the President's job approval rating. The "polls" that do tend to come out different, very different, are the ones that involve self selection. E.g. MsNBC internet polls. (These results are often argued to reflect the subsets of the population that are both internet literate and active, and 24hr news station junkies. (e.g. people on this thread). No doubt there is some truth to that. But I think probably much more the poll results reflect those who are excercised enough to seek out polls to answer and to take the time to fill them out. I would expect people who are unhappy with the official poll results to be more motivated to do this. And also folks who are really, really disgusted with Clinton and want to throw the bum out. If the backlash against Republicans starts getting heated enough, I would expect that crowd (which now includes me) to start to be motivated to seek out polls as well. But not while we're in the "lets keep it all in proportion", and the "let just move on" mode. What you say does suggest that it is the most basic of questions, and the answers to them, that we should pay the most attention to. I.e., overall job approval. That comes closest to the singular question you answer in a voting booth. Other questions, such as how do you feel about Clinton personally, or should he resign, are likely to be more influenced by what other questions are asked, and asked first, etc. Depending on the circumstances the poll answerer may feel more or less called upon to register some sort of disapproval. Doug