Polls

Too many people put stock in polls. Big mistake! Polls are worthless.

In college I hosted a poll on alcoholics. I stationed a pollster in front of a church one Sunday. His poll results showed 0% of Americans were alcoholics. I then positioned him in front of Carlene's Bar on a Saturday night. The results showed that 92% of all Americans are alcoholics.

That is one way to manipulate polls. But by far the most prevalent, used by most pollsters, is the phrasing of the questions - how an issue is presented. They take advantage of the fact that most Americans have neither the time nor inclination to delve deeply into issues.

Case in point: 1200 students were asked, "Would you like to see college education to be free?" Of course, 97% said "Yes." Why not? Considering the question.

Then they were asked, "If your parents had to pay much higher taxes in order to give every child a free college education, would you be in favor?"

This time, though it is the same issue, only 56% said "Yes."

Of that 56%, another question, "If a free college education for every child costs your parents higher taxes AND results in 5 times more graduates competing against you for the same good jobs, do you favor free college for all?"

The number of those in favor of free college dropped to just 12%

Many pollsters - particularly those from the more liberal media - intentionally word their poll questions in such manner as to get the results they are looking for.

The next time you hear a poll, look at the questions carefully. Ask yourself if they reflect the ENTIRE issue, or just a generalized part of it. Play the Devil's advocate - if you would answer "no" to a question, for example, how would you have reworded the question to get a different response? You will soon see exactly the point I am trying to make - polls are easily manipulated, even if you poll an honest cross section of folks.

And in manipulating the polls, you manipulate many of the people by forming opinions based on incorrect or incomplete data. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you can get poll results to say 75% of the folks are for something, people tend to believe it, and the result is that about 75% of the folks will then decide to be for it, because most people are followers, not leaders.

Polls are fun. But they should never be considered seriously as a viable source of information.

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