| Roughly two-thirds
of all Americans say they no longer rely on individual polls, preferring instead
the analysis by aggregators like Nate Silver of The New York Times and Dick Morris
of the planet Zebulan. Of that group, half say they don’t read the aggregators
work directly, but rely on aggregated summaries of the aggregators' findings
on websites such as The Huffington Post, or LiberalsareScum.com.
In a yet-to-be posted blog, Mr. Silver projects that if the 2016 election
were held today, polling companies would lose 98 percent of total revenue that
they expect to collect from news organizations and political parties during the
next four years.
How desperate are we for polling data? In an actual poll taken just before
the election – and I apologize for mixing fact with fiction, although it
seems routine among many pollsters – the Des Moines Register asked Iowans, “Why
do you go to Dunkin’ Donuts?” A solid 22 percent said they go for
the doughnuts, but a staggering 45 percent said they don’t go to Dunkin’ Donuts
at all.
My analysis of this data reveals an unmistakable shift in America – from
that of a predominantly white, middle class population, to a nation of stat-starved
poll lovers.
Immediately following the election, pollsters scurried to fill the polling
void by conducting surveys on the most obscure questions. Gallup issued this
actual news release: “Americans spend less time doing what they do best
on Sundays compared with other days of the week – averaging 6.7 hours compared
to 7 hours on most days.” In a startling revelation, Gallup’s crack
analysts determined that “Americans use their strengths the most on Thursdays.”
Full disclosures: Gallup says the margin of error in its poll of the days
on which Americans “do best” is 1.2 percent, although no one seems
to know what that means. Also, Nate Silver found that Gallup’s projections
in the recent election were the worst among two-dozen polling organizations he
evaluated.
In another actual piece of landmark pulse taking, Bill O’Reilly polled
his viewers on Fox News Channel on the question of whether his program had been “fair” in
covering the election. A stunning 80 percent of O’Reilly’s own audience
said the coverage was, indeed, fair. The remaining 20 percent should be ashamed
of themselves for even thinking that O’Reilly’s program contains
some sort of political bias.
My own poll, conducted by e-mail between Nov. 6 and 8 among 14 self-described
independents, with a sampling error of plus or minus 14, shows that 91 percent
of Americans are suffering during their withdrawal from political polls, while
another 91 percent say they couldn’t care less that polling has subsided
following the election.
Asked to explain this apparent contradiction, Dick Morris would undoubtedly
say, “We experts refer to this as being ‘six of one and half a dozen
of another.’ It’s why Americans don’t care if polls are right
are wrong – they just love getting the data. Trust me.”
(c) PeterFunt. This column was originally distributed by the Cagle Syndicate.
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