On Jul 29, 2008, at 8:10 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> <http://www.gallup.com/poll/109132/Assessing-Impact-Obamas-Trip.aspx>
>
> PRINCETON, NJ -- Could John McCain benefit from Barack Obama's much-
> publicized foreign trip? Several observations from the just-
> completed USA Today/Gallup poll suggest that this is a possibility.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
Such polls are just noise, and not only because they have never been of any use so far from the election. The fact is that the pollsters, nearly all of them capitalist firms, have an enormous financial interest in the outcome of their polls: the demand for their product depends on a perception that the election is *close*. And their control over their own methodology, especially question formulation and weighting of respondents, enables them to get as close a result as they want every time. Incidentally, an honest question--used by no poll as far as I know-- would be this:
"do you expect to vote for: -the Republican candidate -the Democratic candidate -a Third-Party candidate -no preference yet"
And an honest weighting would be no weighting at all. A truly random survey needs none if large enough (another example of profit-seeking trumping honesty is the inadequate sample size of all the polls).
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things...it consents and does not consent to be called Zeus."
Herakleitos of Ephesos