Via Politico
This poll is a gift to people who doubt the value of opinion polls or indeed those who hold reservations about the wisdom of the American populace. But those people are wrong. Firstly just because Americans can give stupid answers to opinion polls doesn't mean other nationalities are clever. It just means they haven't been polled yet. If there was proper comparative polling then we could make such judgements but until then you would be better off not throwing stones when you potentially live in a glass house.
Second opinion polls are not a magic bullet and scripting matters as we can see but we need to recognise the reality that there are limits to what truthful information people are willingly going to hand over. If you combine people's perceptions of social acceptability and the low cost of giving false answers should we be surprised when people give answers they think pollsters want to hear?
This poll is a gift to people who doubt the value of opinion polls or indeed those who hold reservations about the wisdom of the American populace. But those people are wrong. Firstly just because Americans can give stupid answers to opinion polls doesn't mean other nationalities are clever. It just means they haven't been polled yet. If there was proper comparative polling then we could make such judgements but until then you would be better off not throwing stones when you potentially live in a glass house.
Second opinion polls are not a magic bullet and scripting matters as we can see but we need to recognise the reality that there are limits to what truthful information people are willingly going to hand over. If you combine people's perceptions of social acceptability and the low cost of giving false answers should we be surprised when people give answers they think pollsters want to hear?
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