If you decide to read the contents of a carton of chicken livers, undoubtedly Obama will be doing well there, too.

There is a reason they call it the Silent Majority. And on Election Day you'll see why its the Majority.

Polls are for the kind of people who need to cheat at solitaire. And then be told by pollsters that is what everybody does.

-gala1

Why the defensiveness?

The article is on what the polls are saying... which don't claim to be anything more than.... uh... polls.

Defensive?

I am somewhere between amused and bemused, sweetie.

-gala1

Bush was generally leading Kerry in the polls throughout 2004. Kerry came out of the Democratic Convention with an almost invisible bump, peaking at 3 points at the most. Bush's bump after the Republican Convention was between 11-14 points.

There's not a lot of precedent to rely on here, unless you replace Bush's name with Obama and Kerry's with McCain.

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Oh, okay. The "on election day the Silent Majority will rise up and be heard" bit sounded defensive to me. My mistake. Carry on.

Actually, the more applicable quote might be -

"Polls are for the kind of people who need to cheat at solitaire. And then be told by pollsters that is what everybody does."

Which begs the question: Why are you troubling yourself to read a regular feature about... poll data?

The fact that you do - and then bother to comment on top of that - strikes me as more defensive than bemused. Not least because you aren't bothering to refute the poll data itself, but instead speak of this somehow missed Silent Majority, which I will allow may certainly exist, but is completely outside of the domain of this article... which, again, is about the poll data that is actually in hand.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.--MARK TWAIN

You should be careful if you're going to start quoting Twain. He might not agree with a lot of your ideas.

I'm still not sure if you have a point.

My point is that polls are not factual data. They are approximations . And they usually prove to be every bit as accurate as entrails. Or seances.

They benefit only those that get paid for manufacturing them. And those who want to believe in them. If you do, knock yourself out.

Won't make a damn bit of difference on Election Day , will it.

In a true democracy the first thing that would be respected is the privacy of your opinion and polls would be outlawed. Instead some of us just disregard them as the shepherd crooks that they are for the sheep that need them.

And as for Twain, I doubt you know enough of him to paint a fence. Lighten up and go be tedious to someone else.

Or go find your Ouija board to back you up.

-gala1

I've already admitted that poll data can (and has been) fallible. You'll get no argument from me there on that score, despite your repeated attempts to get one.

Instead, I've chosen to focus on what it says about you when you reflexively attack this particular poll data on this particular day, when it shows Obama up 6 points. It says a lot about your mindset. Looks defensive to me. I doubt you'd be expressing such doubt about statistics should the situation be reversed. Would your affected skepticism transcend party affiliation? Somehow I doubt it.

In a true democracy we would outlaw polls? "Respect privacy of opinion"? I wasn't aware that we were forcing people to answer polls. I'm not sure you even know how democracy works.

How would that work, exactly? Would I be not be allowed to ask people how they are voting? If I could casually ask, (letting them choose how to answer), would I be allowed to collate that data, or would calculators and spreadsheets be outlawed too? I'm not sure where we'd start.

You seem to be quite confident how much I know of Twain. Based on what, I'm not sure. Your skepticism about what we actually know or don't know doesn't seem to apply to strangers you've never met. Maybe your using entrails and seances?

Sweetie, I attack polls any day that I feel like it. On either side. I am even more of an anti-pollster than I am an anti-Obamabot. And I am even more anti-Obamabot (control-freaks adore Obama, as you so aptly illustrate) than I am anti-Obama. After the election, he'll just be CEO of Icarus Airlines. And now you won't even be able to blame Hillary. At least that canonizationfest was good fore something.

I'm anti-Mccain too if that make you feel any better.

But if gives you some level of comfort to spend your summer afternoons nit-picking, knock yourself out.

He's not going to win either way. I don't need a poll to tell me water is wet. Now that will leave you open for dry ice, I suppose. but Obama still is not going to win. If you need to find that out the hard way, you will.

That's not being defensive. Or bitter . Or PUMA. At some point in your life you will begin to comprehend it is what it is.

Do I care how much Twain you know? Not enough, apparently to enjoy his spirit. Anyone who writes like that can't possibly have ever had a good snicker.

-gala1

Right. You want to outlaw polls and I'm the control freak.

I don't want to outlaw anything. I just think we should give polls the very same credence we do the Tooth Fairy. At least then the True Believers could hope for something under their pillow besides campaign rhetoric.

Admit it. you are just too much of a Control Freak for Obama to not need to have the last word.

You and greatbear in one day. Must be a full moon.

Obama still won't win. even if you keep this post going til the last vote is cast..

Tough Luck.

I wonder if they'll have grief counselors on staff here the first Wed in November. What will you ever do for blame now that the Clintons so brilliantly outmaneuvered you?

You're right. You are so, so right.

Your blunt honesty has cut to the quick. I lie exposed, my beliefs crumbled.

So... you're saying you won't be voting for Obama?

But I am glad that now you don't want to outlaw polls. That's a relief.