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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Why Waste the Time Taking Polls?

I was looking at that latest polls for the Iowa caucus and have come to the conclusion that they are all garbage. It is not just that the polls disagree; they are not even close. And the differences between polls cannot be explained by when they were taken or the type of voter questioned. In the last three days, four polls have been released with regard to the GOP Iowa Caucus. All four poll "likely" caucus voters. Each comes from a respected polling organization. That means that there ought to be some measure of consistency among these polls. But there isn't.

Let me explain: Ron Paul gets between 20 and 28% in the four polls. This is a wide swing. Mitt Romney gets between 18 and 25%. Newt Gingrich gets between 13 and 25%, an even bigger swing. Rick Perry ranges from 10 to 16%. Santorum swings from 3 to 10%. Only Bachmann at 6-10% and Huntsman at 4% or less show any consistency in their numbers. So all these polls tell us is that Paul, Romney and Gingrich are the leaders, but there is no agreement who is in first place. We also know that Bachmann and Huntsman as well as Santorum are lagging behind. This all leads to the overarching question: why waste time taking these polls anyway? Since the results are unreliable, the whole polling process is just a waste of time and money.

1 comment:

jim said...

Jeff, the real problem is that the Iowa Caucus is a freak show and always has been. Waste of time particularly the way they do it. It is a joke and both parties ought to boycott it.