Observations from the Sidelines: Polls Among the Worst at Spreading Misinformation

A quick update on my last column. The person who defrauded and forced the closure of The Arizona Conservative Times has been sentenced to 13 years in prison. According to the attorney general’s office he had exploited more than 100 other victims. His total take from these victims -- nearly $1 million.

I recently heard about a poll conducted in Arizona. A few of the highlights were that only 40 percent of Arizonans say we should get rid of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized baby killing despite what the constitution actually says. If you read the Constitution and take it as a strict constructionist, Roe v. Wade in itself would be unconstitutional. Too bad when they asked the poll question they did not state that Roe v. Wade allows for the taking of a baby’s life up until it is born, and that much more medical evidence is available now than was 32 years ago, or that one of the main reasons it was passed to begin with is the fact that it was based on false science and lies, as so many liberal strongholds are.

The same poll stated that only 36 percent of Arizonans approve of President Bush’s plan to “privatize” Social Security. “Dead in the water,” is how they referred to it. Too bad this is not what the president’s plan actually is. This is the same tactic they use to describe his immigration reform bill. It is not amnesty. In this case, the only privatization would be voluntary and miniscule. Interesting that another poll showed 51 percent of Americans approve of the president’s plan.

The most telling question in the poll was the question on homosexual marriage. Despite the fact that even in the most liberal state this last election the issue of banning same-sex marriage was approved by at least a 2-1 margin, they expect us to believe that in the still conservative Bush country, red state of Arizona that only 55 percent would vote to ban homosexual marriage. But then again, if they can get the people to vote for a Cardinals' stadium, they can get the people to vote for anything.

I wonder if this was the same pollster who said just before the last time the Cardinals' stadium was voted down that it would win by 60-40. It actually lost 60-40. I wonder if this was the same pollster who said before the 1996 election that Bill Clinton would win by 25 points. He actually won by 8. I wonder if this is the same pollster who did the exit polls this last election and by early afternoon said that Kerry would win in a landslide. We all know, thank God, what actually happened. I could go on and on about the inaccuracy of poll after poll after poll.

Of all the misinformation and out and out lies that the media spew forth daily, polls are among the worst of the worst. Not only do they create news with skewed polls that are asked a certain way to get the response they want, they use these false polls to try and shape this country’s laws and policy.

Spineless politicians of both parties (with a few good exceptions on our side) actually use these false polls to shape the direction of this country. Rather than govern in the trustee role as advocated by Edmund Burke (the "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" guy), in which lawmakers vote according to their own best judgment as a representative republic is supposed to operate, they are voting based on the spineless delegate role as advanced by Burke. In this role they are basically robots with no mind voting exactly as their constituents want, as in a pure democracy, which the United States was never intended to be. The delegate role that many politicians use to cast their votes based on false polls by the leftist media is exactly what the Founders did not want in our country – mob rule, or in this case media rule.

"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles.” -- Thomas Jefferson

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