48% for Taco Bell; 52% for Invading Iraq
Belief:
Are the "New Atheists" As Bad as Christian Fundamentalists?
Frank Schaeffer
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
How a Public Jobs Program Could Put America Back on Track
Julianne Malveaux
DrugReporter:
Pot Is More Mainstream Than Ever, So Why Is Legalization Still Taboo?
Steven Wishnia
Environment:
Why We Need Bees and More People Becoming Organic Beekeepers
Makenna Goodman
Food:
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
Makenna Goodman
Health and Wellness:
New York May Stop Heartless Health Insurers from Dropping Coverage When It Stops Being Profitable
William Ehart
Immigration:
NYC Marathon Raises Question of Who Is American Enough?
James E. Johnson, Jr.
Media and Technology:
Focusing on Fort Hood Killer's Beliefs Is an Easy Out to Avoid the Deeper Reasons for the Massacre
Mark Ames
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
What Michelle and Barack's Marriage Has in Common with 56 Million Other Ones
Annabelle Gurwitch
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Fetus-Shaped Potatoes? Going Undercover Inside the Weird World of Right-Wing Abortion Foes
Ann Neumann
Rights and Liberties:
"My Kids Want to Hide Their Identity; They're Scared Someone Will Attack Us": U.S. Muslims Being Targeted
Jaisal Noor
Sex and Relationships:
Instant Sex: Has the Digital Age Destroyed Relationships or Made Them Better?
Vanessa Richmond
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Why Natural Gas Is Not a Clean Energy Panacea
Stan Cox
World:
With Unemployment at 40 Percent, Afghan Teens Enlist in Army, Police
Lal Aqa Sherin
Did you know that polling is illegal in some countries? In Russia, published polls are not allowed before an election; the same is true in Nicaragua. In Belarus, polls are illegal in general -- but then again, so is everything else. Still, how interesting!
I think we take our survey freedoms for granted. Nothing else can explain the appallingly low quality of our polling. Polling in this country has degenerated almost entirely into a tool for describing consumer behavior, where the goal of almost every well-funded survey is to make a numerical determination about the strength of X product vs. Y product in the general marketplace.
The brand names might be Taco Bell and Jack in the Box, they might be Democrats and Republicans; the methodology is, to a degree at once damning and hilarious, exactly the same. Take a look at the press releases for two of the top two polls conducted by Zogby last week:
1. Coke Is It: Americans Choose Coca Cola over Pepsi by 47% to 28%; 'Real Thing' Leads Every Demographic; 'Choice of a New Generation' Unpopular With Younger Consumers -- New Zogby Consumer Profile Finding
2. No Bounce: Bush Job Approval Unchanged by War Speech; Question on Impeachment Shows Polarization of Nation; Americans Tired of Divisiveness in Congress -- Want Bi-Partisan Solutions -- New Zogby PollThe degree to which polling methodology reflects the bias of the interested (and usually commissioning) parties is seldom noted when the polls are cited by reporters. For instance, pre-election polls are almost always presented in their, final, less embarrassing, airbrushed form -- e.g., 51 percent for Bush, 49 percent for Kerry -- when the actual numbers are more like 26-24 percent, if you include nonvoters.
Matt Taibbi lives in New York. He covers politics for Rolling Stone and the New York Press.
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