Lou Dobbs offers a lesson in polling

[troublemaker]

Lou's nightly polls are so routinely inept that I suspect he writes them himself. (Any staffer writing these would be fired)

But tonight he did the impossible. He got a 99%-1% result. I have always taken it as a given that the baseline for online polling is about 3% on the theory that at least 6% of people cannot hit the right button and are essentially voting at random.

Here's Lou's brilliant nightly poll (The 99% was, of course, for NO):

Do you expect President Bush's speech tonight to change your mind about Iraq?

Lou's target voters presumably hold views like this:

You know, I support this war, but I'm pretty sure that I will oppose it after Bush is done talking.
-and-
I oppose this war but I'm pretty much of an idiot... I bet if I heard a speech about it I would change my mind!

[displacedtexan]

1. Brilliant analysis!

Those poll questions ignore people like me who would never in a million years change their minds about Bush* for any reason whatsoever!

[gristy]

2. Future Lou Dobbs polls

Do you think more people will die in Iraq this month?
Do you expect the Knicks to win the World Series this year?

Man, I gotta hand it to Lou. I can't come up with any nearly as good as his.

Do you expect President Bush's speech tonight to change your mind about Iraq? :eyes:

[Turbineguy]

3. I think only Groucho Marx

could ask a more heavily loaded question.

[qanda]

4. Well, since so many people are now against the war

I would think this poll is saying that many will still be against it regardless of what Bush* has to say. jmho