Reply #14: The limits of polls-- esp one that could not contact a million survivors [View All]

[Tom Joad]

I do think that polls, to a certain extent, do reflect trends in the thinking of people. But there are problems. In this one, first off, is that whole chunk of the population could not be contacted. If they called one person on the list that happened to be a number in NO, he may be still treading water without a working phone line.

But even beyond this is the limit of the question itself. Basically here is a yes/no question. One cannot see here the intensity of the No/Yes. We do not know this for sure, but it could be the many of the No, the Pres is not doing a good job, is not doing a good job, but they feel that very strongly. The people that believe he is may believe it very tentatively.

If one talks to co-workers, friends, family that are not political, and ask them there views on different issues, their answers are difficult to categorize oftentimes.