As I write this, there are only 58 more days to go before the presidential election.
I can’t wait.
Not for the election. I’m actually dreading that. I think everyone’s dreading that. No matter who wins, half of us are moving to Canada. Unless they build a wall to keep us out.
But I am looking forward to no more polls.
Lord, I hate polls.
First off, I don’t believe pollsters actually poll people. I think they just say they do. I think what they really do is use the old county fair method of picking a winner, whereby a cow wanders around a grid and drops a plop on a square. (Trump, I suspect, is a two-plopper, by the way.)
I base this claim on the fact that – despite the zillion polls supposedly taken during election season – I’ve never once been polled. Ever. And I don’t know anybody who has been polled either.
If they were, they’d certainly have told me.
“Hey, Andy, guess what, I got polled last night.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them it was none of their business.”
That’s the other problem with polls. Most people don’t like nosy people, particularly nosy strangers who call them on the phone. If someone were to call my back home pal Moon Dimple and pester him about his political views, he’d slam down the receiver. (He keeps an old rotary phone around just for slamming purposes.)
Now everyone has a cell phone, which you can’t slam. But who answers calls to their cell if they don’t recognize the number?
Not me, that’s for sure, because it’s probably my ridiculously aggressive lawn care service calling (“Would you like service? How was your service? Could you rate our service? Oh, and we noticed your lawn is a complete disaster despite all the chemicals we put on it. Would you like more chemicals?”)
So who the heck are pollsters talking to for all these polls? I’ll tell you who: People who are so bored or lonely that they’ll talk to anyone, even pollsters. And yet these are the people who are supposedly giving us an accurate view of who’s winning or losing?
Ridiculous.
Besides, who’s to say these people aren’t lying? People occasionally do that, you know. They also change their minds constantly, decide to not bother voting at all, or vote just to cancel out their spouse’s vote if they’ve just had a fight. (Not that I’ve ever done that. Ahem.)
That’s what bugs me most about polls and pollsters – they’re so smug. They love to tell you how scientific their polls are and how they have a margin of error of just 3 or 4 percent.
Baloney. They have a 100 percent margin of error because people are people. And yet many people take polls as gospel, to the point that some don’t vote. Why bother if we already know who’s going to win? In that way, polls steer us, not inform us. I don’t like that.
Personally, I think we’d be better off without them.
Maybe somebody should take a poll about that.
Opted for your column rather than news this am.At 93 sure need a bit of humor
To get thru the day. Crazy world- the old days were better in many ways.
Hey! Halloween is coming and we have our pumpkin head and bogey man
With all the tricks.
I’m glad you did. Best things first, right?
Amen and hallelujah!!
I am one who doesn’t comment. These days it’s just wise not to unless you know the person asking and there’s mutual respect. That’s why voting booths are private.
Yes I agree! When I do get a call (not necessarily about the election–I got one about the pipeline issue in the Straits of Mackinaw) I have to say ‘I don’t know you or where you are calling from, or what “side” of the issue you are on, so I choose not to participate.’ It’s sad that it has come to this in the USA. With all the misinformation and greed and lies, we can’t trust anyone.
I used to love polls and surveys, not anymore! Too risky.
the one intelligent poll I’ve seen was published in W Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-new-50-state-poll-shows-exactly-why-clinton-holds-the-advantage-over-trump/2016/09/05/13458832-7152-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d_story.html
It shows Clinton winning 341 electoral votes, way above the minimum needed to take the White House. It’s not about general population numbers, it’s about who’s got states with the biggest electoral numbers.
I try to ignore the polls. They might be polling people like me. If it’s a robo call I lie and I lie big. It gives me a laugh for the day.
How “polls” work reminds me of playing tic-tac-toe with a chicken at a roadside attraction decades ago. You couldn’t beat the chicken as a dispenser dropped a grain on the correct square for it to peck. In other words, you can manipulate the results of the polls. I wanted to say the people that participate in the polls are a bunch of dumb clucks but I willingly put a quarter in a device to play a rigged game with a chicken. It was worth it as one of my pals lost, if you’d polled us on whether he was smarter than a chicken he’d have lost.
That’s how seriously some people take polls.
People polled would not tell the truth? Well I am flabbergasted!
Another dumb political statement from Andrew Heller and a bunch of possible sore losers if Donald Trump were to win the election.
Andrew, I do not believe that you or any other democrat liberal would actually move to Canada or any other country if Donald Trump was to win the election.
I have heard of other hollywood liberals and limoline liberals over the years say that would leave the country if a republican would win the presidency.
As far as a lot of republican pundits have not found one limosine liberal that has moved out of the country.
As for polls, I do not trust them. No matter who is conducting/running the poll the results can be easily distorted.
Amen, jim lll
ANDY, I totally forgot about the Nielsen Polls, I always wondered who they asked considering the drivel that accounts for most TV programming. They asked me a couple years ago and I was going to do it but something came up but they just asked again.
Seinfeld would have never aired if they asked people like me