Perhaps it comes from Merc's years of professional experience working for political strategy consultants or private sector market research companies....where polling is a proven and effective tool among many such tools to gather and/or assess public opinion.

Oh wait...Merc has never worked in those fields, has he?

Nope, but I know how those who have want to convince others and the masses that they have validity which they do not. Some call it marketing, others call it push advertising or lobbying. But then again I don't deal with trying to manipulate the system for special interest groups either. I treat them all the same, just like shit.

There is a huge difference between push polls (Karl Rove was an expert with those) and statistically sampled public opinion polls, with the questions validated for bias in advance, and accounted for in the results.

When you have experience with using valid public opinions polls created by professionals....and see the value....get back to me.

The only point I would concede is that with most of the media polls, they only share the numbers and not the pages of analysis that accompany those numbers and address the biases in both questions and respondents.

Anyone with a simplistic understanding of statistical measure understand the weakness of polling as having the weakest form of validity. Anyone can study the history of manipulation of media, advertising, or study any miriad of historical examples of the use of polling to sway public opinion and the underbelly of the beast is exposed. So you admit to being part of it, good on you for having the balls to admit that you are part of the BS lies. Congrats.

yep...I just have a simplistic understanding of political polling, having studied the subject, worked in the field and seen its value firsthand..but you are the man who knows better!

Congrats! I aspire to your greatness and your all encompassing knowledge!

I like that line

Thank you.

Some types have been around forever. From the Book of Job:

"Oh yes. All wisdom will die with you." (Job speaking to some other know-it-all)

I would never say I was a "know-it-all". About anything.

:eek: I can't believe you actually said that! :eek:

You think? the fact that they called it "ObamaCare" should have been a clue...

After reading the posts since the last time I time I was here, I stand by my assertion that a LOT of the negative stuff out there is coming from a place of racism. There are a lot of people in this country who are not comfortable having a black man in charge. And they are willing to start a fucking violent revolution and overthrow the government in order to prove it. Anyone who doesn't see it is IMO very naive.

It was reported on the news that Obama has had more death threats than any president, EVER, in the history of this country. That cannot just be a coincidence.

And the sad thing is, some politicians are fueling the flames with their rhetoric, legitimizing the nonsense. All the talk of seccesion, and death panels, and socialism, it is ridiculous coming from politicans. It seems that now it is OK for a politician to talk in such extremes to call the lunatics into play. I wonder how they would feel if the president was assassinated because of their legitimizing the whacko extremists?

http://www.truthout.org/091209E
"...Potok says that beyond the usual backlash against immigration, hate and militia groups have been reenergized by the economic crisis, the ascendancy of a progressive agenda on Capitol Hill, and the election of the first African American president. The day after Obama was elected, activity surged on hate sites across the Web and several prominent white supremacist groups saw a spike in membership requests.

Taken together, the factors amount to what experts call a "perfect storm" for extremism to blossom. Meanwhile, Potok says the barrier between the white nationalist movement and traditionally less racist elements of the radical right is beginning to recede, leading to more collaboration between the groups.

"In a sense there are distinct aspects of the radical right and the more nonracial part of the radical right, the patriot movement or militia movement, you couldn't fairly describe it as a white supremacist or white nationalist movement," said Potok. "Yet the militia movement as it is reemerging is more racialized than it used to be."

Potok says the radicalization of the health-care debate, characterized by widely exaggerated claims and attempts to paint the president as a socialist, is only making things worse.

"These kind of ideas are getting mainstreamed in many cases by people in positions of real authority," he said. "I think that mainstream politicians and cable news commentators have contributed in a really vile and shameful way."

Bull shit. I don't believe that one minute. Some? Sure. The majority? Hell no. It is about the issues. I think he is very presidential and doing a great job of representing the office. I just don't agree with many of his socialist ideals. I could care less if he was a Martian.

IT will for ever be known as ObamaCare. Forever, failure or success. So far I see nothing but complete failure in the plan.

I never used the word polls.