Poll Tool:Reporting or Making the News?

I love watching the pollsters, journalists and pundits twist as they struggle to explain an unprecedented failure of their tool of persuasion, their polls. They don’t understand that the glass ceiling many older women have been bumping into for centuries is really a glass floor that all white men have been dancing on. Men have abused, suppressed and ignored women and have shaped public opinion by shouting down and dismissing women who disagree with them. (Watch Chris Matthews with women guests who disagree with his position.). Dan Abrams chuckled last night “The weather was warm and there were all of these old uh older women were coming to the polls”. Yep. Those old broads voted because it was warm enough for them to come out, otherwise the frail old women would have stayed at home.

I see this unprecedented poll failure as a great opportunity to reclaim the electoral process and force the media to report not make the news. Polling is the life blood of the pundits that gives them to power to speak for us and therefore, shape the outcome of elections. If we refuse to participate in the polls, they will have an opportunity to report not make the news. To begin to stop the spectacle of fabricating the news, hang up when a pollster calls; if pressed by a pollster lie, after all you’re not under oath; after you vote keep it private.

We shouldn't’t have been surprised by the results not being what we “expected” because we shouldn't’t have been expecting a result. Tom Brokaw was right when he said the press was trying to get in front of the news. We can insist that the press wait with the rest of us and do what they are supposed to do, report the news, not make the news.

Susan Herbst, the public policy professor from Georgia Tech., quoted in an ABC News article gave sage advice to the journalists, candidates and pundits; "I hope this is a wake up call for the journalists, candidates and pundits." I see the failure of the polls as a wake up call and an opportunity to take back the process of the voters electing our leadership; don’t participate in polls. Let’s see what the candidates, not the pundits really have to say about real issues.

We can vote for candidates based on what we see and hear from the candidates, not what the press thinks they see or hear about a candidate that they think we might want to see or hear. We don’t need more analogies and opinions from experts to explain what we see and hear. We know that “Father does not know best.”