Quote:
Originally Posted by Liberty";p="
A single poll is not going to tell you who is going to win the election, but does provide a picture of how the race is going at that point in time. This information is valuable to candidates and helps to guide their campaigns. Polling data is quite worthy of discussion, and should not be eschewed simply because the #'s will change constantly before November.
To say polling data is meaningless is like saying 97% of a football game is meaningless because any team has the possibility of winning the game in the last two minutes.
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No, they're not TOTALLY meaningless, but in a race this tight, they might as well be. All you can really say is "this state is close, this state isn't." In many of those states, trying to pick a winner is a fool's game.
To totally mangle your analogy: In a football game, at least you know what the exact score is, how much time is left on the clock, and the field position. And other than injury, unexpected outside events aren't likely to throw a wrench in things.
A pollster trying to determine the outcome of the game wouldn't be watching the game; he'd be asking the audience who they thought was going to win. He wouldn't know the field position or exact score, and his polling results would vary depending on which section of the stadium he polled, since he'd occasionally stray into a section crammed with fans of one side or the other. Further, he'd totally miss the opinion of the people who have left their seats to get some food or go to the bathroom.
Talk about polls for the fun of it; just don't place very much faith or importance on them. Me, I generally find talking about them a waste of time and bandwidth.