Originally Posted By: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man
i don't like polls. without them there would be genuine surprise on election day, and people would support whoever they thought was best throughout the race and not just bailing when the numbers get low.


To a large extent, I agree with Adler here. The overreliance on polls has created a situation where the media spends less time reporting on policies and positions and more on who's ahead and who isn't. It's not about what the candidates stand for, it's about who's in first place.

This isn't to say that polling data isn't useful. And, of course, I've been known to comment on polls from time to time. But to me the media has (for close to twenty years) starting reporting on poll largely to the exclusion of everything else.