I did a little research to see if the term ‘polling’ existed prior to the rise to prominence, (so to speak), of the iconic porn star, John Holmes…it had, although the Holmesian variety, I realized, contained one less ell.  One of the earliest political polls was a straw vote by The Harrisburg Pennsylvanian, in 1824, which showed Andrew Jackson leading John Quincy Adams by a margin of 3:2 in the race for President.  (The actual, too-close-to-call, election was won by Adams by a majority vote in the House).  In the ensuing 186 years, the average reliability of polls appears to be roughly 50 percent, (mathematically equal to guessing or dumb luck), and yet we seem to have a virtually unquenchable need for information, (reliability be damned), about things to come; some practical like the weather; some hopeful like predictions of victory in sports or politics or the lottery; and some purely fanciful, like fortune-telling and astrological predilection.  We have become so obsessed, that polling has become a billion dollar industry contracted to sample our tendencies toward or away from almost everything we do, eat, wear or think.  The dilemma, of course, is that pollsters, like weathermen, can pompously profess almost any result, (scientifically deduced or not), and find enthusiastic acceptance, at least from the choir to whom they are preaching.  I, for instance, had never considered shelling out $38/lb for yak cheese until I read that 9 out of 10 nutritionists polled, claimed it to be the world’s healthiest food source.  The fact that the poll was paid for by yakcheeseproducers.com did not dissuade me…why would they lie?

Abraham Lincoln’s observation of fooling some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time has never been more honest.  Polling is dependent on quick response with no regard whatsoever that the sample be informed about anything, no less the question at hand.  The effort, therefore, would seem worthless enough, but many pollsters, (using the Unified Rules of Polling, which actually do reference back to the John Holmes example), apply arbitrary weight to some trends while ignoring others to skew results toward a predetermined conclusion.  (I would posit the insanity of subscribing to this apparent madness, but in this case, repeating the same action over and over quite often produces very different results, in contrast to the classic definition).  And then, I suppose, to imply a sense of fairness and fallibility, there is the ever-present + or – fudge factor denouement.

In a recent survey, that I conducted myself, individuals, companies and institutions that rely heavily on polling, cared more, (89.3% to 39.4%…my poll, my rules), about people’s perception of their competency, than actually being competent.  Polling results are included in every news story and any ground-shaking announcement of, “This just in!  A new blah, blah, blah poll indicates that 61% of Americans believe blah when given a clear choice between blahand blah”, is compelling enough to cause a meltdown on Twitter, Facebook and Wall St., in the halls of Congress and the clandestine offices of the USDA, (where 12% thought Shirley Sherrod was treated fairly, 33% unfairly, and 52% were undecided, but always like Laverne better).

And…the saddest poll of all shows that 78% of Americans, the same 78% eager to weigh in on Coke© vs. Pepsi©, Mac© vs. PC and global warming vs. drill, baby, drill, don’t even go to the real polls where their votes may, (we’d have to poll to determine probability), actually have consequence.