I am more with you than with him on not quite the same grounds.
The share of reportage and discussion and attention devoted to results of under-specified polls is enormous, and takes attention away from more reporting and analysis of more substantial matters, like indeed policy. I don’t think what people are interested in is independent of what they have easily accessible information on— nor of what they seem to be taught they should be interested in.
When it comes to politics, in particular, I think that a lot of USians come to reporting to be Responsible Adults or to be The Smart Guy— and that what gets reported teaches them what constitutes those identities.
I have asked myself what/whom polls are good for, apart from whatever entertainment value they may have. And I have two answers.
1. Politicians. A politician in office or on the campaign trail can benefit from a poll that showcases constituent and national concerns, to know where to spend more resources on making contact and/or explaining a policy concern and stance. Or, you know, changing their minds about policy in response. I suppose that with our gangstery campaign finance systems poll results also *have to* play a role in contribution-seeking— as obvious they’re doing.
2. People in the gambling industry. Which has hypertrophied.
I'm totally with Rick, but appreciate the takedown from Marshall on the usefulness of getting out of our bubbles, whether social/physical geographic or digital. The problem is how polls get reported--sort of like how novel science results get touted, simplified, reported without context--and the confidence which should be ascribed to a result is, if it is included at all, often comes at the end of the article.
But the flip side of the bubble is that polling itself can become part of a bubble, a ring-doorbell that keeps you thinking you know what is going on, and therefore don't need to answer, perhaps precisely because some raw recruit coming to talk with you about politics is really redundant. As an old man with plantar fasciitis, the juice for the squeeze of walking on concrete, trying to do my duty, opening up political capillaries so that blood/political energy can flow--my faith in its efficacy ebbs and the temptation to sit here and type things like this becomes stronger. But Rick's passion about the existential stakes contributes to keeping me going!
I'm with RP on this one. Polling (and sampling) has never caught up to the internet/cell phone age and is easier than ever to manipulate. The questions never allow nuance or out of the box reasoning. The world is still analog. Polling attempts to reduce it to digital streams of ones and zeros. Prediction markets feed off polls and are even more subject to fakery.
Read both your piece and Josh Marshall’s response. I think he has the better of the argument. I agree with him about the carnivalesque nature of political campaigns and the way that polling ups and downs feeds into the general messiness of it all.
Ezra Klein’s use of the word ‘buzzworthy’ to describe Mark Penn’s new book is laughable from the writer who introduced ‘Abundance’ to the lexicon. Mark Penn is loathsome, but Klein’s book title was intended to do just that: create buzz.
One can see polls as contributing to pre-game chatter, like MLB Wins Against Replacement and the WNBA +/- tallying. But methodology matters, to those who care -- complicated by the fake-poll kerfuffle in California. The voters have the final say.
I am more with you than with him on not quite the same grounds.
The share of reportage and discussion and attention devoted to results of under-specified polls is enormous, and takes attention away from more reporting and analysis of more substantial matters, like indeed policy. I don’t think what people are interested in is independent of what they have easily accessible information on— nor of what they seem to be taught they should be interested in.
When it comes to politics, in particular, I think that a lot of USians come to reporting to be Responsible Adults or to be The Smart Guy— and that what gets reported teaches them what constitutes those identities.
I have asked myself what/whom polls are good for, apart from whatever entertainment value they may have. And I have two answers.
1. Politicians. A politician in office or on the campaign trail can benefit from a poll that showcases constituent and national concerns, to know where to spend more resources on making contact and/or explaining a policy concern and stance. Or, you know, changing their minds about policy in response. I suppose that with our gangstery campaign finance systems poll results also *have to* play a role in contribution-seeking— as obvious they’re doing.
2. People in the gambling industry. Which has hypertrophied.
I'm totally with Rick, but appreciate the takedown from Marshall on the usefulness of getting out of our bubbles, whether social/physical geographic or digital. The problem is how polls get reported--sort of like how novel science results get touted, simplified, reported without context--and the confidence which should be ascribed to a result is, if it is included at all, often comes at the end of the article.
But the flip side of the bubble is that polling itself can become part of a bubble, a ring-doorbell that keeps you thinking you know what is going on, and therefore don't need to answer, perhaps precisely because some raw recruit coming to talk with you about politics is really redundant. As an old man with plantar fasciitis, the juice for the squeeze of walking on concrete, trying to do my duty, opening up political capillaries so that blood/political energy can flow--my faith in its efficacy ebbs and the temptation to sit here and type things like this becomes stronger. But Rick's passion about the existential stakes contributes to keeping me going!
I'm with RP on this one. Polling (and sampling) has never caught up to the internet/cell phone age and is easier than ever to manipulate. The questions never allow nuance or out of the box reasoning. The world is still analog. Polling attempts to reduce it to digital streams of ones and zeros. Prediction markets feed off polls and are even more subject to fakery.
Read both your piece and Josh Marshall’s response. I think he has the better of the argument. I agree with him about the carnivalesque nature of political campaigns and the way that polling ups and downs feeds into the general messiness of it all.
Ezra Klein’s use of the word ‘buzzworthy’ to describe Mark Penn’s new book is laughable from the writer who introduced ‘Abundance’ to the lexicon. Mark Penn is loathsome, but Klein’s book title was intended to do just that: create buzz.
That was 15 years before "Abundance." Were you the same 15v years ago?
One can see polls as contributing to pre-game chatter, like MLB Wins Against Replacement and the WNBA +/- tallying. But methodology matters, to those who care -- complicated by the fake-poll kerfuffle in California. The voters have the final say.