Polling Means Pandering to Opinion Not Fact ...

                   Polling Means Pandering to Opinion Not Fact
   Polls are increasingly being used throughout America to govern the lives we lead. Politicians poll supposedly to determine public interest and opinion. Businesses poll supposedly to determine product viability and likely success. The military polls supposedly to determine the viability of new strategies and hardware needs going forward. Education polls to determine the supposed educational needs of future students. Charitable organizations poll supposedly to determine new avenues for fund-raising strategies.
   Polls are not fit for purpose and are all wrong in determining accurate facts, dangerously so.
   Business: Polling is not really market testing. It tries to be market prediction but the limit of the sample (usually a group of in-house marketing and sales pundits with a few outside consumers) makes polling a glorified decision-by-committee wherein politics, peer pressure and personal agendas are played out. As a licensing agent for over forty years, I have seen – especially in publishing – these false polling methods mirror a lack of insight, risk-taking, and success across the board. In space exploration, polling inside and outside of industry has lead us to abandon footprints on the moon for over forty years. Want the cure? Look at Space X and Orbit Sciences – not a poll in sight.
   Military: Polling takes place among congressional leaders to see what they want and are willing to pay for, just like any whore touting capabilities to provide, well, anything you want. In addition the Military polls the generals to see what they think they need. But the moment some lower rank soldier steps forward and says their group poll is wrong, the soldier gets reprimanded. Close air support for boots on the ground? The military polling answer? “We don’t need the A10 Warthog, the polls show to replace it with more cost effective Tomahawk cruise missiles.” So far six individual soldiers have said, in essence, “What? Are you nuts?” The polls prove them wrong, of course.
   Education: Polling parents and teachers and businesses shape the direction of education. But polls are always written by someone with an agenda. “Do you want America to compete in math with the rest of the world which is scoring higher in tests?”  Yes is the only possible answer. Welcome to CORE. Testing is not the problem, achieving test results being the goal is the problem as anyone coming out of school will tell you. It is not the grade you got that was important, it is what you learned, how you learned that is the benchmark of success. And that success is entirely dependent on the quality of teachers and school infrastructure. You don’t need a poll to tell you that. But that’s one poll no one will ever conduct. Why? Because if you conduct that poll you would have to fix the school system: more pay, better training, accountability, more taxpayer support for the classroom (not the football stadium), more respect for the value of teachers.
   National charity is big business unlike local charities. And like all big businesses they want to grow, pay their employees more, be seen on TV to be doing more with more money. To achieve that profile, they think polling will tell them how to please the largest number of people. Jerry Lewis’ Muscular Dystrophy Appeal (MDA) and the Cerebral Palsy Appeal (CPA) both created the perfect public TV appeal, an appeal not determined by polling. If anyone had conducted a poll for MDA charities, they would never have thought of or had the guts to do what Jerry did. The anti-poll became the perfect appeal. Contrast that with pretty much every major charity running today.
   And that brings us to politics. Politics is, without any doubt on the wrong track. Politics govern our lives and shapes the country we live in. Politicians use polls to pander to the public, then asserting they are following public opinion and desires. They are not, of course, because the questions asked are sculpted to pre-determine or guide responses. Every time politicians use polls to help them make a decision they are not actually reflecting public will, they are segregating opinion into agree and disagree, with no middle ground. They are dividing the country. The country is not that divided, we are being told we are divided and that, in turn, makes politicians poll results to show we are deeply divided. To keep their jobs, then they need to reinforce that division to prove they are listening to their constituents which means they widen the divide a little more to show how strong they are. Any politician who relies on polls is a weak person and should not be trusted.
   Polling causes segregation. Polling causes a dumbing down of process, evaluation and intent. In the end, reliance on polling will destroy this nation. A nation cannot be led by false data designed to avoid personal accountability. Businesses fail with decision-by-committee polling. Military might and capability fails when making lowest common denominator assessment. Education fails when overlooking the obvious in favor of a good polling result. Charity fails when individual endeavor is replaced by polling drum-beating. Politics becomes treasonous when thinking is replaced by polled pandering to supposed masses.