Another day, another blasphemy against rational political analysis by the media. This time, a new national poll from the Washington Post complete with howls of new insight: It’s over. Hillary is unstoppable. Rudy commands. Media polling is strange journalism. The media both creates a story by conducting a private poll, and then reports on the story they created, usually with heavy implications that the poll their publisher paid for is more reliable and loaded with insight than the poll the competition’s publisher paid for the day before. All this ignores the fact that for most people the election hasn’t even begun, so the measurement is quite premature. But the media elite aren’t exactly a patient bunch. National polls are the worst, since they hinge on the faulty assumption that a presidential primary is a national election, which of course it is not. Even if you combine all the potential voters in the January states that might actually have an influential voting voice in the primary process, it totals only about 12 percent of the U.S. population. So only about 1 out of 8 people interviewed in this Post poll have anything to do with choosing the nominee. (Unless history is turned on its head, and we wind up with some long, state-by-state battle that goes all the way to the convention. Perhaps, but a Martian invasion is more likely.) Even the early January voters who do have a voice make their decisions while influenced by things that cannot be measured now. For example, in past primaries there has been a strong relationship between the results of one primary and the next. Iowa begat New Hampshire begat etc., etc. Leading a national poll now is not meaningless. It means you are both famous and popular, two highly advantageous things when running for president. But despite the media’s obsession with them, national poll numbers alone are a false Gospel of success, especially on the Democratic side. Just ask Presidents Muskie, Glenn, and Dean.
