Thursday, November 09, 2006

"When You're Debating The Polls, You're Losing"

Some 96.9 FM TALK listeners were frustrated with me the past two weeks because I refused to even entertain the argument "Hey--these polls are bogus! Healey can still win."

Sorry, folks, but the whole point of the Natural Truth is to ignore nonsense like this, even when it's nonsense I'd like to believe in. But it's an unavoidable fact: Polls work (mostly). The candidate who's debating the validity of the polls is a candidate who is losing.

It's so obvious that even my clueless-but-affable buddy David Kravitz at BlueMassGroup has even noticed it. He notes how accurate local polling was, and reminds us that it was similarly accurate before the primaries.

As much as it pains me, I must suggest you follow the advice of my liberal pal: "...the next time a campaign spokesguy or sympathizer tries to downplay polls showing his candidate way down by saying that the campaign's internals show a much tighter race, smile, nod politely, and go about your business. "

He's right, folks.