Reply #20: The poll question is bullshit. The bias is transparent. [View All]

[JackRiddler]

They ask, Do you support extending tax cuts for ALL AMERICANS?

This is highly biased toward "Yes."

Why not ask if they support turkey dinner and apple pie?

They do not ask separately: Do you support extending tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year?

They do not ask separately, Do you support extending tax cuts for the rich, knowing that this will add XXX hundred billion dollars to federal deficits over the next X years?

They do not ask separately, If you had to choose only one option, would you extend unemployment benefits for jobless Americans, or would you extend tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000?

Each of these questions would be valid in the strict social science sense. But each would get a wildly different answer.

Polls of this kind always and necessarily have a large push element. Furthermore one-quarter of people do not have land lines and about 70 percent of everyone called by pollsters hangs up before the poll is concluded. It's

Gallup consistently run their polls with faux-naive apple pie questions that favor the right. Screw them.