Do some conservatives cherry-pick which polls they believe?

Question

On one hand, whenever I bring up a poll in a question, such as the one that says the public overwhelmingly disproves of Bush, or the war in Iraq, these guys say that polls are not trustworthy and are full of bias.
On the other hand, it seems the same people are more than happy to point out that the Democrat-led Congress (which is half full of Republicans) are polling very unpopularly with Americans.

Would you consider this flip-flopping or just plain confusion on their part? Or is a poll only skewed if the results run counter to your political ideology?

Ruth, I don't think so. I believe the congressional poll is correct. I also believe the polls regarding Bush's job approval are correct as well.

Okay. Someone here in Answers points out in one Question that Congress has a 17% approval rating. Yet in another question, they say they don't believe in polls. Okay, so which is it? You can't talk out both sides of your mouth and retain credibility.

Answer 1

It's been a tactic of theirs for years.

Answer 2

Those are actually two sides of the same coin. I have worked in market research with a company that did a lot of opinion polls.
The one thing I can say for certain is that the political ones were so biased that in many cases people literally could not answer the questions.
One thing I observed was that polls by companies that needed real data in order to market products always had very balanced polls, as did ones for political parties if they were for internal use.
The ones for publication however were worded to produce a desired result. This was especially true of those do by the news media.
I recall in particular a joint CBS/New York Times poll that was so liberally biased that 3/4 of the respondents could not find an answer in the selection that matched their views. Those 3/4 were thrown out.
The remaining 1/4 who were biased enough in the polls direction to answer the questions we kept. That way they could truthfully state that a certain percentage of respondents had a given viewpoint. The 3/4 that found the poll too biased to answer weren't counted.
This is why you'll often see election polls giving a liberal a large lead only to have him lose the election, the poll was never accurate in the first place.
This is what first opened my eyes to biased reporting because the efforts of the major news organization to slant what they reported was so obvious.
So today when I read poll by our "unbiased" media I assume that they've already done everything possible to give it the same pro-liberal slant. If the results show results that are bad for liberals it just means that things are far worse than the poll indicates.
Consider this, if you saw a poll commissioned by say, Rush Limbaugh, that showed results overwhelmingly favorable to conservatives wouldn't you take it with a grain of salt?
The major newspaperss and networks are as biased to the left as Limbaugh is to the right.
They are also no more accurate. I've made a habit over the years of looking for source information on stories I'm interested in and I've found numerous cases where the mistakes were so obvious they had to be deliberate.
Did you know that the New York Times gets 300-400 chalenges to factual errors in their stories every month? The only time they've admitted wrongdoing was in the Jason Blaire case where the accusation was made by another newspaper. In all the cases where private citizens point out factual (provable) error the response is a form letter saying the editors stand behind their reporters work.
By the way, this isn't new. In a history of the Vietnam War I ran across an account by a NYT reporter who was told by his editors to do a story on drug use and low moral among the soldiers. He honestly answered that he couldn't because he hadn't seen any. This was early in the war when most of the combat was done by airborne, SF, and marines, all of whom were volunteers. The Times editors pulled him out of Vietnam and reassigned him. A couple weeks later he saw the strory his editors wanted him to write. The writer was a reporter in the New York office who had never been to Vietnam. The paper put the story as being filed from Siagon even though the writer had never left New York.
So you see, disbelieving the polls in the news media isn't cherry picking. Anyone who aquaints themselves with the facts knows they're not accurate. If Democrats look bad in the polls that were specifically writen to make them look good, it's not a sign that conservatives think they are accurate, it just means they know things are even worse than the polls indicate.

Answer 3

The polls about Bush have been consistent, over time and across several different polls.
The approval rating for the "Democratically led congress" is not the same as the approval ratings for the democrats IN congress. They generally poll higher than both Bush and the congressional republicans.

Answer 4

The same reasons liberals do. It 'proves' their point of view. Nothing more. Nothing less. And it's the same with statistics. For example, environmentalists will quickly 'show' how the global temperature is rising in the last hundred years. Non environmentalists will point out there have been times in the last thousand years when the climate has been colder than it is today. Both are correct in what they say. So who's knows? Probably neither of them know what they are talking about.

Answer 5

To me, poll information, at least when it is reported, has only one purpose. To tell you and me how we should feel about any certain topic. If you and I are told that 90% of citizens polled feel that global warming is a solid fact. Then you and I are more likely to think that also. All people want to be part of the majority. Its the natural way of things. A form of peer pressure, if you will.

In reality, I think both sides cherry pick. It is up to us to stand by our own beliefs in what is right and wrong. I question all poll information.

Answer 6

It seems that no matter who they are people will tend to cite the polls that best serve their needs. Some polls are, of course, more accurate than others and some are more neutral than others. With so many polling companies out there it is easy to select just the one whose data fits.

Answer 7

I would describe myself as semi conservative. I don't think much of polls as they are usually of too small a sampling to mean much. As for cherry picking ideas I think all people do that. Some are more tied to their particular beliefs than others and this affects what they believe, sometimes to the point of incredulity. As for congress well they sure have not accomplished much and I struggle to see much difference between this one and the last.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

Some polls are inherently suspect due to the polling method and/or phrasing of the question. You cite the fact that the American people disapprove of the war overwhelmingly. You might want to reassess that in view of the undeniable success in recent months.

Answer 10

Absolutely not.
Some conservatives never do such a thing an neither do some liberals.
Where do you get this crazy stuff?

Answer 11

It's not a 'conservative' thing, it's a human thing. Cherry picking is a characteristic of all political and societial stripes.