The polls be damned

Should we do a poll to see if there are too many polls?

I have never put much faith in polls, mainly because you can get whatever response you seek.

Media polls often create the "illusion" of public opinion by creating responses to topics about which the public may know little, according to political scientist and pollster George Bishop.

At such times, respondents follow media cues and provide, as public opinion scholar John Zaller puts it, "top of the head" responses that often don't reflect stable and well-thought-out opinions.

...media polling goes on every week, not just at election time, so the media can use polls of inattentive citizens as an echo chamber for their agenda choices. That serves to defend their institutional power to determine what matters.

Because the mainstream media is too lazy, they generate news by commissioning polls.

...By manipulating the public to endorse its agenda choices through polls, the mainstream media retains its power and vital national questions go unexamined.

Why don't we commission a poll to see if we should have government by poll?

Italic excerpts from Steven E. Schier, Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College. He has served as a polling consultant for newspapers and television news.