Polls...polls...polls

I'm as prone to read polls and pass on the results as the next person but have always been uneasy about them.

A reality-check from the Gadflyer:

When a Good Day For Bush Is a Better Day For Kerry
What he needs to close the deal
by Maeve Hebert, Guest Contributor
7.23.04

"...People lie to pollsters.

Polls taken after presidential elections usually find that around 70% of Americans will say they voted, when turnout was more like 50%. Do tens of millions of voters figure out a way to trick the system and vote after the election? Probably not. More likely, they figure out that "Yes, I voted," is the correct answer.

Democrats now know that "Yes, I am voting against George W. Bush" is the correct answer. In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 44% of Kerry supporters say their choice is a vote for Kerry, while 55% say it's a vote against Bush (fully 83% of Bush voters say they're voting for their man, not against Kerry). That is a victory of a sort, but it isn't enough.

Think of it as an equation: Bush is bad + 0 = Bush is bad. Without filling in the zero, (realizing Step Two) Democrats will end up with exactly what they've got right now. And it isn't the angry Democrats who are in most need of having the zero filled in, it's the people in the middle, who know they're mad at Bush but aren't sure what to do about it. That's a prime reason why Kerry hasn't surged to a healthy lead, despite the fact that Bush's approval ratings are stuck in the low- to mid-forties."

http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=175