This is something I've been thinking about for awhile. I've been really into politics ever since I was young and followed polls closely in 2004 and even more so in 2008. I was obsessed with Nate Silver's blog and it really helped me understand the intricacies of polling including methodology, bias etc. It seemed a little more straightforward in 2008. I remember there being a lot of polls (more than this cycle) - mostly on the neutral-ish side of things with some very right-wing leaning pollsters and some left leaning pollsters.
But something has changed in 2012. Polls are becoming more and more about narrative building. This false sense of "Mittmentum" is just the most recent result of what is happening. I remembered getting so frustrated a couple weeks ago when things were looking bad for Obama but were made even worse on days when it seemed that the only polls that were released were Rasmussen, Gravis, ARG etc. There are not nearly as many polling outfits that could be consider "Democratic" pollsters. And the ones that are don't release polls as often as the conservative ones do.
I think the Republicans figured this whole thing out first - polling can really affect narrative and that can be more important than accuracy. Why? Because if you build said narrative than those polls can partially become the reality.
The way I see it two things need to change in time for the next election. First Democrats need to be prepared to shell out for some more left leaning polls (btw I'm not advocating putting out fake polling numbers by any means. But we should be out there polling with our methodology instead of Scott Rasmussen's. Reality has a liberal bias).
Second and most importantly I think there needs to be way more accountability in polling. Nate can't be the only person who ranks pollsters by accuracy. You have the whole MSM or whatever political pundit just throwing out poll numbers to create their preferred narrative without any questioning of that pollster. If MULTIPLE blogs and websites that deal with poll aggregation started listing polls by their accuracy in the last few elections then with time people would begin to realize that some polls are more worth citing than others and not every poll is created equal.
Obviously I don't know how this actually gets implemented. But I really think it NEEDS to happen because we know that some undecided voters make their decision based on who they think is going to win and polling is becoming just another political tool - if you don't use it and the other side does you end up with a big disadvantage.
