Reply #7: Perhaps, but . . . [View All]

[gratuitous]

That doesn't answer why CNN found it necessary to scrap one of their online polls today because the Kerry numbers were coming out at a level they found unacceptable. Granting that your reasoning is true (waste of time, meaningless, doesn't affect people's opinions), then why does CNN go to the trouble of re-starting their polls.

There's a reason large companies spend gazillions of dollars every year on advertising: It works. In the same way, online polls are trumpeted by folks hoping to gull the credulous among the citizenry. We're just taking that arrow out of their quiver, that's all. If you don't care to vote in online polls, by all means go do something else: Work a phone bank, hang doorknockers, stuff envelopes, walk a neighborhood canvass. And leave it to other folks to address the online polls.