Who’s Da Peeps?

Polls are a stupid way to set policy.

Jonah Goldberg writes in National Review on the subject of polls and how seriously we should take them. I'm inclined to take most them with a big grain of salt; even the ones with results I might like. Goldberg focuses on the question of just how informed the public really is, and one can indeed make the argument that the portion of the population that closely follows politics is much smaller than the general population. And it is the people that follow the issues who make, and frame, the political debate across the country.

But there are other factors to consider. The reason I tend to be wary of them is that these polls so often turn out to be poor predictors of future results. Just consider how wrong the exit polls were on election day. Polls can be poorly designed, poorly worded and can fail to ask the right questions. All of these reasons make polls a poor guide to actions, which instead ought to be based on firm philosophical and political principles.