Polls, Made to Order
It's pretty well-known that the results of polls can be easily pre-determined by the way in which the questions are asked (eg "When did you stop beating your wife?"). When polls are intended to influence or to advocate, a savvy pollster can come up with just the numbers you want by tilting the questionnaire. So how do we know when to trust a poll? Unless we are poll experts, we need a Pat Caddell on TV to go over it for us.
Michael Barone takes a closer look at some recent poll numbers, including Social Security and Schiavo, among others, here.