The Patriot Post® · Pollaganda: 2016 Edition

With just over four months until the presidential election, pollsters and prognosticators are searching for their moment of glory. The poll prize winner — the pollster who comes closest to getting it right most often — will earn bragging rights along with coveted guest commentator spots on cable and broadcast news networks.

But which came first, the media or the poll?

While polls supposedly measure public opinion (some far less accurately than others), the media use polls to drive public opinion. And when the media conduct the polls based on media-crafted perceptions, well, all bets on objectivity and accuracy are off.

Here’s the cycle: As we said years ago, “The most obvious method that Leftmedia ‘journalists’ employ to shape public opinion is bias; they inculcate the masses with Left-elite perspective by selecting what news to ‘report’ and how to frame it.” Don’t believe it? How many in the mainstream media are downplaying Hillary Clinton’s culpability in Benghazi? Coincidence? Not a chance.

And just watch the leftist news. As Gary Bauer put it, “If you favor border security, you are a racist. If you believe in traditional marriage, you’re a bigot. And if you think it is a bad idea to bring in more Muslims when we can’t adequately vet them, you’re an Islamophobe.”

Prep the masses with this journalistic brainwashing and then slap a biased poll on them, and of course the Left will get results that drive its narrative. Later, rinse, repeat. We call it the Pollaganda Effect: mainstream media polling used to manipulate public opinion and advance a particular bias.

Basically, the media indoctrinates the masses with selective coverage blatantly tainted with liberal bias. Then, the media conducts opinion polls of these same masses. When the polls deliver the sought-after results (e.g., Clinton with decisive lead), this becomes “news” and proof positive that public opinion is, indeed, pointing Left — right back to the media that’s manipulating it.

In the strategy to advance the Left’s propaganda, journalistic bias also has a ready ally in polling methodology.

Some polls omit candidates. Others drastically oversample Democrats. Some of CBS’s battleground state polls focus on “registered” voters rather than “likely” voters. And as we know, lots of registered voters don’t actually vote.

Whether it’s over-sampling Democrats, polling folks who won’t vote, leaving out choices, or indoctrinating respondents to answer a certain way, none is recipe for reliability. And in all of those cases, Clinton is going to gain a perceived advantage.

It’s little wonder, then, that poll results are all over the map. The Washington Examiner reports, for example, that among 11 polls being tracked by RealClearPolitics.com, “Clinton ranges from 40 percent to 51 percent, with a mean of 46.1 percent, while Trump ranges from 39 percent to 49 percent with a mean of 39.4.”

Just ask British voters in favor of remaining in the European Union just how accurate polls can be.

So when some mainstream media outlet announces the results of a new poll, consider the source. There’s a good chance you’re watching pollaganda in action.