The Patriot Post® · Pollaganda in Full Swing

Reuters recently announced a change to its polling method, and it has affected its measurement of the presidential race. In the previous five years that Reuters has been conducting polls it has included an option of “neither/other” among the available candidate choices. It decided to drop the “neither” option, offering the rational that it was skewing the data. With most other election polling showing Hillary Clinton with a comfortable lead over Donald Trump, Reuters may have been inclined to question why its polling was an outlier. This method change initially favored Clinton, but it has more recently shown the candidates in a virtual tie.

Irrespective of Reuters’ specific reasoning, it has been well known that one of the tactics employed by Leftmedia outlets seeking to swing public opinion toward Democrats is what we have long called pollaganda. When poll numbers favor a leftist candidate or cause, the Leftmedia is quick to trumpet the results with a very positive message claiming that the country is moving in the “right” direction. When polls favor a conservative candidate or cause, the results are often either ignored by the Leftmedia or lamented as vestiges of a backwardness within the public that needs to be challenged and changed.

While polling numbers can be encouraging or discouraging for conservatives, it does little good to either exuberantly celebrate them as justification for a candidate or cause when favorable or to decry them as fraudulent when unfavorable. The 2012 election is a testament to that folly — the polls were pretty accurate that year, and too many conservatives dismissed them. To principally stand for what is true and good irrespective of what the polls may say is historically where conservatives have staked their claim. Anything else is merely dancing to the tune of passing fancies.