Polling the pollsters

I asked Google if Pew Research Center was liberal or conservative, because I've been reading Pew research since the late 80s and have always seen it tracking a bit to the left--not horribly, but certainly there. While I was looking for some evidence (haven't found it yet) I turned up this:

Good Morning America on Wednesday reported on a new Quinnipiac poll that highlighted leads for Barack Obama in Florida and Ohio, but completely skipped the network's own national poll that found a tight race. A September 30 ABC News/Washington Post survey concluded that Obama leads Senator McCain by four points -- 50 to 46 percent. In contrast, GMA last week trumpeted an ABC News/Washington Post poll that showed Obama with a nine point lead. On September 24, former Democratic aide-turned journalist George Stephanopoulos touted the larger lead and asserted, "...You have to go back to 1948 for the last time when a candidate having this kind of a lead, in late September, lost." He mentioned that on the issue of the economy, the Illinois Senator is "blowing away John McCain." An onscreen graphic proclaimed: "Obama Surges Ahead." But, just a week later, GMA not only ignored findings suggesting a closer national race, the morning show highlighted a rival poll's state numbers. CyberAlert (which tracks liberal media)

The search developed because I had been listening to an NPR program which interviewed a Pew Research person who reported that confidence in the media was as low as it had been since 1973, and people didn't believe what they were being told about the bailout. But he said the media were misleading us about the bailout--at least I think that's what he said, and that calls and e-mails to Congresses were politically driven. Only the most vocal and political contacted their Congressional representative. Imagine! Wouldn't that be true of bloggers and the foot soldiers in the campaigns, too? On what basis should the electorate be contacting their representatives?

I didn't spend much time looking through the results, because Pew has set the rules for polling and it's difficult to accurately assess your own bias. But I did rediscover (used to know this) that the U.S. has the lowest voting turnout of functioning democracies. 2004 numbers were higher (60%), but usually it's about 50% (The Psychology of Media and Politics By George A. Comstock, 2005).

Everyone who says she doesn't pay attention to polls, including me, is always happy to see her own team go up in the polls.