Jake and his chums can then high-five each other in delight at their splendid clairvoyance. All the while, no one has the bad taste to point out the cozy relationship between the media corporations and the two main parties. The tens of millions that Gore and Bush blow this fall on campaign ads attacking each other will end up in the fat bank accounts of Disney, Time Warner, NewsCorp and General Electric. Opinion polls are used by elites to control an obstreperous populace. Far from offering a sampling of public opinion on an issue or a candidate, the purpose of a poll is to coerce.
People are to be whipped into line by the lure of safety in numbers.
The candidate who is ahead is obviously the better man, just as the pol in single digits clearly deserves nothing better. Unpopular policies are rammed down a recalcitrant population's throat through tendentiously posed questions designed to yield the correct results. These are then relayed back to the public so as to silence the doubters. The outstanding example of the method was last year's bombing of Yugoslavia. Armed aggression against a sovereign country is never popular.