It's the same with many, maybe most, of the government statistics you hear every day. Naturally, polls have their limits. That's where thoughtful, sensible data analysis comes into play. But that phrase too often is used to portray public opinion as flighty and mercurial, bouncing along aimlessly with no thought or reason behind it. That's clearly not the case.
Public opinion confounds conventional wisdom at least as often as it confirms it.
That's why it's so unwise to seek it through the filter of pundits, spinmeisters, intuition or a self-selected sample. ABC News Internet Ventures.