As we settle into the 2000 election season, the average voter and newspaper reader will be pummeled by salvo after salvo of polling results. All of these polls will claim to be the scientific voice of the people. Pollsters often say they do a service for democracy by capturing public opinion at given moment in time. But there is reason to doubt whether they give us reality at all. In fact, Americans hold inconsistent and often contradictory positions on public policy questions.
Most citizens are ignorant of the most basic facts about government.
Today, less than 50 percent of Americans can even name their congressmen, with barely one in 10 able to say what he's doing in Congress. But despite public ignorance, disconnect and disenchantment about government, pollsters and journalists love to trumpet the results of polls as definitive measures of public attitudes. It's instant news. The stories practically write themselves. The truth is that polls aren't at all an objective measure of public attitudes.