"The character of reporting is another matter. But polls are usually right. Not always and not exactly. But by and large they have a very good record. It's silly to think that we -- whether 'we' is reporters or political junkies or ordinary voters -- are going to ignore the information that's right in front of us."

It's true I guess that in an abstracted reality we could simply listen to the candidates, ignore all probabilistic data available, go to the polls with no idea of the result and learn the outcome the following morning. But that's not the world we live in nor do I think it's one I'd want to live in.--Josh Marshall"

With all due respect to the esteemed Mr. Marshall, his argument is simply unfounded, especially "polls are usually right". Perhaps often, perhaps sometimes. Not anywhere close to usually, and when they are, there's no evidence to show that the suggestions posed by polling--Richardson is unelectable--don't drive public opinion. Polls can be useful,when the time is taken to do them right. But that's not where our polling is at right now; its market driven and rushed. I don't believe anything I see in the polls--the net effect of that is I voted for Nader in 2004. I doubt he would have gotten any votes at all if there hadn't been some people out there who thought likewise. The net effect in New Hampshire may also have been that a lot of Obama supporters with hectic schedules took a break from voting, since it was such a cinch.

In a world without polling, perhaps plebiscites would take over as the way of judging public opinion, or perhaps people would simply vote for the candidate they believed in, and then the most popular would win. In a sense it doesn't matter if polls are accurate; they are not a replacement for political activism as a way of making the voice of people heard. Lastly, I can't imagine that things could be worse than they've been for the past decade or so.

I don't disagree that polling in some instances can be useful and accurate, and it might even be true in the political process. Try as a I might, however, I can't see its value when it comes to the political process. There really is no valid reason to know whether or not a candidate is viable; in fact, I can think of a dozen real world reasons why we should never take such a thing into consideration. Polls told us for many of the first years of the gulf war that strong majorities supported our involvement there. I'll never believe that's true, nor do I believe that Bush won the presidential race in 2004. I believe he lost it, that his victory was invalid; and I believe the reason was that a majority of people did not support his policies.

In the interest of veracity, I never said that I believed polling process was 'bullshit' or that questions were inherently framed that way. I don't think that's the problem. Again, my main issue is with the sample group and the cost-cutting, corner-shaving ways it is determined, to the detriment of our political process.

I have to agree that the "kids being blown up on both sides" argument holds little water with me. I can't remember an instance where the US conceded the same courtesies it expects--that is incurring sovereign territorial waters with impunity. I don't believe we have a right to even be patrolling the gulf, much less getting into altercations with other foreign powers while we're there. An honest populace would be ashamed as to how much trouble our military causes abroad, and how much danger WE put our lower class youth in.

You didn't

I don't believe that being an enlisted person (or impersonating one on-line) gives any more weight to your argument. Indeed, the situation that the service-person describes sounds scary. But the real solution is more about not getting into wars with other countries over resources or for political gain. If you want to pretend that the US hasn't been threatening to attack Iran for the last three years fine; I'm sure Iran eyes its coasts more judiciously.

As long as the US sends such people to other regions on war-footing, I can't say that we should be casting blame on the militaries which are engaged in repelling them. It would be more useful if we took responsibility for putting our military personell in harms way, rather than blaming the harm that befalls them when we do.

Was Brit Hume's obvious bias against Ron Paul, when he admonished him about how the other candidates had taken a moderate stand against Iran. That was just ludicrous. He literally invited the other candidates to laugh at Paul; I think this is the basic difference between Democrats and Republicans (though there seem to be fewer and fewer). The immaturity, mean spiritedness, dishonest and completely unethical way they treat their opposition. I would truly be emarrassed to be a Republican after last night's display; not becasue of my beliefs, but the schoolyard mentality that reigns in their discourse.

And, of course, Paul once again won their call in poll, and was once again dismissed.