Yeah, I felt really bad. I remember telling an acquaintence in October of 2008, “Don’t worry. Obama is so obviously an empty suit - or worse - that people will not vote him in. There simply are not that many stupid Americans.”
I had to apologize later. I draw a distinction between ignorant and stupid. At the time I was ignorant of the possibility that the pollsters are pretty good, over time, at what they do.
Now I have knowledge. If I still believed that, my position would no longer be described as ignorant. It would be described as stupid.
Oh, I know how you feel. It’s easy for us to let emotion and “what we’d like to see happen” override what we know intellectually will happen. I knew that all the polls were showing 0bama winning as well, but thought there was just no way it would really happen. The polls just *had* to be cooked, know what I mean?
Of course, we do need to distinguish between reputable polling houses, and the MSM “polls” put out by CBS/LA Times/NY Times/CNN, etc. and even Fox. THOSE polls genuinely do tend to be cooked, with all sorts of funny demographics slanted consistently toward the Dems. In 2008, Rasmussen and similar houses had 0bama winning by 3-4% (accurate), while MSM polls consistently had him up going into the home stretch by 10-12%.
So there is some room for saying that polls are biased and fake - when they’re MSM polls.
However, many, many FReepers want to assume that ALL polling is fake, biased, etc. so as to prevent unpleasant facts from intruding into their personal self-contained fact-spaces. Even though it has been shown that the professional pollsters are actually pretty on target most of the time.
I learned my lesson after 2008. A lot of FReepers didn’t.