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One of Zogby's favorite tactics is to have "dramatic last minute surges" in the closing days of the campaign. Thus, he could have the race close the entire way, but then claim that Bush gained 10 points in the final two days of his tracking poll and claim he was right all along.

I've long suspected that too. And not just about Zogby's polls.

Btw, as a sidenote: I heard that Gallup explains its difference from other polls by its methodology. Gallup simply asks pollees, straight out, whom they're voting for.

Whereas Zogby et al ask a long list of leading questions first, before springing the 'Bush or Kerry' question at the very end.

Exactly right.

Lets say a pollster wanted to "influence" the election and didn't care so much about his accuracy. After all if he is successful in leading to vote for his guy..he will after all be accurate.

So lets say Zogby wants Kerry to win. Here is how he does it.

September Bush is up by 7 points
First of October Bush is up by 6 points
Mid October Bush is up by 3 points
Late October Bush is up by 3 points
Weekend before election KERRY LEADS NEW POLL BY 4 POINTS (John Kerry trailing President Bush for the entire election cycle has finally broken through and taken a slight but significant lead over President George W. Bush. Kerry has more than DOUBLED his lead in the gender gap by capturing the female vote and breaks even with Veterans....) blah blah blah. He will do it and because this still falls within the margin of error--Bush could win by 4 points and Zogby could still claim accuracy. Just be careful of the source of the poll. We never see the actual raw data so any of these polls could be cooked to any extreme.