Poll Axed

Screenshot from RCP this morning.

Many Republicans haven’t totally lost hope. The polls are wrong, McCain adherents say (and pray), because the questions are biased toward eliciting a certain answer, because those polled don’t want to be thought of as racists, because too much weight is given to Democrats in setting up the sample, because conservatives hang up or don’t answer the phone, and any number of other reasons that Senator McCain can still win.

Where there’s hope there’s life. But why would pollsters discredit their own industry and their own brand? Surely the polling companies are aware of the possible flaws in their methods. A McCain win on November 4th would put a lot of them out of business, for who would trust their product?

Well, I suppose that if the financial system is experiencing a crisis not seen since the Thirties, a Forties-like upset of “Dewey Wins” proportions wouldn’t be a total shock. But I often hark back to a rule of thumb: expecting businessmen to act against their own best interest is a loser’s game; I don’t see why that wouldn’t be true here. The Chicago Tribune can start printing its headline now.