ADVENTURES IN POLLING….As Eric Kleefeld noted, there’s a real gem towards the end of the latest Fox News poll (.pdf).
This has to be a first. In its new poll, Fox News asked what may well be the ultimate in jingoistic, rally-around-the-flag questions — and the Democrats came out on top:
“If there is an all-out war between the United States and various radical Muslim groups worldwide, who would you rather have in charge — Democrats or Republicans?”
Democrats 41%, Republicans 38%, Both the same 9%, Don’t know 12%
As Eric put it, “The question of which party the people would trust more to lead World War III against a global coalition of Islamofascists should have been a gimme for the Republicans. But they couldn’t even manage to get a plurality.” Ouch.
Of course, given the rather silly wording of the question, this probably wasn’t the result Fox News was hoping for. Indeed, once a month the partisan network releases a poll, and once a month we see shamelessly slanted questions that no legitimate news outlet would ever want to include in a valid survey.
From May’s FNC poll: “Recently Democratic Leader of the Senate Harry Reid said that the war ‘is lost’ in Iraq. Do you feel this was an acceptable thing or an unacceptable thing for Reid to say while U.S. troops are still in the field fighting?”
From April’s: “Considering that over the past twelve months the stock market is up, employment has increased and the disposable income of U.S. workers has increased, do you think the news media has generally done a good job or bad job providing accurate news about the nation’s economy?”
From March’s: “Do you think the Democratic Party should allow a grassroots organization like Moveon.org to take it over or should it resist this type of takeover?”
Pretty soon, someone might get the sense that Fox News is trying to skew its polls to advance some kind of political agenda. Shocking, I know.
