On polling addictions

Really enjoyed this post from Jon Bernstein about obsessing over the polls.  I honestly wish I was not checking in on the Nate’s (Silver and Cohn) multiple times per day– but I cannot help myself.  Also, my twitter usage has gone way up once I realized Silver was commenting a lot there as well as Mark Blumenthal of pollster.com.  Anyway, Bernstein:

The only really strong recommendation I’ll give you is the basic one: polling averages, not individual polls. The rest? Look, there’s no reason to do any of this; we’ll find out soon enough who wins the presidency. So this is strictly about what to do if you’re a semi-obsessive political junky…you really, really, really want more info, but you also want an honest evaluation of what’s going on.

Yep.  In general, I try not to focus too much on speculation on things over which I have no control.  It doesn’t get you anywhere and you’ll know soon enough.  When it comes to polls, though, I’m just powerless.

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