Polls really are a stupid obsession

Maxwell: Coverage is a superficial approach that helps dumb down public, detracts from real issues.

We’re less than six weeks from the election, and America is pollcrazy.

Every major media outlet — from Fox News and the Washington Post to CNN and the Orlando Sentinel — is obsessed with polls.

I submit this is a stupid obsession.

Poll-driven coverage is a lazy, misleading and often meaningless way to cover campaigns.

You already know the polls are often wrong. If they were right back in in 2016, we’d all be hailing President Hillary Clinton.

Even when they’re right, they’re often useless — including virtually any poll that reports national results.

Why? Because America doesn’t choose presidents that way. We use the Electoral College System.

Sure, Clinton posted the same 2-point lead on Election Day that polls gave her the week before. But that was like catching the most fish in a tournament where the prize goes to the person who catches the biggest one.

Congratulations. You won a contest in which you weren’t competing.

But the best reason to oppose poll-driven coverage is that it’s a shallow and superficial approach to cover politics that doesn’t inform the electorate and instead actually dumbs it down.

That’s according to research from Harvard University that found only 10% of media coverage in 2016 focused on policy stances while nearly 60% of which focused on poll results and daily controversies.

Harvard concluded that this kind of follow-the-bouncing-ball, everyone-is-rotten coverage not

only created an “uninformed electorate,” but fostered distrust in politicians and … wait for it … the news outlets themselves.

Yes, it looks like more congratulations are in order. Congratulations, media: You served your customers poorly and made them dislike you in the process.

Normally, I don’t spend my time fretting over what happens with national politics.

There are more than enough gasbags sounding off about Washington. I like to focus my gasbaggery on state and local issues where I think I can make a difference.

Except, as the Sentinel reported earlier this week, Florida is now the epicenter of America’s polling obsession — with 15 polls on Florida voters released in just the first 17 days of this month.

This race could once again come down to Florida … which is, of course, terrifying.

In fact, some days I say a little prayer:

Dear Lord, thank you for my blessings. Please look after my family. And don’t let the fate of the free world come down to a state where residents often lose track of their killer snakes, bricks of cocaine sometimes fall from the sky and which hasn’t held a gaffe-free election since the dawn of this millennium.

But since Florida is looking crucial — and since the media continues their polling obsession — you get daily updates on how Biden is allegedly up by 2 points … no, 3 … no, wait, it’s back to 2.

Here’s my question, though:

Do you also know where the candidates stand on education, energy and international trade?

Do you know which candidate wants to include more Americans in Medicare by lowering the eligibility age to 60? (Biden)

Which candidate supports privatized prisons? (Trump)

Which candidate supports the current trade and travel restrictions on Cuba (Trump) and which one thinks they have been ineffective and wants to change them (Biden)?

Do you know which candidate wants to ban fracking? (Neither.)

Which candidate wants to ban the sale of highcapacity weapons? (Biden).

Which candidate has been caught spreading falsehoods or telling lies nearly twice as often — 71% compared to 38%, according to the statements vetted by the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checkers at Politifact? (Trump. A separate question might be whether anyone cares about that detail anymore.)

Did you know that Biden used to support the ban on same-sex marriages in 1996 before changing his position? Or that the federal deficit has exploded under Trump?

Maybe. Maybe not. But you probably do know where the candidates stand in daily, national polls that have nothing to do with choosing the winner.

To be fair, there’s some value to polling. It helps dictate the way candidates behave and helps voters understand why. If candidates are down, they attack. If polls show things are tight in West Virginia, they talk about coal. If things are tight in Florida, they talk about offshore oil-drilling. So details about poll results can help readers and viewers to provide some of that context.

Also, every national candidate relies on polling — including those who claim the polls that show them losing are “fake.”

But polling doesn’t help you become a better voter.

The good news is that there is information out there for those who seek it — from the Washington Post (“Where Trump and Biden stand on the issues”) to the Wall Street Journal (“Where Trump and Biden Stand on Foreign Policy”).

There are even nonprofit groups — such as votesmart.org — whose entire raison d’être is to provide issuebased details for voters, so that they can cast informed votes.

Please, check them out. I’d like to think my media brothers and sisters will step up their coverage game. But I’d also like to think world peace is a possibility and that Florida drivers will stop texting while driving. None of it seems imminent.

So, if the race is going to come down to us anyway, the least we can do is know what we’re doing.