The poll truth and nothing but the truth

Why do politicians insist on doing down polls, when we all know how much they read them – if not rely on them – when formulating policies or considering public reaction to proposals?

Take President Obama as a case in point – according to a Huffington Post report, his administration has spent at least $4.45m on polling in its first 18 months of office, almost $1.5m more than the preceeding administration did in its first 24 months in office.

Now consider comments made recently by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs when asked for his reaction to a recent series of polls showing low approval ratings for Obama.

“You know, in all honesty,” he said, “there isn’t a website in the world that doesn’t have a new poll every day. And if you spent a lot of time sitting around worrying about polls rather than worrying about the people that you’re trying to help, I’m sure you’d get discouraged. But we’re way too busy to sit around looking at polls.”

This is confusing. Either Gibbs isn’t speaking “in all honesty”; he’s making a subtle distinction between Obama’s own polls and external polls; or he’s just admitted to wasting taxpayers money on a bunch of research he ain’t got time to read.

Part of Gibbs’ job, of course, is to make Obama look like a strong and decisive leader – but why should that be at odds with a willingness to listen and respond to public concerns as expressed by polls?

Voters know politicians love opinion research – they quote it enough during elections – and I’d wager people would be more frustrated in a leader who shows no interest in what the public thinks, versus one who takes the time to consider information from a range of sources before taking decisive action.

So here’s what I’d have said if I was White House Press Secretary:

“You know, in all honesty, of course we care what the public thinks. We do read the polls – we even commission a lot of our own – and all of what we hear helps inform the decisions we have to make. But sometimes decisions have to be made for the good of the country, over and above what might be good for the individual, and sometimes things that aren’t popular initially will turn out to be popular in the end. So, yes, we do read the polls – we do hear what the public has to say – but we’d never get anything done if we did or didn’t do everything the polls told us to.”

Do I get the job?