Folks, it is hard to fathom how any polling firm or news organization can give credence to polls taken over Christmas. It is the one time of year (like Thanksgiving, but even more so) that the country as a whole takes time from work and life and focuses on family and friends. If summer polls and weekend polls are notoriously bad, then Christmas polls are just pure BS.

I noted a few days ago the polls would be error prone because the Presidential election process encroached, for the first time in history, on the Christmas and New Years seasons. And now we have some proof out today that there is no way to gauge the voters around Christmas by way of surveys:

Call it an early Christmas gift for Hillary Clinton’s campaign: A new Iowa poll seems to show the New York senator with a stunning double-digit lead over her nearest rival among likely Democratic caucus-goers.
Clinton and Obama were neck-and-neck in last week’s American Research Group poll. But in the new survey, conducted December 20-23, she leads the Illinois senator by 15 percentage points, 34 to 19 percent. Obama is now in a statistical tie for second place with former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who has 20 percent of the vote.

Pure crap. The fact is these polls are unreliable because very few ‘average Americans’ are going to be answering their phones and taking time to do a poll. During the period of this poll folks were out shopping or partying or just visiting family. Here is what I predicted would happen to these crazy polls 6 days ago (first link above):

My prediction is that after the New Year is past the polls will show a ’surprising’ shift back to about where they were at the end of November. They may not go all the way back, but they will get back to within 3-4 points for each candidate. If I am not correct in this hypothesis then the polls will not head back to around the November levels (give or take some honest drift in public opinion).

As some might notice we are not past New Years yet – so I have little doubt this poll is as suspect as the ones preceding it – even more so. The News Media is going to learn a lesson like they have not since Truman defeated Dewey in a ’surprise’ upset – all because the polls were so badly done they missed the real trends.