Quotes & Sayings About Polls

Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are better than mediocre ones is smelling new public concerns over the horizon before they are picked up by polls - before the public even knows to call them 'issues' at all. — Rick Perlstein

If there is to be responsible party government, the party label must be something more than a mere device for securing office. Unless those who are elected under the same party designation are willing to assume sufficient responsibility and exhibit sufficient loyalty and coherence, so that they can cooperate with each other in the support of the broad general principles, of the party platform, the election is merely a mockery, no decision is made at the polls, and there is no representation of the popular will. — Calvin Coolidge

The polls indicated that I was feisty, that I was tough, that I had a sense of humor, but they weren't quite sure if they liked me and they didn't know whether or not that I was sensitive. — Geraldine Ferraro

According to recent opinion polls, a large majority of Iraqis believe that the U.S. military has no intention to leave Iraq, and that it would stay even is asked by the Iraqi government to leave. — John Conyers

Former President Bush, to celebrate his 80th birthday, jumped out of an airplane. And if you've seen the polls, you know he's not the only Bush in freefall. — David Letterman

A man who is influenced by the polls or is afraid to make decisions which make him unpopular is not a man to represent the welfare of the country. — Harry S. Truman

The evidence is overwhelming that Planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. In other words, SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft. Most are not. It's clear from the Opinion Polls and my own experience, that indeed most people accept the notion that SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft. The greater the education, the MORE likely to accept this proposition — Stanton T. Friedman

I don't pay a lot of attention to polls. — Noam Chomsky

According to Gallup polls, more Americans will pray this week than will exercise, drive a car, have sex, or go to work. Nine in ten of us pray regularly, and three out of four claim to pray every day. To — Philip Yancey

Obama is huge in the polls these days. His popularity is soaring. Even conservatives are coming around. 30 percent of them now believe Obama deserves a Green Card. — Bill Maher

Polls suggest that more and more, opposition to Obamacare is based on voters' personal experience, and not just on what they have heard or read about the law. — Byron York

It so happens that America, according to all the polls that are out there, is pretty progressive. So you're not going to see messages that support Ayn Randian individualism at the cost of the whole, because most people don't agree with that. — Adam McKay

[Y]ou cannot determine either the truth or the right or wrong of anything with a poll. You can only tabulate people's opinions. — Charley Reese

A hit show takes Hollywood magic indeed, but it also takes a lot of math and science, plus the study of polls and trends to make and sell a TV show. — Kristoffer Polaha

We didn't discover our values in a poll taken a week before the convention. — Ronald Reagan

I grew up in a steel town of Western Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh, and when I announced for president, I announced from the factory floor. When I talk about making America the number one manufacturer again in the world, it's not just talk. When I talk about having the opportunity for people to rise again, it's not just because it polls well. — Rick Santorum

History chalks up Mr. McKinley's War as a U.S. win, and he also polls favorably as a 'near great' president. — Douglas Brinkley

For almost 50 years polls have shown that a large majority of the public believe that the budget should be balanced, and for all that time they have elected office seekers who would not balance it. The public cares about deficits, but doesn't care much. — Herbert Stein

The media, the polls and our legislatures fortunately have short attention spans. — John Gutfreund

When church leaders make decisions driven by fear of man, the true church disappears. The truth is frequently unpopular, and standing up for God's word and against sin will sometimes make people angry. We need church leaders who aren't directed by popularity polls, but whose decision-making is dominated by what is right. — Mike McKinley

You ever drive up to the pharmacy window and they ask you, "Can I have your phone number?"
Sure all I get on it anymore are political calls, and people doing polls. Maybe it's difficult for people that work at pharmacy drive up windows to get phones. — Neil Leckman

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the Occupy movement started, very probably as a consequence. And there are other policy issues that came to the fore, which are significant. — Noam Chomsky

While a defeat for Obamacare in the Court would be nice, the defeat of President Obama at the polls on November 6 is crucial. If electoral victory is achieved, Obamacare can and will be repealed - and more judges of a constitutionalist persuasion will be appointed by the next president. — Bill Kristol

And I think the rolling polls put more pressure on them to sustain their beliefs and to improve their delivery of the policy and their delivery of the ideas so that they can garner support for whatever principle they're articulating. — Jim Bolger

You know, trust in the press, polls show - from Pew and other places - have gone down significantly over the years. Maybe the press doesn't have that much ability to frame people's decisions. — David Folkenflik

Polls that have been taken by kindergarten, first- and second-grade teachers indicate that 30 percent of the kids have been deprived in some way so that they are physically unable to keep up with the class. — C. Everett Koop

Jackson busied himself with the volunteers as they passed out flyers about the new voter ID laws that would go into effect in 2016 and signed up people to drive voters to the polls. Many of the elderly people they spoke to that morning were angry. — Cheris Hodges

Of course, with the last ads shipped and the last polls conducted, there'€s not much to do but try to read the tea leaves. And from what Democrats are seeing, it doesn't look good. At all. — Christopher Michael Cillizza

In the news this week, the polls continue to slide for Gordon Brown and some people are saying he's dead and buried. But I think the opposite - I say GORDON'S ALIVE! — Brian Blessed

If you do have to look at polls, you should do it no more than once every few days, to get a general sense of the state of the race. I've seen the work on information overload, which makes people depressed, stressed and freezes their brains. I know that checking the polls constantly is a recipe for self-deception and anxiety. — David Brooks

Electoral contests have nothing but polls, which is why people have grown so obsessed with them; we're desperate for an objective rendering of what is happening and what may happen. — John Podhoretz

Remember one thing as South Africa prepares to go to the polls this week and the world grapples with the ascendancy of the African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma: South Africa is not Zimbabwe.
In South Africa, no one doubts that Wednesday's elections will be free and fair. While there is an unacceptable degree of government corruption, there is no evidence of the wholesale kleptocracy of Robert Mugabe's elite. While there has been the abuse of the organs of state by the ruling ANC, there is not the state terror of Mugabe's Zanu-PF. And while there is a clear left bias to Zuma's ANC, there is no suggestion of the kind of voluntarist experimentation that has brought Zimbabwe to its knees. — Mark Gevisser

I have never been over-concerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. I think a leader who is, is a weak leader. If you are concerned with whether your rating will go up or down, then you are not a leader. You are just catching the wind ... you will go where the wind is blowing. And that's not what I am in this for. — Lee Kuan Yew

A politician can do what he thinks is right, he just has to be sophisticated in how he goes about it. Those who seek a president who 'will disregard the polls and just lead,' ask for the political equivalent of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.' — Dick Morris

With the greatest respect, we do not make the criminal law on the basis of opinion polls. A majority of 9:1 could be in favour of a ban in my constituency, but I would not regard that as conclusive, and I hope that we never would. If we start having opinion polls about all the unpleasant and distasteful habits and customs of some members of society, and suggesting that their findings should be made part of the criminal law, foxhunting would come way down the list, and quite a lot of strange enactments would have to go through the House. — Kenneth Clarke

Polls are biased left; GOP wins on the issues. — Newt Gingrich

Opinion polls are not worth the paper they are written on, in my view, through the conference season. They don't settle down again until November. — Norman Tebbit

It isn't polls or public opinion at the moment that counts. It is right and wrong and leadership
men with fortitude, honesty, and a belief in the right that makes epochs in the history of the world. — Harry S. Truman

The CIO put up half a million dollars for Roosevelt's 1936 campaign and provided him with an immense group of active labor workers who played a large part in the sweeping victory he won at the polls. — John T. Flynn

There's an opportunity for the corner drugstore to play a much greater role. Pharmacists have been extremely well respected - they're one of the top two or three most-trusted professionals in opinion polls year after year. — Gregory Wasson

If we ever get to the polls once, you will never get us home. — Anna Howard Shaw

First there was Caine's patently false "confession." Then there was the fact that the FAYZ Legal Defense Fund racked up three million dollars in its first two weeks. Then there was a judicial panel that took statements from eminent scientists and concluded that the FAYZ was in fact a separate universe and thus not covered under California law.
Finally, there was a shift in public opinion following the involvement of the two popular movie stars, the McDonald's documentary starring Albert Hillsborough, the likelihood of a major Hollywood feature film, and the kiss seen round the world. Polls now showed 68 percent of Californians wanted no criminal charges brought against the FAYZ survivors.
The kiss alone would have wrecked the career of any prosecutor or politician who had anything bad to say about Astrid Ellison or Sam Temple. — Michael Grant

If Hillary Clinton wants to win the White House, she's gonna have to convince Americans they can trust her and if you seen the polls, they don't. There's one American who has faith in her, her husband Bill. — Eric Bolling

The media uses polls to create news stories. I think polls are just an extension of the editorial page, an excuse to get them on the front page. You can ask any question you want, get any answer you want, and then run around with that as a news story. — Rush Limbaugh

In Sussex Drive, Linda Svendsen takes us deep behind the lines of Ottawa's politics, polls and pomp, and into the lives of Canada's two most powerful women. By turns shocking, funny, sizzling and illuminating, this story is brilliantly written with an unnerving authenticity that makes it seem all too real. You're going to want to read this. — Terry Fallis

The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify. Statistical terms and statistical methods are necessary in reporting the mass data of social and economic trends, business conditions, 'opinion' polls, the census. But without writers who use the words with honesty and understanding and readers who know what they mean, the result can only be semantic nonsense. — Darrell Huff

I think it's offensive to equate evangelical Christians, Catholics, others that view marriage as between a man and a woman, as being racist. We're not racist. We love our fellow man, we think we're all equal under God's eyes, we don't believe we should change the definition of marriage simply because of opinion polls or because of a court that quite frankly isn't looking at the constitution. — Bobby Jindal

I think these movies are as much for people of that time as for people who weren't born. For people who weren't born, they see how leaders must act under a crisis situation, not trying to be re-elected or not trying to check polls, that they go from their gut check. — Kevin Costner

The exit polls suggest that after a relatively disappointing first term, Obama managed to reassemble almost all of his 2008 electorate. — John Podhoretz

In the Tea Party narrative, victory at the polls means a new American revolution, one that will 'take our country back' from everyone they disapprove of. But what they don't realize is, there's a catch: This is America, and we have an entrenched oligarchical system in place that insulates us all from any meaningful political change. — Matt Taibbi

There's a big difference between poll workers and pole workers. Sadly. — Dana Gould

Because of the spin-meisters and the focus groups and the way politics is run now. It's run by polls and focus groups. So it's even more true today, I think, than it was some 40 years ago. — Bob Newhart

When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air - the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage, or offend a special interest. — Michael Bloomberg

Like every thoughtful parent in every age of history, Neil consoled himself, My generation failed, but this new one is going to change the entire world, and go piously to the polls even on rainy election-days, and never drink more than one cocktail, and end all war. — Sinclair Lewis

I treat opinion polls with a pinch of sugar. — Ed Miliband

Here's an interesting form of murder we came up with: assassination. You know what's interesting about assassination? Well, not only does it change those popularity polls in a big fucking hurry, but it's also interesting to notice who it is we assassinate. Did you ever notice who it is? Stop to think who it is we kill? It's always people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, John Lennon, they all said, "Try to live together peacefully." BAM! Right in the fucking head. Apparently we're not ready for that. — George Carlin

Last month, the Iraqi people went to the polls, voting in their first free election in more than 50 years. — John M. McHugh

And on election night I'd go down to city hall in El Paso, Texas and cover the election. In those days, of course, we didn't have exit polls. You didn't know who had won the election until they actually counted the votes. I thought that was exciting too. — Sam Donaldson

Just two weeks ago, millions of Iraqis defied the threats of terrorists and went to the polls to determine their own future. I congratulate the Iraqi people for the courage they've shown in making these elections so successful. — Bill Frist

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls. — Al Gore

A 1940 Gallup poll showed 83 percent of the public was against intervention. A good pretext was needed to gain support from an intransigent public. — Jim Marrs

I think the people will- who advocate having a step back and read those public opinion polls on the front page of the newspapers all over this country saying public supports restoration in restoration of the Everglades, protection of the parks and the creation of monuments. — Bruce Babbitt

Polls show that most people in the world favor humbler, more compassionate solutions to our common problems. Not only favor them but, resolving to love in a more complete and final way, try to put them into action. A society based on universal compassion is not just our only hope; it is an evolutionary imperative. — Marc Ian Barasch

Asked random questions about the First Amendment and how they would like to have it applied, if you believe in polls at all, the average American wants no part of it. But if you ask, 'What if we threw the Constitution away tomorrow?' the answer is 'No, that would be bad!' But living under the Constitution is another story altogether. — Frank Zappa

I think actually the American people are pretty realistic. In polls they ask what do you think of the president's policies. Is he on the right track? They say yes. They ask them how long will it take for the economy to recover. And people are saying two years. — Austan Goolsbee

When you go to the polls, ethics and morality should be part of the evaluation. — John Shimkus

I don't care what the polls say. I don't. I'm doing what I think what's wrong. — George W. Bush

Politicians read the polls that show 85 or 90 percent of the voters profess a belief in God, so they identify themselves with religion, often only to the degree necessary to reach the constituency they are targeting. — Jack Germond

If I were afraid of polls, I never would've been elected in two landslide elections, leading a highest percentage in our state's last election for governor. If I were afraid of polls, we wouldn't have privatized our charity hospital system, we wouldn't cut our state budget 26%, wouldn't have cut over 30,000 state government bureaucrats, wouldn't have done statewide school choice. Here's the real record. — Bobby Jindal

Normally when we think about politics, we think about issues, policies, programs - the stuff of day-to-day government. Or we think of the contest of politics - the parties, the polls, the candidates, the strategies.

These are all important questions, of course, but they are only surface manifestations of deeper political issues, issues which are moral, psychological, and ultimately, spiritual. Politics is all about how we live together as human beings, and all spiritual practices point to one profound truth about human life - that only love leads to peace, hatred never does. This is as true for nations as it is for individuals. — Melvin McLeod

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions. — Henry A. Kissinger

The only tactic liberals have is to try to intimidate people into thinking the Tea Party is racist. The Tea Party is not a racist movement, period! If they were, why would the straw polls keep showing that the black guy is winning? That's a rhetorical question. Let me state it: The black guy keeps winning. — Herman Cain

Too many young musicians today want to win polls before they learn their instruments. — Benny Goodman

The American people, Neil, are sick and tired of excuses. They are sick and tired of the blame game. And they're sick and tired of the deception coming from this president and this administration. This is why I believe that I am doing so well in the polls. — Herman Cain

In Britain, polls show large majorities in favour of mansion taxes and higher taxes on the finance sector. — Geoff Mulgan

There is some good news for John McCain. According to the latest polls, which came out today, John McCain has started to open up a lead over Barack Obama. This is true. Yeah. The USA Today poll has McCain ahead by ten points. The 'CBS News' poll has the two tied. And the MSNBC poll says that Obama won the election last week. — Conan O'Brien

Eliminate lobbyists. Eliminate polls. It might even eliminate Congress. If we can know the will of the people at any time, without filter, without misinterpretation or bastardization, wouldn't it eliminate much of Washington? — Dave Eggers

You'd think experienced political professionals would know better than to place their trust in exit polls, notoriously inaccurate surveys that had John Kerry winning the 2004 election by five points when he actually lost by three. — John Podhoretz

I was the only "girl writer," probably because the power to make people laugh is also a power, so women have been kept out of comedy. Polls show that what women fear most from men is violence, and what men fear most from women is ridicule. Later, when Tina Fey was head writer and star of Saturday Night Live, she could still say, "Only in comedy does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity. — Gloria Steinem

You need to identify the values that come out of that kind of belief system, because I don't see them. All the polls I look at say, for example, that adultery is committed as much in the Bible Belt as in any other part of the country. The same goes for abortion, child abuse, spouse abuse or murder. — John Shelby Spong

Well, it's not all Americans. But I understand those polls. But as a result of that, that's not going to change my position. I mean I don't think it is even practical and I don't think it's right. I mean just because somebody happens to be of the Muslim faith, doesn't make them a terrorist or make them a threat to America. And we've had relations with people all over the world of the Muslim faith. — John Kasich

I think it's too soon. We are less than 24 hours since the polls closed, it's too soon to speculate. There's all sorts of names, I'm sure, around. — Nicky Morgan

Though Americans have tremendous respect for the ability of engineers and scientists to solve important problems and answer important questions, polls indicate many of us worry that technology moves too fast, and that its benefits blind us to important spiritual concerns. — Cornelia Dean

The polls are just being used as another tool of voter suppression. The polls are an attempt to not reflect public opinion, but to shape it. Yours. They want to depress the heck out of you. — Rush Limbaugh

If the characters on 'The West Wing' were watching a TV show wherein a character like Trump was leading in the polls, they wouldn't find it believable. — Aaron Sorkin

Look at Iraq; look at Afghanistan, where at great personal physical risk people have gone to the polls and have rejected the appeal from Bin Laden and his allies to stay at home. — Gijs De Vries

President Obama is now losing to 'Republican Nominee' in polls - no name needed. — Jon Meacham

Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action. — Ron Paul

Unequal access to money and media plus bias, external and internalized, and male-dominant religions and illegality at the polls - all those are reasons for women's wildly unequal political power. — Gloria Steinem

On the one hand, she is cut off from the protection awarded to her sisters abroad; on the other, she has no such power to defend her interests at the polls, as is the heritage of her brothers at home. — Florence Kelley

Second, recent polls over there show that the majority of Iraqis want us to leave precipitously. — William Odom

Polls could be self-fulfilling prophecies, shaping reality as much as they described it. — Rick Perlstein

I've been in politics long enough to know that polls just go poof at times. — George W. Bush

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing. — J.B. Priestley

If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease. They would elect every clean candidate in the United States, and defeat every soiled one. Their prodigious power would be quickly realized and recognized, and afterward there would be no unclean candidates upon any ticket, and graft would cease. — Mark Twain

I think this is the first time I've altered a book based on what you guys told me. So it's an occasion! Soon I'll be putting up polls to choose between plots, and then it's a short stop to accepting anonymous contributions and stapling them together while I sip margaritas on the deck of a Pacific cruise ship. — Max Barry

The temptation to be popular may prioritize public opinion above the word of God. Political campaigns and marketing strategies widely employ public opinion polls to shape their plans. Results of those polls are informative. But they could hardly be used as grounds to justify disobedience to God's commandments! — Russell M. Nelson

The problem is that when polls are wrong, they tend to be wrong in the same direction. If they miss in New Hampshire, for instance, they all miss on the same mistake. — Nate Silver

I figured out Karl Rove's political strategy
make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls. — John F. Kerry

I'm a believer in the polls, by the way. Rarely do you see a poll that's very far off. — Donald Trump