Pollster Quotes & Sayings

More people more accepting of civil unions and gay marriage, which our pollster said was the most significant change they've seen on any social issue. So, this country is changing in a way. — Norah O'Donnell

I'm a mite worried about how Foodle will respond to being out here," her aunt continued. "She's so sensitive to strange surroundings." Foodle apparently excelled at hiding her sensitivities, for she was chasing her tail with great enthusiasm. — Sabrina Jeffries

The real problem with big issues like Medicare is that both parties have to be brave at the same time. Every pollster will tell you not to do that to get partisan advantage. Too many people here are willing to deliberately harm the country for partisan gain. That is borderline treason. — Jim Cooper

The Christian religion isn't an ideology, like socialism or libertarianism, tracked by self-identification. The Christian religion is a Body. A lot of people saying to a pollster that they identify as Christians hardly represents a movement. The question is, "Who goes to church?" And, congregationally speaking, Protestant liberalism is deader than Henry VIII. If adapting to the culture were the key to ecclesial success, then where are the Presbyterian Church (USA) church-planting movements, the Unitarian megachurches? — Russell D. Moore

As a general rule, it is difficult for people in public life to change their minds. There is an immediate rush to portray politicians as "flip-floppers" when they shift position on anything, even if they do so following a careful consideration of an issue rather than a meeting with a pollster. — Anonymous

I have been studying women's political behavior since the early 1970s and first identified the gender gap in 1980 with the help of legendary pollster Louis Harris. — Eleanor Smeal

Gaza will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. This will also serve to ease the housing crisis in Israel — Moshe Feiglin

We tend to tell strangers what we think will make us sound good. I myself, to my utter amazement, informed a telephone pollster that I exercised regularly, a bare-faced lie. — Katha Pollitt

I don't like to complain. — Jennifer Grey

Many [of the Americans] polled showed a marked disapproval of the Wallonians, Danerians, and Pirenians. The fact that these minorities were invented by the pollster did not diminish the hostility. — Leo Rosten

Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into
what else?
another piece of news. Thus we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing. — Neil Postman

Part of the special challenge of being a startup is the near impossibility of having your idea, company, or product be noticed by anyone, let alone a competitor. — Eric Ries

Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward. — George Carlin

My job as a pollster is to understand what really matters. — Frank Luntz

SurveyUSA conducted a poll for several Kentucky media outlets that shows Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) at 46 percent and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) at 44 percent. A month ago, the same pollster working for the same outlets suggested that McConnell was up by four points. Hence, raised eyebrows. - Philip Bump from the Fix — Anonymous

Peter Hart, who's a pollster that's - who's done many focus groups about Hillary Clinton, talks about a glass curtain. She talks about the glass ceiling. He says voters feel there's a glass curtain between themselves and Hillary Clinton. They can't relate to her. They feel they don't really understand her, and that's made it easier for her opponents, of which there have been many over many years, to define her the way they want to. — Tamara Keith

observes the veteran international pollster Craig Charney, that while the Internet "improves the ability to connect, it is no substitute for political organizations, culture, or leadership - and spontaneous movements tend to be weakest in all of these." Many Arab Awakening efforts ultimately failed because they could not build an organization and politics that could translate their progressive ideas into a governing majority. — Thomas L. Friedman

Add it all up, and some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President. — Dan Harris

So far as we know, no pollster has asked the public, "Are you getting your money's worth for the more than 40 percent of your income being spent on your behalf by government?" But — Milton Friedman

I've known the glory of the stage and the glory of the spotlight. I still crave it. I want to be on 'American Bandstand' and 'Soul Train' as a solo artist. As a producer, songwriter and arranger, I help other artists say what they want to say. But on my records, I say what I want to say. — Narada Michael Walden

She'd once heard emotions and desires fueled the magic that made wishes possible. But either Scarlett didn't feel enough, or the stories she'd heard about wishes were made of lies. — Stephanie Garber

The only thing I have ever been asked [by a pollster] was the age at which I first indulged in oral sex (which, since it was a Yale Daily News poll, meant kissing). — Paul Rudnick

For he who can wait, everything comes in time. — Francois Rabelais