Hillary---Admired by Whom?

   By Florida Bill 

                              If you wish to deal in absurdities, Gallup, the polling wizard, has just the thing.  Hillary Clinton is the "most admired" woman in the country.
                              How did it manage to make that incredible determination?  It interviewed 1,028 persons by telephone over a four day period and presto--there is no one in these 50 states that residents hold in greater awe than the former First Lady and Secretary of State.
                               Pretty amazing for the 69-year-old defeated Presidential candidate who, on the campaign trail, was labeled "Crooked Hillary," and whose sneaky mishandling of classified information in violation of federal statutes made her the subject of an FBI criminal investigation which apparently is continuing, post-election.
                               Gallup, whose name is synonymous with surveys determining what people believe and think, has been around a long time.  In this "most admired" poll,  12 per cent of the individuals surveyed made Mrs. Clinton number one.  You guessed it, Michelle Obama was the second "most admired"  woman,  garnering around 8 per cent of the first place votes   
                               In the male "most admired," category,   Barack Obama came in on top receiving 22 per cent of the first place votes cast.   I have to wonder about the accuracy of that finding also, but it probably has more authenticity than Clinton's new medal.  Second "most admired" man was the new President, Donald Trump.
                               Gallup made a lot of mistakes in the past election in which it reported repeatedly that Clinton was a cinch winner.  Its new survey only seems to enhance its reputation for misfiring.  It raises questions as to how serious anyone should be in accepting the imprimatur of dependable old Gallup.
                               These findings probably make a lot of citizens gleeful, but there are millions who perceive some sort of a "fix." Gallup purports to produce the opinions of a sample of people who are representative of the opinions of the whole group.  That's a tall order considering that the USA is a nation with some 318 million persons residing in more than 30,000 cities town and villages across 3 million square miles of of land and water.
                                  Those who read these polls are never told the questions asked or where the "random" telephone calls go.  If the calls are directed to the residents of inner cities and liberal enclaves in California, there will be ample Obama and Hillary fans which will tilt the survey in the Obama-Clinton direction. If the phones jingling with eager pollsters are located in blue collar neighborhoods where jobs have been lost, and the Obama administration is held in disrepute, then the dial on the admiration scale is likely to tilt in a much different direction.   

                                             Since Mrs. Clinton's numbers are so low and the field so wide, you wonder why Gallup would give this poll any publicity at all, or even bother to report such results. Maybe it would have been more enlightening if they reported that 88 percent of those surveyed did not admire Hillary Clinton.                                                                Polls and surveys have become an integral part of reporting the news of the day. These seers are making a lucrative career out of asking the opinions of maybe 1,000 people and then firing out the results to members of the fawning media, pundits and columnists who then disseminate the crystal ball product (accurate to plus or minus 3%) to readers and viewers.  The heartbeat of the nation delivered via a  telephone, notebook and pencil, and of course, a computer. Yeah, sure.                          

                                                XXX

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