In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I've kept thinking about a piece I read last week in The Hill, It’s time to retire the laziest cliché in election polling . The author, W Joseph Campbell, is not the better-known Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the academic quack who promoted myth and folklore. Whether W Joseph even rises to the level of quackery, I'm not sure. His thumbnail says he is a professor emeritus of communication at American University. Here's his argument: Opinion polling has no lazier cliché than “snapshot in time.” . . . [T]he phrase is a refuge or metaphoric shield for pollsters when their pre-election surveys misfire. In such cases, “snapshot in time” is cited in attempting to defend or rationalize polls that careen well off-target, as many of them did in the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden was elected to the presidency four years ago by margins well short of the double-digit blowout suggested by the polls of CNN, Quinnipiac University, Economist/YouGuv and NBC/Wall Street Jou...