There seems to be growth industry in meaningless polls. They pour through the door on a daily basis, stuffed with information of no imaginable consequence or practical application.

“Majority of Arkansans prefer Bar-B-Que over biscuits and gravy, poll finds.”
“32% of Inuit say they wish they lived in Florida: Survey.”

OK, I made those up. But here’s a real one that’s equally irrelevant. The Angus Reid polling people have discovered that Hillary Clinton is by far the most popular choice for U.S. president among people who have no chance whatever of voting for her.

Mrs. Clinton is first pick for U.S. president in Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Italy, none of which has any say in whether she wins or not. Barack Obama, the Illinois senator, is a distant second, polling below 15% in all five countries among voters who can’t vote for him either. Obama is so unpopular among people who can have no effect on his life, in fact, that he’s trailing “Not Sure” in every instance.

Predictably, Mrs. Clinton is most popular among people who know least about her. She is by far the favourite in France and Germany, backed by 43.7% of French who can’t vote for her, and 45.5% of Germans. Britons, who lived through 11 years of Margaret Thatcher, are less enthusiastic about strong-minded female leaders. Canadians are likewise lukewarm on the woman, probably because we actually have the vaguest idea of what she’s like.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. It’s possible that, confronted with the question of how they’d settle the 2008 presidential election, even though they can’t, people in these countries examined the candidates closely, looked into their policies and proposals, studied the implications of choosing one over the other, and made a carefully considered decision. Or not. Maybe they just picked the one name they’d heard of. Let’s see… that would be …? Hillary Clinton is married to the former president, spent eight years in the White House, seven and counting in the Senate, has traveled the world and been in the public eye for more than 15 years. Obama has been in the Senate for less than three years and was barely known outside his own state before then. Jeez, ya think Hillary had an edge?
It’s a mystery who pays for this stuff. It arrives unbidden in the e-mail, along with come-ons from Nigerian bank vice-presidents and press releases from Garth Turner. Is there actually a market for it? Presumably some offshore mega-corporation with an unlimited budget, insatiable curiosity and no common sense deems it crucial to know who Italians would vote for if only they could vote for someone, just in case Mr. Bush decides to extend the franchise to specified non-citizens in the hope they will be grateful enough to give the Republicans another term in the White House.

Or maybe not. It doesn’t seem to matter. Respectable newspapers like The Guardian run the stuff anyway. I wonder if they know why.

Source: National Post