The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> THE REAL MONDALE br> According to a longtime Washington political insider, word from Minnesota is that Walter Mondale last spring commissioned private polls to determine how well he'd do in a primary against Sen. Paul Wellstone . /p> p> POLLSTER GEIST br> When everything is said and done on election Tuesday later today, one thing the media will be mulling over for some time is how badly out of whack the poll numbers appeared to be in many of the races across the country. It isn't just an undecided public, of which there was much this election cycle: some Senate polls showed an undecided category of almost 25 percent, surprising numbers with incumbents running. /p>

Take the pivotal Minnesota race. Over the weekend, the Minneapolis Star Tribune poll had Walter Mondale holding a 46 percent to 41 percent over Norm Coleman, with a margin of error of +/- 3%. Meanwhile the Pioneer Press/Minnesota Public Radio poll had Coleman with 47 percent to 41 percent for Mondale, with a margin of error of 4%. Yet neither poll can be considered terribly accurate, given the small sample of the survey -- neither poll had the generally accepted minimum of 1,000 respondents to bring the poll within the acceptable 3 point margin of error, although the Star Tribune came close with about 960 respondents.

"You can't toss a poll out there with sample pool of 400 and call it accurate, or even close to accurate," says a Republican pollster. "You have the media touting numbers that just aren't realistic. Forget the soft money ban. Ban lousy polling."

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