The easiest thing to do with survey results is to dismiss them, to say that they “contribute to trending,” and that they “manipulate the minds of the people.” For me, these are patronizing comments that attempt reflect reality better than hard metrics with disclosed methodologies and sample sizes; the literary metaphors that override mathematical truths. It seems, at least to me, that campaign organizations and supporters of candidates are more inclined to believe inspirational messages and anti-survey rhetoric, than to use surveys as metrics to define what’s going right, and what went wrong.
It’s one of the the mantras of good campaigning, whether it’s for products or for people: show your metrics. You can do whatever you want with metrics: ignore them and entertain the possibility of disaster, or study them and entertain the possibility of success. Where companies demand key performance indicators and other metrics to show how much effort they’re expending and how successful their campaigns and projects are, politics could benefit from doing the same.
