Week 4-Election Post

Polls, polls, polls. Everywhere I go I hear about political polling. As the country gets closer to election day, more and more polls are created to try and figure out who the next leaders of our country are going to be. While these handy political guages can be useful, they can also have huge affects on the final outcome of the election.
There are many differenct polling companies. Luckily, their results are fairly the same. The pollsters at NBC show Obama ahead of McCain in Ohio and Wisconsin while those polling for the Star Tribune have Obama winning in Minnesota. It is safe to say that theses polls are pretty acuarate because the information was found on one of McCain's websites.
On a more local level, both Rasmussen and NBC show Warner beating Gilmore in the VA Senate race. Because many of the polls have the same information, it is a good bet to say that the numbers are correct. Many polls are accurate because they are random and include large numbers of citizens from all of the different social classes.
So how does all of this polling info affect the regular citizens, the "Joe six-pack"s and "Joe the Plumber"s if you will. The collected data helps inform the public on the currenct feelings and opinions towards the many elections in the United States. A negative impact caused by these polls is that some citizens may be influenced to vote one way or another depending on the poll results. A person who would not normally vote at all may read a poll and decide to vote for the underdog.
This does not mean that the end result of an election will be based on polling information, but as polls become more and more accurate, we may eventually know who will be the next president weeks before the actual election. I do not know about you, but I find that idea kinda scary.