On Oct. 2, the second day of the government shutdown, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at Mount Rushmore to shoot a television ad. Sitting on horseback in chaps and a cowboy hat, Noem addressed the camera with a stern message for immigrants: "Break our laws, we'll punish you." Noem has hailed the more than $200 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign as a crucial tool to stem illegal immigration.
There's a perpetually simmering debate in the chattering classes of American politics over the validity of polling, or more precisely, the perceived overreliance on polling. This discourse is most common among ideologues who fear that politicians and their advisers will happily sell out the cause in an unwholesome pursuit of that soulless tyrant the "median voter," even though that involves the abandonment of principles and constituencies. And it's exacerbated, of course, whenever polls fail