How can we fight the big pollsters who are corrupting this democracy?

[bluestateguy]

There are too many polls. This saturation of polls is bad for America and perverts our democracy. The multi billion dollar polling industry must be stopped. They have too much power.

[1776Forever]

1. CNN Hires Clinton Operative as 2008 Presidential Polling Unit - Vin Gupta

CNN Hires Clinton Operative as 2008 Presidential Polling Unit

January 14, 2007
-By Warner Todd Huston

http://conservablogs.com/publiusforum/2007/01/14/cnn-hires-clinton-operative-as-2008-presidental-polling-unit/

In a move that throws all claims of being fair and balanced out the window, CNN has hired a polling company owned by a long time activist for the Clintons as their newest polling organization to track the 2008 election cycle.

Any guesses who THIS polling company will say is “winning”?

CNN has announced that Opinion Research Corporation has been chosen to serve as their polling unit for the upcoming 2008 presidential race because of its “reputation for independent, objective analysis and its excellent reputation”.

Opinion Research Corporation, however, was recently acquired by InfoUSA a company controlled by one Vinod Gupta, a very active Clinton supporter (of Hillary as well as Bill).

Gupta is so enamored with the Clintons that back in his native land, India, he has built little monuments to his favorite American politicians in the form of the “Bill Clinton Science and Technology Center” and the “Hillary Rodham Clinton Mass Communication Center” for the Gochar Intermediate College, Rampur Maniharan, India.

............

Here is more on Vin Gupta and his relationship to the Clinton's:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/may/30vin.htm

Vin Gupta: The man the Clintons love

Aziz Haniffa in Washington, DC | May 30, 2007

Vinod 'Vin' Gupta, 60, founder, chairman and CEO of infoUSA -- one of America's largest consumers of information with millions of clients -- is probably the single biggest contributor to the Democratic Party over the years.

He is a longtime Clinton benefactor, who has suddenly found himself thrust into the public domain in the wake of major articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post regarding his use of his company's private jet to fly the former President and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on personal, business and campaign trips.

Some shareholders in infoUSA have filed a lawsuit alleging that all of this was 'a waste of corporate assets', and an effort by Gupta to 'ingratiate himself', with these high-profile guests.

(snip)

In 1995, when Clinton was running for re-election, Kapur, organised on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, the first major fund-raiser among Indian Americans for the Clinton re-election campaign, which raised over $500,000.

Gupta, besides being one of the single biggest individual contributors -- whom Kapur by now had coveted and cultivated -- was afforded the honour of introducing Clinton, which he did with rousing gusto.

From then on, Gupta courted the Clintons and in turn, was afforded the opportunity of spending a night in the White House Lincoln Bedroom -- the first Indian American to do so.

As his sustained contributions to the Democrats continued to flow, Clinton offered him the post of first Counsel General to Bermuda and then the Ambassadorship to Fiji, both of which Gupta declined. While he maintained this was for business reasons, it was rumored to be because there were doubts his nomination would be confirmed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee due to alleged violations of Securities and Exchange Commission rules.

Just before his second term ended, Clinton appointed Gupta as a member to the prestigious Board of Trustees of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

But even with Clinton out of the White House, Gupta's friendship with the now former President grew, and he brought him on as a consultant to infoUSA and, according to the lawsuit, beyond nearly $3 million in consulting fees, had flown the Clintons and himself to Acapulco, Mexico, on a vacation in 2002 and also to Switzerland, Hawaii and Jamaica. He was also said to have provided corporate jets for Mrs Clinton at least seven times since 2002, although it was unclear whether he had done so after she began her Presidential campaign.

FEC records showed that Gupta also donated $19,500 to her Senate campaign, presidential campaign and her political action committee since 2001.