Zogby's Iraq poll: fact or fiction?

In 1996, pollster John Zogby predicted that Bill Clinton would defeat Bob Dole by 8.1 percent, which was three-tenths of a point off the actual margin. Ever since, Zogby has been hailed as a political genius.

He came pretty close in the 2000 election (he called it 48-46 for Gore, and Gore won the popular vote 48.4-47.9), and he's earned a reputation for non-partisanship, but that reputation is being questioned, particularly in light of a poll supposedly showing that 72 percent of servicemen in Iraq think the troops should come home by the end of the year.

Why the reconsideration of reputation? Try these:

• Zogby International predicted that John Kerry would win the 2004 presidential election with 311 electoral votes, but Bush won 286-252. Even if Kerry had won Ohio, which would have earned him the presidency, he still would have had 272 EVs to Bush's 266.
• In December, Zogby found that a majority of Americans believe Wal-Mart is bad for America. However, Mr. Zogby failed to disclose that was paid close to six figures to testify as an expert witness for people suing Wal-Mart.
• Zogby donated his services to Tom Delay's opponent in 2002 to provide a "fresh challenge" to Delay.

In general, one of the big criticisms of Zogby is that, miraculously, the results of his surveys mirror the beliefs of the client paying for those surveys:

• A survey for the Cato Institute found two-thirds of Americans support at least partial privatization of social security
• A survey for the Doris Day Animal League found a slim majority of Americans think "primates are entitled to the same rights as human children." (One had to dig deep into the results to learn that responders had just four possible answers: they could say that chimps ought to be treated "like property," "similar to children," "the same as adults" or "not sure.")
• A Newsmax.com-funded poll in 1999 found that two-thirds of Americans wanted Congress to consider a second impeachment proceeding against President Clinton.

And in each case, the media could point to Zogby as the source, making it seem objective.

A related criticism is that Zogby refuses to identify the clients, saying, "The credibility is in the numbers, not the sponsorship." This is despite the industry's code of professional conduct that says (this from the National Council on Public Polls), "You must know who paid for the survey because that tells you -- and your audience -- who thought these topics are important enough to spend money finding out what people think. This is central to the whole issue of why the poll was done."

And that's one of the big issues in this Iraq poll, because he admits it was funded by a wealthy war opponent (I'm tempted to say George Soros, but it could be half of Hollywood, too), but he refuses to identify who wrote the check. And miraculously, the poll shows the military is opposed to further involvement in Iraq.

And oh, by the way, he describes himself as a "very left Democrat," and his brother James was an advisor to Al Gore in 2000. And this Christian Science Monitor story notes that the Zogby brothers (James is the president of the Arab American Institute, which is clearly no ally of the current administration) have jointly participated in polling about that part of the world, which should make one wonder how much influence James had on this poll.

And after all that, when people question the Iraq poll, he tells us to trust him. He says he can't disclose details because of the security situation.

But unfortunately, he hardly has a trustworthy track record, unless you're looking for a way to validate a pre-established perspective.

(This 2-year-old story in the American Prospect, while falling into a liberal whine near the end, is a source of much of the information in this post. I also pulled stuff from here, here, here, here, here, and here.)