Poll Porn

As Atrios accurately calls it. And guess who has the worst addiction? The press.

From Karl Rove's WSJ column today [emphasis added]:

There has been an explosion of polls this presidential election. Through yesterday, there have been 728 national polls with head-to-head matchups of the candidates, 215 in October alone. In 2004, there were just 239 matchup polls, with 67 of those in October. At this rate, there may be almost as many national polls in October of 2008 as there were during the entire year in 2004.

Suggestion: With so media companies strapped for cash, perhaps in coming election cycles they can cut back on the avalanche of often useless polling data they pay for; polling data that seem more designed to generate headlines (i.e. manufacture news), than to shed light on elections.