Political hypochondria

I am embarrassed about polls. They remind me of sick relationships I've known --- the kind where a person needs constant feedback. "Do you still love me today?" "Is there something I need to change?" "What is it --- am I not feminine enough for you? No problem, I'll wear dresses from now on."

It's embarrassing when the most common question after a campaign event is not about the truth of it but "how it played." This is so ubiquitous that no one else is embarrassed about it anymore. Except me.

Winston Churchill wasn't buying it:

Nothing is more dangerous than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup poll, always taking one's 'temperature.' There is only one duty, only one safe course. And that is to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right.

I was intrigued by a speech Senator McCain gave:

Will this nation's elected leaders make the politically hard but strategically vital decision to give General Petraeus our full support and do what is necessary to succeed in Iraq? Or will we decide to take advantage of the public's frustration, accept defeat, and hope that whatever the cost to our security, the politics of defeat will work out better for us than our opponents? For my part, I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war.

What in the world were his pollsters thinking?