Hillary Clinton seems as unstoppable a westward force as Hurricane Dean, as a new Field Poll prominently featured on the Drudge Report indicates - thing is, it’s a false indicator. The polling method is shoddy at best, having only been a random sample of 418 households.

That may sound like a lot of phonecalls, but is some sad statistics work indeed, even by the standards of the pollsters who conducted it - California Field Poll. The review of their statistic collection methods recommends a much larger desired sample for accurate polling - 418 isn’t even as high as what they recommend for a county survey, let alone a state:

…the total number of listed telephone households in the data base for this county is 45,000 and that county is allocated 500 numbers…

That such a small sample be applied to a statewide poll is preposterous. Considering that the survey took nine days, it may seem that obtaining a larger sample would be difficult, but Zogby and other reputable polls have had no such difficulty, as a review of their surveys suggests. In a four day survey for instance, they managed to poll some 1,200 respondents.

Yet the impact that this little footprint has could be huge. They may be 418, but their opinions are taken as barometric truth and stated with conviction to the visitors of the Drudge Report - the lodestone of not just new media, but all media - that has enjoyed 14, 627, 094 visits within the last 24 hours as of this writing. Now the politically curious, the talking heads, the polls, the financiers, the media producers and the common voters that comprise that visitorship will carry the ripple of the 418 outwards, influencing the globe’s outlook.

It’s time to clip the wings of the butterfly effect. Substandard media statistics should be given due context and scrutiny - just as should be applied to the substance and tactics of the candidates themselves. The alternative is to be susceptible to pathetic propaganda - the kind of media that values a flashy story over a fact-based leadership, and so inevitably leads to leadership that values the same.