A great piece from Arianna Huffington pointing out that a combination of unpredictable electoral turnout and the refusal of Americans to answer the phone to pollsters has made opinion polls almost worthless, thereby potentially restoring old-style democratic listening. This raises a couple of questions. One is why telemarketers are such a plague in the US, but remain a modest annoyance here. I have no answer to this, but perhaps there are some differences in rules or calling costs that explain it.
The second is how Arianna Stassinopoulos, darling of the right in the 1970s and later the wife of millionaire Republican senate candidate Michael Huffington reached her current position as one of the most articulate and thoughtful critics of the status quo. Her answer is here.