Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a president or any other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the people. Any other interpretation is nonsense.
Interpretation
Polling is a tool for understanding public opinion and leaders should consider it seriously.
In this quote, George Gallup emphasizes the significance of polling in gauging public opinion. He argues that when leaders take poll results into account, they are acknowledging the perspectives of the populace they serve, and to dismiss this as irrelevant undermines the democratic process.
In practice
In a speech discussing the importance of democracy, one might say, 'As George Gallup noted, polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion.'
Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.
After installing friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala, the United States lost interest in promoting democracy in either country.
The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.
Scotland is not a region of the U.K.; Scotland is a nation, and if we cannot protect our interests within a U.K. that is going to be changing fundamentally, then that right of Scotland to consider the options of independence has to be there.
It is an axiom of political life that you never raise expectations, whether in a political or military campaign, because your defeats are then magnified and your victories discounted.
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real.
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