What is wrong with the sampling methods used in these studies? Would politicians, advertisers or others today commit the same type of sampling error? Is portraying information in this way is ethical?
In election years, the media likes to look to history to predict who might win the current election. Case in point is the race between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Time reported that the "candidate who appeared on screen to the left of his opponent on the first debate has typically won the election." At that time, there had been 9 televised debates and the winner had been on the left 7 times. Dole was on the left so the total became 7 to 3. In another example, Newsweek indicated that when the Yankees won the World Series during an election year, the Rep. candidate won the With House. To that point, the Yankees had played in the WS 5x in presidential election years. The Yankees and the Republicans won in 1952 & 1956 and lost in 1960, 1964 & 1976.