Pollster Report Card Time!

I took this information from the Nate Silver blog on the New York Times website and constructed this graphic out of it giving my own grades to the major polling organizations. Ranked from most accurate results to least accurate the data reveals some stunning facts--if you ask me. 1) The majority of the bias favored the Republicans and was thus reflected in the media---Liberal media bias? NOT so much. 2) You know how most polls give the caveat + or - 3 percentage points, or somethings that's called the "margin of error," well what do you call it when you are consistently 4 to 7.2 points off? Incompetence? 3) What names fall off the scale as being terrible at this? Rasmussen Reports (which Fox bought a few years back and turned into a tool of their own Conservative Agenda News machine), ARG, Mason-Dixon, and....dare I say it, GALLUP! These are among the most well established and oft quoted polling companies in the nation. If they were publicly owned and traded today, Gallup and Mason-Dixon would be at the penny stock level. What statistician worth their salt would even want to work there--or is that already the problem?