Politics & Power Quote by Jim Bolger

Bolger is doing two things at once: naming a permanent shift in democratic power, and pre-emptively discrediting the old reflex to pretend it can be undone. Calling opinion polls a "fascinating new and quite dominant input" is measured statesman-speak for something more bracing: politics is no longer just parties, parliaments, and the press. It now runs on a continuous feedback loop of measurement. Polling doesn’t simply record public mood; it becomes part of the machinery that produces it, shaping what leaders dare to propose and what journalists treat as plausible.

The phrase "it wont go away" carries the weight of inevitability. Bolger is arguing against nostalgia for a purer, more deliberative politics where leaders led and voters followed on election day. Polls collapse time. They turn governing into permanent campaigning, and they reward tactical agility over long-horizon conviction. That dominance is "new" only in the sense of scale and speed; the underlying problem is older: once you can quantify approval, you can optimize for it.

Then comes the blunt dismissal: banning polls is "nonsense". Not because polls are harmless, but because prohibition is politically childish and practically impossible. Bolger’s subtext is a warning to fellow elites: stop moralizing about measurement and start learning how to govern with it. In a media ecosystem that treats numbers as truth and momentum as destiny, the real question isn’t whether polling should exist. It’s who gets to interpret it, who funds it, and how easily it can be used to launder strategy as “public will.”