New LA Times Poll -- Kerry Gaining Ground?

A new LA Times poll shows Bush with a 5% lead and says he's gaining ground among some key independent groups. But it also says if you look at registered voters (and not just "likely" voters) that the lead is only 4% and that the margin of error is 3%. That means that they could be anywhere from 1% to 7% apart.

The annoying part? Despite numerous articles in the last day or two about polls and serious questions about the mix of voters involved, this poll never mentions its breakdown of voters -- was it 52% Republican and 38 % Dems or 45% of each with 10% independents in both? Who knows? I looked through the article and the 22 page attachment that broke down its poll and couldn't find that very basic, arguably crucial breakdown anywhere. Maybe I missed it. If I did, let me know. If I didn't, email the LA Times and ask them why they don't include a breakdown of the people polled by party affiliation and ask them to provide it for this poll and all polls in the future.

Let's face it: polling is an inexact science and some of these groups have developed their own "secret formulas" for decades in an attempt to be accurate and beat out the compeition. That means they're both leary (sic?) of revealing methodology and are such number geeks that they've never been questioned before. People just took polls at face value, just like they never questioned their priests or ministers on questions of faith. Those days are over.