Gallup Fights Back: Fluctuating 'EKG' Of Tracking Poll Is From 'A Lot Going On'

In a blog titled "The Value of Daily Tracking," Gallup is hitting back at White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggesting today their presidential approval daily tracking poll could be drawn in crayon by a 6-year-old.

"I'm certain Gibbs didn't intend to impugn the value of presidential job approval polls in general. It appears he was reacting more to the fact that the president's approval numbers are not stable, but, in fact, in a period of some change," Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport wrote on the blog. "But this type of movement is the nature of the beast."

As we reported, Gibbs said: "If I was a heart patient and Gallup was my EKG, I'd visit my doctor."

Newport responded: "I think the doctor might ask him what's going on in his life that would cause his EKG to be fluctuating so much. There is, in fact, a lot going on at the moment -- the healthcare bill, the jobs summit, the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and Afghanistan."

He also suggests Obama's presidential campaign "paid a great deal of attention to their own tracking polls measuring how his candidacy was doing as the events of the campaign rocketed across the news each day."

Read Newport's post in full here.