With the validity of traditional polling methods deteriorating every day, Rasmussen has decided to track the political futures market by creatingRasmussen Markets. It’s powered by InTrade’s system, but they issue “play money” instead, just like the RealClearPolitics.com futures market does. The prices from the futures market are now included with his traditional polling releases, although in his last release he skipped Paul’s price despite it being over 3 times higher than Fred Thompson’s.

Although Rasmussen is not the first to institute a play money political futures market, it is significant because Rasmussen is the first polling outfit (to my knowledge) to do so. Is he acknowledging how flawed “scientific” polling has become — nothing more than a propaganda tool for elite media outfits?