It is one of the strangest political ads of the season. A full page in the September 28 New York Times, it was placed by MoveOn.org, which has spent millions of dollars supporting the presidential candidacy of John Kerry. The ad does not attack a candidate. It attacks the Gallup Organization for its polling on the presidential campaign.

The thesis of the MoveOn attack is that, for the past few weeks, Gallup has consistently found a significantly greater lead for President Bush than have an average of other polls. The reason for this disparity, postulate the worthies at MoveOn, is that Gallup skews its sample of "likely voters," projecting a higher Republican turnout for this election than was reality in previous election exit polls. Since perceptions can become roadmaps guiding a fickle electorate, Poor John Kerry is being victimized by this dastardly practice. CNN and USA Today, which sponsor many Gallup polls, "bear special responsibility for this problem."

To dispense quickly with the "substance" of the MoveOn ad, polling is more art than science. Polling has flaws. There are unscrupulous and incompetent pollsters. Some respondents lie to pollsters, and others don’t know what a political party is. Reliable polling samples may be going the way of reliable journalistic sources. As we recall, vaguely now, there were some problems with exit polls the last time we voted in a presidential election. No credible pollster, including Gallup, projects results beyond the time they were obtained.

That said (much more could be), reputable public polling — which the Gallup Organization certainly represents — is as transparent as, if not more so than, most of the information we receive.

Were it not for two paragraphs that close the MoveOn ad, we’d just finish by saying, "Have at it, gang." Provide talking points for elite New York Times readers, who you obviously believe need them. Make Mr. Sulzberger, Jr., richer, Frank Rich think you’re clever, Paul Krugman designate you as his homeys of the week and Maureen Dowd kiss your balding boomer heads.

Here are the two paragraphs:

"George Gallup Jr., son of the poll’s founder, was the longtime head of the company and now directs its non-profit research center. Why hasn’t he pushed for an update of the company’s likely voter modeling, which his own father pioneered in the 1950s?

"Gallup, who is a devout evangelical Christian, has been quoted as calling his polling ‘a kind of ministry.’ And a few months ago, he said ‘the most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God.’"

Why are those two paragraphs in the ad? They were clearly over the top even for the Times, whose Jim Rutenberg reported one day after the ad ran, "What the advertisement did not say was that Mr. Gallup, who retired in May, is not involved in the company’s political polling and made those comments in reference to his specialty and main interest — polling people on their religious beliefs."

The purpose of those two paragraphs, for those few who need it spelled out, is to disparage Gallup polling results and sneer at Evangelical Christians by grossly distorting the comments of Mr. Gallup.

That’s going to be a real help to Senator Kerry, who should choose his friends more wisely. There are an estimated 70 million Evangelical Christians in the United States.