There we go again

Just in time for the 100-day analyses of the Trump administration come polls looking at how the new president is doing.

FAKE NEWS!

No, not in the way Donald Trump labels everything that doesn't agree with his own peculiar worldview. I'm thinking more along the lines of polls to generate a story.

There's nothing really new about the tactic of commissioning a poll to get a feel for a topic. Politicians do it all the time to get a "read" on how the public feels about this thing or that.

And we have been measuring a new president on his first 100 days going back to at least the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the dawn of the radio news era.

What's "fake" in my mind is the continued reliance on polls and generating stories based on those numbers.

There's a case to be made the milestone is, in Trump's latest viewpoint, "ridiculous," despite his campaign trail pledges to accomplish Obamacare repeal and replace and other concrete laws by April 29. It's a totally arbitrary benchmark for a term that lasts more than 1,400 days.

But what truly qualifies as generating "news" are the spate of polls measuring popularity, or lack thereof, except among his own diehard supporters.

Sure enough Trump labeled the polls "fake" news and insisted he would still beat Hillary Clinton, even in popular vote. That assertion had a slim measure of truth since only 85 percent of respondents said they would vote the same way again.

That didn't mean they would vote for Trump. Rather they may have cast a ballot for third party candidates -- or sat things out.

What's "fake" in my mind is the continued reliance on polls and generating stories based on those numbers. Every four years -- but especially after the 2016 debacle -- there have been promises to take a closer look at and use greater restraint in commissioning and analyzing polls.

Consider that to be another broken campaign promise.