Charles Franklin is a very smart guy and can tell you more about polling than any typical media pundit. He’s a Professor at UW-Madison after stupidly being denied tenure at Washington University. He has started a blog on polling that concentrates upon Presidential Approval. In addition to analyzing the numbers he throws out some good ways in which to analyze whether a poll is legitimate. He specifically addresses Survey USA today and as usual, provides an incredibly balanced view on their methodology.
Oh, and he taught me everything I know, though not everything he knows.
Charles sits on the National Election Study oversight board which is one of the most important surveys on voting behavior. In addition, while he has a stellar publishing record, he takes his responsbility further to educating the public. Finally, while academia is often full of petty silliness, when two colleagues of mine wrote a paper that extended a finding of his he not only didn’t write a rebuttal as many do, he promoted the work.