WASHINGTON - When a widely publicized poll showed Republican John Kasich with a commanding, 10-point advantage in Ohio's governor's race, aides to Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland fought back hard.

Against the poll.

"With just two weeks until Election Day, it is our opinion that the Quinnipiac polls are irresponsible, inaccurate and completely removed from the reality of the Ohio governor's race," the campaign said in a statement that noted other private and public surveys were showing a much closer contest.

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, an organization with an unchallenged reputation for nonpartisanship, responded mildly. "We stand by our numbers and our overall record for reliability," said Doug Schwartz, the organization's polling director.

The flare-up underscored a widely held view among both politicians and pollsters that polls, once used largely to help a candidate shape strategy, increasingly can affect the outcome of political campaigns in the Internet Age. Candidates and their allies instantly disseminate bare-bones results, seizing on those that reflect well on their own prospects, ignoring the rest and generally skipping over details that might caution people about reading too much into them.

"They can affect contributions. They do affect news coverage in a substantial way. They can affect volunteers. They can affect (voter) interest, and through all those things can affect the outcome" of a race said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster not involved in the Ohio governor's contest.

Democratic complaints this year are sometimes dismissed as sour grapes in a campaign trending against them. But Republicans, too, express unease about the proliferation of polls.

"There's a great deal of frustration with media polls, which I don't think spend the kind of money to do this the proper way," said Rob Jesmer, the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

According to HuffPost Pollster, 26 polls have been released on the Strickland-Kasich race since Labor Day by 13 organizations. An additional 22 surveys cover the Illinois Senate race, 21 a three-way Florida Senate contest and 20 the contest in Nevada.

As in Ohio, many produce startlingly different results within the space of a few days for reasons that go unexplained in the daily communications battle of modern-day campaigns.

"The public has an absolute right to be skeptical about any polling information" that doesn't include detailed material, said Richard Czuba, whose Detroit-based firm, Glengariff Group, Inc., does survey work for The Detroit News and WDIV Local 4.

Jesmer's statement, suggesting that not all polls are equal, hints at the complexities involved.

Demographics - making sure a survey reflects the views of a proper mix of men, women, older and younger voters, Republicans and Democrats - are critical to producing a poll that is reliable. A pollster's decisions on which respondents are likely to vote is key.

Professional pollsters also differ on another big issue.

Most if not all firms that work for candidates and the major political parties, as well as Quinnipiac and some other organizations, use live phone operators to ask questions.