We are deep into the 2014 polling season – that time during every gubernatorial election year when pollsters and prognosticators vie for our collective attention as they do their level best to deprive us of even a thimbleful of election-eve suspense. I understand the need for accurate, regular polling data if you’re a candidate or campaign manager. You want to know where you stand, what the trends are, what messages are resonating, and, most important, which voters may be up for grabs. But why are polls necessary for the rest of us?

Polls have become so prevalent and powerful, they begin to have as much impact on the election outcome as expensive television ad buys. Perhaps even more so, as polls come with the aura of objectivity and therefore can be relied upon in ways a 30-second ad with a predictable ending (“and that’s why I approved this message”) cannot. Polls are meant to inform us, I suppose, but they can also sway us. It’s like putting odds on a horse – you want data to sort that bet out before making it.

Polls allow us to do what we cannot otherwise do as human beings: see into the future. Seeing into the future is something only the gods are allowed to do. Such supernatural powers can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and I wonder whether polls do anything meaningful to help voters make wise decisions at the ballot box. Pollsters will argue, appropriately, that polls are not intended to have any such effect on voters; they exist merely to inform, at best (or at worst to entertain).

Polls are like that tune you can’t get out of your head. You can try to avoid looking at them, but there they are, emblazoned across your computer screen in large type, accompanied by interactive color graphics, a techno-driven crystal ball that you simply must gaze into. Once you’ve done that, and looked into the future, you may end up making decisions against your better judgment. Wasn’t it a big mistake for Dorothy to run back home after Professor Marvel’s crystal ball wrongly predicted Auntie Em’s passing from a broken heart? Following the polls too closely could be your Dorothy moment.

The polling culture is ingrained in our political system. During presidential debates, we can see at the bottom of the television screen a real-time poll of sorts, where select people (chosen either randomly or via some state-of-the-art algorithm, we never really know) record instantaneously how they are reacting to what is being said. The lessons taught by these instant polls are etched into the minds of campaign managers across America. The polls probably didn’t need to tell us that sighing loudly and frequently during a debate is a voter turn-off. Admitting to having possessed a “binder full of women,” we now know, polls badly in real time – and in retrospect as well. Saying “you’re likeable enough, Hillary” doesn’t poll well but is not disqualifying.

In Massachusetts, we now are treated to weekly “tracking” polls and polls of polls, all designed to keep our attention riveted on the chase. People generally like to vote for candidates who have a strong chance of winning (or so the polls say), so polling takes on a life of its own, creating a virtual campaign within the campaign – creating its own reality. A candidate who surges ahead in the polls because of one unanticipated defining moment has instant momentum, and if there is anything that breeds success, it’s the appearance of momentum. Well, sometimes. George H. W. Bush exclaimed excitedly that he had “Big Mo” entering the 1980 New Hampshire primary, having dispatched his opponents on the battlefield of Iowa. But Ronald Reagan, who knew something about second acts, lassoed Bush’s momentum, tamed it, and rode it all the way to a convention victory. As Bush discovered, polls can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

Here’s the bottom line on polls – sometimes they are right, and other times they are not. The examples of really bad polling are legendary. The Literary Digest putting Landon in the White House in 1936 (and helping coin the phrase, “as Maine goes, so goes Vermont”). Dewey defeating Truman in 1948. Collins upending Powers in the 1959 Boston mayoral contest. In 1990, polls showed former Attorney General Frank Bellotti comfortably ahead of John Silber the week before Silber trounced him by 10 percentage points. The primary turnout that year included a higher than usual number of independent voters who took Democratic ballots because they were drawn to Silber’s take-no-prisoners style. That was bad news for Bellotti, and the polls didn’t catch it.

To be fair, polls in recent gubernatorial elections have generally got it right. The Globe/WBZ poll just before the general election in 1990 had Silber and Weld tied – a reasonably good forecast of a close election decided by 76,000 votes. In 1998, the polls consistently showed Paul Cellucci leading Scott Harshbarger, and, in 2002, after she started out ahead, the polls correctly showed Shannon O’Brien on the wrong side of 50 percent and Mitt Romney prevailed in the general election.

This year’s pre-primary polling was something of a mixed bag. Martha Coakley won, as expected, albeit with a smaller margin than generally predicted. Maura Healey’s blowout victory and Seth Moulton’s big win in the Sixth Congressional District were not entirely unanticipated, but no polls I am aware of predicted the dimensions of their respective wins. For Coakley in particular, polling has become a Catch-22 that she is forced to endure. Rather than be open to the possibility that the pre-primary polling may have been off the mark, many pundits cast a pall over Coakley’s victory by declaring that she ran under expectations. This is called finding yourself in a no-win situation. The fault, alas, is not in the polls but in ourselves.

As the general election moves forward, the polls will continue, unabated. The narrative, predictably, continues to be about a Coakley lead that she is unable to hold onto. The early October polls fairly consistently show a virtually tied race (although the respected WBUR/MassINC poll showed a still inexplicable 10-point Coakley lead in late September when most other polls were showing a tight race; the WBUR/MassINC poll released this week is now in line with the others).

Whether we like it or not, the polls will follow us through the remainder of the election cycle. We can choose to simply be informed by them, although I suspect that a poll would show that human nature cannot remain unpersuaded if continually exposed to the predictive power of a poll. We can take a different course and ignore the polls and make up our own minds, something that would require a measure of self-confidence and independence that might rattle many voters eager to be led, ever-so-gently, into the voting pen. Or we can choose to just gaze into the crystal ball and be swayed by them. After all, what’s the worst thing that could happen? As I recall, Dorothy ends up in one piece at the end of the movie, albeit with a huge headache.

James Aloisi is a former state transportation secretary and a principal at the Pemberton Square Group.