Statements in Tension?

Obama on Wednesday:

[Time Magazine] Can I ask you, if you go to the polling, which I'm sure you never do, but if you ever did —
[Obama] No, actually, on this — I will confess: I don't spend a lot of time looking at my polls. I do look at the polling on health care, partly because I think that there is a terrific case to be made to the American public. But it is — this is complicated, it's difficult.

Obama Today:

President Obama has framed the health-care debate in Washington as a campaign against insurance companies whose irresponsible actions, he repeatedly says, must be reined in to control costs and improve patient care. . . .

The message is no accident, as the president's chief pollster made clear in a rare public speech last month. Joel Benenson told the Economic Club of Canada that extensive polling revealed to the White House what many there had guessed: People hate insurance companies.[Emphasis added].

When I started this post, I thought I'd caught Obama in a contradiction. Where as only two days ago Obama said he didn't look at his polls extensively, two days later his polling guys are bragging about how much they rely on the polls.

But now that I've read the first statement a couple times, I actually have no idea what it means. What is he confessing? I thought he was admitting he didn't look at the polls. Or is he confessing he does look at the polls, but not a lot? or is he saying he doesn't look at polls a lot in general, but he does look at the health care polls a lot? I have no idea what this means.