Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Don't Pay Any Attention To The Polls!
I know you've heard this too many times already, but that's only because it's too true.
And I'm saying this on a day when there are some encouraging poll results for Kerry voters, like this one from New Hampshire, or this one from Ohio.
So go ahead and look at polls, we all do, we all will, and those who don't, will have them stuffed into their faces, anyway, by all purveyors of news, be they dead tree media like newspapers and magazines, their online equivalents, or the cable news networks.
Just don't pay attention to them. Don't be swayed by them. For one thing, the SCLM doesn't really think that Kerry can win. That informs their take on the polls. I'm not accusing them of wanting Bush to win; some do, some don't; how they will cast their personal vote has almost nothing to do with how they cover the election, except perhaps for those columnists who are always overcompensating for their paper-thin quasi-liberalism.
The polls can matter, of course, when the SCLM allows themselves to manipulated by the considerable forces of the Rove/Bush/Cheney machine into believing in a "move" to Bush, which is what has been happening over the weekend and into Monday, also based, of course, on the shame of John Kerry's Mary Cheney comment. (If someone would like to explain in comments why Kerry is winning that New Hampshire poll, but most voters think Bush will win anyway, please do.) It may have to do with that most basic of instincts common to the modern Republican party, brought to its nth degree in the roly poly figure of Karl Rove, to suppress voting on the other side, so look for Republicans to try and create around Kerry the aura of a loser, a guy who can't beat George Bush and therefore can't beat the terrorist threat. Where you have access to media, using email, writing letters to editors, adding to discussion threads attached to columns by the likes of Brooks et al, make fun of the spin. Rattle our confidence in their bloody faces.
Courtesy of alert reader, Fred, let me point to one of the best discussions I've read on the issue, which was posted yesterday by Ezra over at Pandagon, who had the brilliant idea of going back and looking at the polls during the final two weeks of the 2000 presidential election. I think you'll find it an entirely bracing experience.
And I'm saying this on a day when there are some encouraging poll results for Kerry voters, like this one from New Hampshire, or this one from Ohio.
So go ahead and look at polls, we all do, we all will, and those who don't, will have them stuffed into their faces, anyway, by all purveyors of news, be they dead tree media like newspapers and magazines, their online equivalents, or the cable news networks.
Just don't pay attention to them. Don't be swayed by them. For one thing, the SCLM doesn't really think that Kerry can win. That informs their take on the polls. I'm not accusing them of wanting Bush to win; some do, some don't; how they will cast their personal vote has almost nothing to do with how they cover the election, except perhaps for those columnists who are always overcompensating for their paper-thin quasi-liberalism.
The polls can matter, of course, when the SCLM allows themselves to manipulated by the considerable forces of the Rove/Bush/Cheney machine into believing in a "move" to Bush, which is what has been happening over the weekend and into Monday, also based, of course, on the shame of John Kerry's Mary Cheney comment. (If someone would like to explain in comments why Kerry is winning that New Hampshire poll, but most voters think Bush will win anyway, please do.) It may have to do with that most basic of instincts common to the modern Republican party, brought to its nth degree in the roly poly figure of Karl Rove, to suppress voting on the other side, so look for Republicans to try and create around Kerry the aura of a loser, a guy who can't beat George Bush and therefore can't beat the terrorist threat. Where you have access to media, using email, writing letters to editors, adding to discussion threads attached to columns by the likes of Brooks et al, make fun of the spin. Rattle our confidence in their bloody faces.
Courtesy of alert reader, Fred, let me point to one of the best discussions I've read on the issue, which was posted yesterday by Ezra over at Pandagon, who had the brilliant idea of going back and looking at the polls during the final two weeks of the 2000 presidential election. I think you'll find it an entirely bracing experience.
