"A
wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows the public
opinion."
~
Chinese Proverb ~
These
daily Presidential tracking polls have some Americans tied up in knots—those
Americans that actually believe these media sponsored polls that is.
Some nationally known pollsters are reporting big swings while others are
reporting a dead heat. Do they
really expect people to believe that Americans are changing their positions on
candidates like that? And how can
both the big swingers and the dead heaters be accurate at the same time?
Most Americans don’t care about politics so they won’t vote anyway or
they’ll wait until Election Day to decide.
The truth is, those that really care have already made up their minds.
So what are we to make of all this polling data?
Here are just a few observations from what I think is the saddle of
common sense.
What
is most important to the TV networks? Ratings.
The ratings indicate how many people are watching and the more that
watch, the more advertising dollars you attract. This is not rocket science. When America has shown distain
for politics and even on a good day, only about 40% vote, how do you keep such
people interested in your news programs month after month so those ratings stay
up during an election year? The
answer—present the election as a “sporting event.” Make it a nail biting close match between two nationally
known heavyweights. Americans love
sports much more than politics so turn the presidential election into a
championship fight that runs for about a year.
How
can they maintain the suspense? I
think we can gain some insight by reading a paragraph from a Wall Street Journal
editorial by John Fund on the Gallup Poll’s wild swings and their sampling
techniques.
“They
might be even more skeptical of Gallup's tracking poll if they knew that the
swings are due in large part to the company's nightly sample having large
fluctuations in how many Democrats vs. Republicans are interviewed. One
three-night sample, on Oct. 4, had 37% Democrats and 30% Republicans. Perhaps
not surprisingly, Al Gore had an 11-point lead. Three nights later, on Oct. 7, a
completely new sample consisted of 39% Republicans and only 31% Democrats. Lo
and behold, George W. Bush suddenly had an eight-point lead.”
So
now we know one way they can continue to keep this going back and forth.
Another
way obviously is to vary the sections of the country in which the polls are
taken. How big of a difference
might there be if the few hundred people they surveyed came from Boston versus
my part of the south? The final
answer is—BIG. And how about the
way they word the questions—again, BIG difference.
There’s nothing real clever here.
Now
let’s look at another aspect of these media sponsored polls.
They are designed at various stages to be opinion makers, not opinion
takers. The major media is not objective. They are slanted and distort whatever they report to reflect
their particular agenda. We’ve
all known that for years. So why
would we not think they would at least try to do the same thing with the polls
they sponsor. Need more convincing
about the media’s effort to sway public opinion?
If they didn’t intend to influence voters, why then do they all endorse
candidates from President down to city council? How can you tout your objectivity then tell every reader that
Moe is much better than Larry and Curly shouldn’t even be running?
Ask a newspaper type that question some day.
Are
there any polls that give us a better picture of how American voters are really
leaning? I think so.
Every
election year the schools across the country conduct a mock election held in
grades 1-12. They have correctly
called the last 9 presidential elections. Who
did they vote for in 2000? George
Bush with 55% of the vote.
The
Weekly Reader, the well-known school newspaper, also conducts mock elections and
they have been right in every presidential race since 1956.
In 2000, they voted overwhelmingly for G.W. Bush by a margin of 2 to1.
The
kid’s TV channel, Nickelodeon, started holding mock elections
about 4 elections ago that I know of and have called the presidential race
correctly the last 3 out of 4 times. Who
did the more than 330,000 kids that responded vote for?
George Bush with 53%.
There
is yet another “poll” that has called every presidential election since
1980. What poll is that?
The presidential mask sale; you know, those Halloween masks of the
candidates that we’ve all seen on TV. What
was the outcome for Election 2000? George
Bush, 58%. Al Gore 42%.
Why
do I put more stock in those kid’s polls than media polls?
The representative sample is much larger, surveying hundreds of thousands
and covering the entire United States. They are also straight up votes—no
slanted questions or underlying agendas. On
the other hand, Gallup and others use a sample population of approximately a
thousand or less and sampling techniques that are “questionable”
at best. Another reason I put more credence in these “kid’s polls” is that
those children are mostly reflecting the views of their parents—again, no
rocket science here. One final bit
of proof for my theory is their record. They
have proven to be far more accurate than any pollster or pundit around.
But
what is absolutely the best poll? The
one taken on Election Day at the voting booth—that poll has a 100% success
rate in identifying the final winner.
So
my advice is that you simply think for yourself then vote the way you want to
vote and the devil with the pollsters and the pundits.
Let all the non-thinkers in America worry about those meaningless poll
numbers. Your time is better spent reading than watching TV anyway.
Just
the view from my saddle…