Slowpoke_Rodrigo
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ESSAY
A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
George W. In Poll Position
May 18, 2000
Let us now consider the latest snapshot polls, which show George W. Bush holding a convincing lead over Albert ("Fightin' Al") Gore. There will be fluctuations in coming months, but a pattern is emerging.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, not even the ladies and gentlemen of the national press (they've reacted to these numbers like chickens who've spotted a hungry fox).
Who wouldn't prefer Wally Cleaver to Eddie Haskell?
Wally may not have been the brightest bulb on the marquee, but his instinctive decency shone through. He was a straight arrow. You knew you could trust the kid.
Eddie, on the other hand, was a rat, a slime-o, a creep, endlessly tripping over his own unctuous duplicity.
So when Al Gore stands before the American people and says blandly, "My, Mrs. Cleaver, you're looking especially lovely this afternoon," it's little wonder that a healthy majority of us aren't buying it.
Fretful pundits like CNN's resident revisionist Bill Schneider, the man with the jack-o-lantern smile, are dismayed by GW's advantage (which they universally failed to predict).
Wasn't he supposed to have come out of those 'bruising' GOP primaries irreparably damaged? Didn't he pander to the right at Bob Jones U? Doesn't he have a hard time remembering the names of obscure foreign dignitaries?
They are coping with their cognitive dissonance scientifically -- by tossing down their chicken-bones, spitting three times over their right shoulders, and declaring the latest numbers null and void.
The real advantage, they assure us (and each other) is Mr. Gore's.
"The American people are with Gore on The Issues," they insist. "Once they've taken a closer look at The Issues, those numbers will move. Elections are won or lost on The Issues."
Actually, any honest pollster (and there are some) will concede that even the best polling on The Issues is increasingly unreliable, at least in part because people have taken to spinning their own answers.
Some folks do so in a spirit of sheer orneriness, to confound the number-crunchers. Others aim to please, not wanting to seem out of step with the latest fashions in thought.
In any case, those network polls aren't 'the best': they're just plain awful.
Not only are they massaged to yield Democrat-friendly demographics, over-sampling minority and elderly citizens and non-voters (CBS is rumored to be the worst offender, though the others aren't far behind): the questions themselves are generally either too vague to be even marginally meaningful, or weighted to yield "correct" results.
Ask a thousand Americans if they prefer a risky scheme to privatize Social Security (mercy Maud! isn't that Granny, starving in that snowbank?!!), or a Responsible Strategy To Roll The Surplus Into Social Security And Pay Down The Debt, and what do you suppose they're going to say -- especially if they're over 65?
Ironically, the corruption of opinion polling by the network news divisions has given unexpected heft to those flimsy presidential preference polls. The opinion polls are packed with agendas: they make demands on us. The snapshot polls, by contrast, only ask us to respond, ink-blot style, to a simple question: "Who do you like? "
So far, the answer is G. W. Bush. If he doesn't slip on any of the banana peels the press will be hurling his way between now and November, he's got good odds of winning.
As for the claim that elections are won on The Issues, that's collective goofery on the part of the chattering classes. At the presidential level, with few exceptions, elections are won on intangibles like character, or image, or timing, or luck, or sheer melodrama.
True, in Bill Clinton's case, we had a little deviation from the norm: but then, in Bill Clinton's case, we always do. He won in 1992 because the Democrats ran Ross Perot. He won in 1996 because the Republicans ran Bob Dole.
And despite his vaunted political cunning, he never could break 50% in the only poll that counts. After all these years, we still haven't reached the point where you can fool all of the people all of the time.
With Election 2000 looming ever closer, voters are wary of the crown prince of Clintonism. At a gut level -- a level the pollsters rarely touch -- they sense that smug wonkery, smear tactics and an ever-changing wardrobe (this guy has more outfits than Barbie) do not a president make.
Besides, if you don't count pathological Democrats, most folks recognize Al Gore for what he is. A rat. A slime-o. A genuine creep. They don't trust him any farther than they can throw a grand piano.
Good instincts.
Let's hope they don't falter when it matters most.
------------------
Slowpoke Rodrigo...he pack a gon...
I voted for the Neal Knox 13
I'll see you at the TFL End Of Summer Meet!
A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
George W. In Poll Position
May 18, 2000
Let us now consider the latest snapshot polls, which show George W. Bush holding a convincing lead over Albert ("Fightin' Al") Gore. There will be fluctuations in coming months, but a pattern is emerging.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, not even the ladies and gentlemen of the national press (they've reacted to these numbers like chickens who've spotted a hungry fox).
Who wouldn't prefer Wally Cleaver to Eddie Haskell?
Wally may not have been the brightest bulb on the marquee, but his instinctive decency shone through. He was a straight arrow. You knew you could trust the kid.
Eddie, on the other hand, was a rat, a slime-o, a creep, endlessly tripping over his own unctuous duplicity.
So when Al Gore stands before the American people and says blandly, "My, Mrs. Cleaver, you're looking especially lovely this afternoon," it's little wonder that a healthy majority of us aren't buying it.
Fretful pundits like CNN's resident revisionist Bill Schneider, the man with the jack-o-lantern smile, are dismayed by GW's advantage (which they universally failed to predict).
Wasn't he supposed to have come out of those 'bruising' GOP primaries irreparably damaged? Didn't he pander to the right at Bob Jones U? Doesn't he have a hard time remembering the names of obscure foreign dignitaries?
They are coping with their cognitive dissonance scientifically -- by tossing down their chicken-bones, spitting three times over their right shoulders, and declaring the latest numbers null and void.
The real advantage, they assure us (and each other) is Mr. Gore's.
"The American people are with Gore on The Issues," they insist. "Once they've taken a closer look at The Issues, those numbers will move. Elections are won or lost on The Issues."
Actually, any honest pollster (and there are some) will concede that even the best polling on The Issues is increasingly unreliable, at least in part because people have taken to spinning their own answers.
Some folks do so in a spirit of sheer orneriness, to confound the number-crunchers. Others aim to please, not wanting to seem out of step with the latest fashions in thought.
In any case, those network polls aren't 'the best': they're just plain awful.
Not only are they massaged to yield Democrat-friendly demographics, over-sampling minority and elderly citizens and non-voters (CBS is rumored to be the worst offender, though the others aren't far behind): the questions themselves are generally either too vague to be even marginally meaningful, or weighted to yield "correct" results.
Ask a thousand Americans if they prefer a risky scheme to privatize Social Security (mercy Maud! isn't that Granny, starving in that snowbank?!!), or a Responsible Strategy To Roll The Surplus Into Social Security And Pay Down The Debt, and what do you suppose they're going to say -- especially if they're over 65?
Ironically, the corruption of opinion polling by the network news divisions has given unexpected heft to those flimsy presidential preference polls. The opinion polls are packed with agendas: they make demands on us. The snapshot polls, by contrast, only ask us to respond, ink-blot style, to a simple question: "Who do you like? "
So far, the answer is G. W. Bush. If he doesn't slip on any of the banana peels the press will be hurling his way between now and November, he's got good odds of winning.
As for the claim that elections are won on The Issues, that's collective goofery on the part of the chattering classes. At the presidential level, with few exceptions, elections are won on intangibles like character, or image, or timing, or luck, or sheer melodrama.
True, in Bill Clinton's case, we had a little deviation from the norm: but then, in Bill Clinton's case, we always do. He won in 1992 because the Democrats ran Ross Perot. He won in 1996 because the Republicans ran Bob Dole.
And despite his vaunted political cunning, he never could break 50% in the only poll that counts. After all these years, we still haven't reached the point where you can fool all of the people all of the time.
With Election 2000 looming ever closer, voters are wary of the crown prince of Clintonism. At a gut level -- a level the pollsters rarely touch -- they sense that smug wonkery, smear tactics and an ever-changing wardrobe (this guy has more outfits than Barbie) do not a president make.
Besides, if you don't count pathological Democrats, most folks recognize Al Gore for what he is. A rat. A slime-o. A genuine creep. They don't trust him any farther than they can throw a grand piano.
Good instincts.
Let's hope they don't falter when it matters most.
------------------
Slowpoke Rodrigo...he pack a gon...
I voted for the Neal Knox 13
I'll see you at the TFL End Of Summer Meet!