WSJ Fund: Missing Surveys Bode Ill for 2004 Democrats

WSJ ^ | Dec 22, 1993 | John Fund

[RobFromGa]

The missing exit polls for the 2002 mid-term elections have finally been released and they offer strong evidence that the country is not as politically polarized as generally alleged. Rather, the national consensus has been shifting steadily to the right.

[RobFromGa]

The country is no longer evenly divided.

[Dane]

Huh, call me cynical, but if the exit polls had been in the liberals favor on election day in November 2002, do you think we would be getting the results just now.

Kudos to John Fund.

[RobFromGa]

Scoop Link: What Is The Voter News Service Hiding?
Tuesday, 12 November 2002, 1:10 pm
Article: Scoop Link

Voter News Service sitting on Election Day data
Monday, November 11, 2002 12:00AM EST
By DAN KANE, Staff Writer
Though we're in an era of instant communication, automated polling and massive computer networks, the 2002 elections may go down as a big mystery contest in terms of who voted and why.

The Voter News Service, the exit poll service used by a consortium of major news organizations, failed election night, and it's unclear whether the service will ever release the data it collected around the country.

"The answer is we are looking into whether or not we will process the data," Lee C. Shapiro, VNS's media services director, said last week. "I would doubt that we would process it by next week."

…

The lack of data left political parties, pundits and news organizations, including The News & Observer, scrambling to draw some insight into the election results from other sources, such as precinct turnout. But despite the missed opportunity last week, many say they would still be interested in getting the exit poll data.

"The fact that these exit polls have been going on since the 1950s gives us a nice timeline for us to study the electorate from across the nation, the region and the state," said Thad Beyle, a political science professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. "The people who are in politics certainly want to know about it, and the people who do research on politics want to know about it."

[swilhelm73]

One other amusing thing to take away from this poll;

Self identified conservatives 34%
Self identified moderates 49%
Self identified liberals 17%

While I would like to believe there are twice as many conservatives as liberals, it just isn't true. Liberals just continue to call themselves moderates.

In other surveys where the testing is more rigourous I seem to remember see the breakdown as 35/35/30 - indicating about half of all libs lie about what they are when asked...

[r9etb]

Even more importantly, the number of self-identified "liberals" shrank in 2002 despite all the frantic efforts of Michael Moore and Al Franken to whip up the troops.

Despite?

Nobody wants to look in the mirror and see Moore or Franken leering back.

[RobFromGa]

I think it was fairly even in 2000, before the Democrats got beat. Then they panicked, and their leftward lurch to appease their angry base has exposed them to apolitical "moderate" Americans who see the current Dems as inhabited by aliens.

[TheGeezer]

From the same series of articles at WSJ:

George Soros, the wealthy New York investor who has pumped at least $12 million into groups dedicated to defeating President Bush, is having second thoughts about the wisdom of having Howard Dean be the Democratic standard bearer against Mr. Bush next year.

and

No wonder, two weeks after he'd practically been anointed the nominee, Democrats have breathed new urgency into the search for a Dean stopper.

Darn! And I was hoping Dean would be the man...

[My2Cents]

Precisely. VNS declares Gore the "winner" of Florida an hour before all the polls closed there in 2000; and when the Democrats lost ground in 2002, the exit polls go "missing" for a year.

[RobFromGa]

Moderate is an oft abused term.

I think many "moderates" are really just the people that are not really into politics that much, they vote and they read the papers but they aren't rapid newshounds. Another group of "moderates" agrees with both sides on different issues.

[My2Cents]

The country is no longer evenly divided.

Good news, indeed. But I hope the stalwarts on FR note the obvious: Pure "conservatives" amount to at most, 34% of the electorate. "Moderates" amount to 49%. In order to win national elections, there needs to be a coalition of conservatives and centrists. A pure conservative will likely never win a national election; but a candidate who is "right/center" will.

[My2Cents]

I think you're correct in your analysis. I would also venture to suggest that most of the "moderates" are indeed "moderately conservative." Conservatives have a working majority among the electorate, but a fragile one.

[ZULU]

To The American Liberal: May he (or she) wind up stuffed on a shelf in the Smithsonian with the tag "Extinct" on the label.

[rface]

I'll wait for the 2004 #s to come in before I call it a trend

[Dutchgirl]

a coalition of conservatives and centrists.

I keep seeing this argument and it makes no sense to me. "True Conservatives" are unelectable so "True Conservatives" need to give up their convictions and vote- not for the person who would best represent their values in government-- but the person considered "electable." This is right up there with "Republicans" need to lose their "religious base" to appeal to more voters.

[ReagansShinyHair]

The country never was evenly divided,

Well, it could be evenly divided if some animals are more equal than others and therefore count for more...

[Hank Rearden]

So, why is Big Stupid Government growing like stink, creating huge new vote-buying scam programs and running up monster deficits?

I thought only liberals did stuff like that.

[Dane]

Precisely. VNS declares Gore the "winner" of Florida an hour before all the polls closed there in 2000; and when the Democrats lost ground in 2002, the exit polls go "missing" for a year

You hit the nail on the head. My personal summation is that the big wigs at CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN etc. probably saw the intial 2002 exit poll results and decided to say that computer problems forced them to throw them out(probably pretty easy to keep Fox News out of the loop). They knew the results would be released on the internet and tried to quell the subsequent demo depression(it didn't work).

I will never trust the "mainstream" media and their machinations.

[Drango]

But I hope the stalwarts on FR note the obvious: Pure "conservatives" amount to at most, 34% of the electorate. "Moderates" amount to 49%. In order to win national elections, there needs to be a coalition of conservatives and centrists. A pure conservative will likely never win a national election; but a candidate who is "right/center" will.

Bingo!