As predicted, some try to blame a flawed election and campaign on conservatives.
http://www.flashreport.org/special-reports0b.php?faID=2005110202424596
If they lose all four, we should have a contest on how they'll explain their polling. Maybe it will be the old standby -- opinion shifted at the end, the last few days, and momentum was suddenly against them. More likely, they'll blame Republican voters for not coming out, as if this would be some total surprise. But major donors like to believe these arcane polling explanations, because it's easier to do so than admit they've been had. I mean, when is the last time a rich guy at the Lincoln Club admitted he was gullible and taken in by a poll that cooked the numbers?
http://www.flashreport.org/special-reports0b.php?faID=2005110202424596
One wonders why they did not have thorough opinion research to adequately measure the futility of a campaign. Either there was no research, or they asked the wrong questions, or they ignored the data. Perhaps they were just so determined to have a special election. That’s what I think.
(snip)
The pollster keeps reporting that the consultant’s ads are working, so they buy more ads. It’s like the old brokerage churning – when brokers bought and sold a bunch of stocks. The commissions were high, and they did well even if you didn’t. So, it seems are that a survey concludes the campaign is not working. Better, when it’s over and the client loses, to blame it on voter turnout.
I can't imagine how they could have proceeded at all with a special election, or with this type of campaign, if they had serious quantitative and qualitative research. But, then again, I can imagine how they could have done the things they did last year. But maybe it's not the polling. I mean, why take this smart, wonderful communicator - -a macho guy, and make him into a milktoast, going to staged, contrived events in which he says next to nothing, and where each TV news report ridicules him and the event, and the "pres-elected" audience. I guess no one had the balls to sit him down, have him study the issues, and have him confront the electorate, Reagan-style, and show what he's made of.
The only poll that's important is the one at the ballot box. You can throw polls around, analyze motives ad nauseum, and talk cynically about how people got "took" all you want. It doesn't change the fact that a lot of conservatives didn't bother to vote because of disillusionment with a governor who wasn't exactly an unknown quantity! So the chance we had to put that hairline crack in a Liberal stranglehold was wasted. You bet I blame a flawed election and campaign partly on conservatives, and an "expert" who says the LA Times isn't biased in its polling isn't going to change that view.