Posted on 10/23/2006 2:05:42 PM PDT by RWR8189
Last week I argued that the media consensus that the GOP base is "dispirited" suffers from two analytical problems. First, it is underdetermined -- that is, there are other, equally reasonable but theoretically distinct, explanations that can account for the data. Second, using national data on dispiritedness to estimate the final balance of power in the House is impossible because of the ecological fallacy. All we have are polls that provide national data -- and the distribution of "dispirited" voters is what will make all the difference.
I'd now like to take an opportunity to amplify what I mean by both of these concepts using the most recent Democracy Corps poll of the 49 "most vulnerable" Republican-held districts, and the corresponding memo and graphs. First off, the problem of underdetermination. This is actually a tricky problem to identify because of their use of metaphorical language. Their hypothesis is that there is a "meltdown" coming. What, exactly, does "meltdown" mean? It is hard to say. Charlie Cook reads their metaphor in the following way:
The poll showed that while the 20 or so Republican seats most at risk had not moved much in recent weeks, there was a meltdown for the GOP in second- and third-tier races, which makes a certain amount of sense. In a highly adverse political environment, contested Republican incumbents with the most points to lose -- in terms of both job approval and actual support -- lost the most. Races that were already very close or where the races have been engaged for some time didn't have far to drop.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
You bet! No one's dispirited at this house!
This guy is very nervous and he is shaking in his boots believing the biased liberal media polls, it is very clear from the way he is writing his articles lately.
Amen! Five Republican voters in this family...Mom, Dad and 3 college students. Four of us have already voted absentee ballot and one will go to the polls.
Seems to me that the "disspirited Republican voter" is a construct of the media. They're writing the story they want to come true. Ain't gonna happen.
The media fails to realize that the left are the ones with the mental disorder...they're in a depression, denail, which is obvious from all these "Republicans are in a tail spin stories"...
MSM can run all the biased polls and republican bashing agendized stories they want, since those voteing R can see through them, the turn out will be the same...the R's will vote...and the DEMS will lose...AGAIN...BWHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHA...
Of course, on the sample questions proposed they always put the negative/liberal question first and it gets a higher result. There isn't much question that liberals created the poll just by reading it.
You betcha! Got our absentee ballots today, will be sending back a straight (R) tommorow morning. Would vote a CA liberal democrat for dogcatcher.
I'm a strong backer of Walk-in Day Voting ever since 2000 when they (dems and their lawyers) tried to discard mail-ins and military ballots sent in without proper (exact dates). There's something exciting about putting your ballot through the electronic machine, feeling like you atleast had YOUR say in the scheme of things. And I like to get the sticker that says "I VOTED" to wear at work all day!
More parsing, disembling and stastical entrails divination. If the GOP had simply governed like the majority party over the last 6 years, we wouldn't be having this type of discussion.
Thanks! This guy takes apart this partisan poll piece by piece. NPRs poll too.
.............This is not valid. Greenberg has committed the ecological fallacy.
The only way this data has electoral relevance is if these respondents are distributed in a certain way. But the Democracy Corps poll offers no information about their distribution.
It's hard to say how credible any story one reads/hears in the mainstream media is anymore -- and one has to analyze each on its own merits -- which on that basis, many fail the credibility/integrity test.
Long gone are the days when appearing in the New York Times or television made one credible -- which is tremendous progress, not so much that they've devolved, but they haven't kept up with the greater evolution of the rest of society -- as most institutions fail to do.
The obvious greatest unit of response is the individual -- rather than the collective, or institutional. Institutions have to protect the status quo, the existing social hierarchy -- rather than responding and adapting to the present realities.
So they simply take our observations about them and turn them around -- thinking that is going to intimidate us but isn't applicable to us, and so has no validity. In the pat, the battles were usually one institutional behavior against another institutional behavior -- and so while liberalism likes to think their enemy is conservatism, it is actually individualism.
That is the best way to understand the challenge and the change of these times -- as not the battle between the left and the right, but the collective, mass mentality against the individualized consciousness that refuses to be pigeonholed and stereotyped.
The mainstream media is all about stereotyping and pigeonholing their audience -- and in that way, being able to manipulate them. When that fails, they are totally powerless -- and strike out blindly against all those they think have power, as though that will regain their own.
They have to evolve to the next level -- which is all those people they've been purging to maintain the status quo. Those people can't help them. Meanwhile, all the great talent is locked out on the other side. It's not a promising situation for the old mainstream media.
Jay's comment here is exactly what we have been saying all along about DBM polls.............
media polls are designed to maximize news value, not truth value. I see a lot of that. Media polls always seem to offer lots of heat and very little light.
You're a cat person, right??
Great Post.
Individual Accountability...the bane of the so-called "Liberal".
That was suppose to be "wouldn't". Tho we have a cat, I'd like to own a large cat-eating dog. Just to see what happens.
Exactly! It *is* the personal responsibility that differentiates the conservative from the liberal. Liberals always blame someone else for their failure. Conservatives take responsibility for themselves. Hence the liberalism is the greatest enemy, as it wishes to supress individualism in other s as they're invariably far more sucessfull than those that always blame something else for their place in life.
All this crap reminds me of the end of the world that was going to happen as we moved into 2000.
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