Posted on 10/21/2008 8:09:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It may seem hardly worthwhile going to the polls to vote this election year, since ACORN and the media have already decided that Barack Obama is to be the next president of the United States.
Still, it may take more than voter fraud and media spin to put Sen. Obama in the White House. Most public opinion polls show Obama ahead, but not usually by decisive margins, and sometimes by a difference within the margin of error.
There has been a history of various polls over the years projecting bigger votes for the Democrats' presidential candidate in October than that candidate actually gets in November.
Some of these polls seem like they are not trying to report facts but to create an impression. One poll has been reported as using a sample consisting of 280 Republicans and 420 Democrats. No wonder Obama leads in a poll like that.
Pollsters have to protect their reputations, but they can do that by playing it straight on their last poll before election day, after having created an impression earlier that a landslide for the Democratic candidate was all but a done deal.
The general media bias is more blatant than usual this year.
There was more media outcry about Sarah Palin's response to "gotcha" questions than to Joe Biden's talking about President Franklin D. Roosevelt going on television in 1929 after the stock market crash -- at a time when FDR was not yet president and there was no television to go on.
An editor at Time magazine has admitted that there has been bias but expressed a desire in the future to be more fair to both sides. Just the fact that he expresses the issue this way shows that he still doesn't understand the real problem.
The point is not to be "fair" to "both sides." The point is to be straight with the readers, who are buying the magazine to learn something about the facts of the real world, not to learn about its reporters' ideology and spin.
There is another factor at work in this year's election that makes polls and predictions more unreliable than usual. That factor is race.
Barack Obama's string of victories in early Democratic primaries against far better known white candidates shows that large segments of the American population have moved beyond race.
It is Barack Obama and his supporters who have hyped race, after his large lead in the polls began to shrink or evaporate, as more of the facts about his checkered career came out.
Almost any criticism of Obama has been equated with racism, even if there is no connection that can be seen under a microscope.
Barack Obama himself started this trend when he warned that his opponents were going to try to scare the public with various charges, including a statement, "And did I say he was black?"
McCain said no such thing. Palin said no such thing. But those who support Obama -- and this includes much of the media -- are acting as if they just know that this is the underlying message.
Congressman John Lewis has likened Sen. McCain to George Wallace. Congressman John Murtha has condemned a whole section of the state of Pennsylvania as "racists" because they seem reluctant to jump on the Obama bandwagon.
Sen. Harry Reid has claimed that linking Obama to deposed and disgraced Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines is racist, since they are both black -- as if the financial and political connection between the two does not exist.
Much is being made of the fact that, in past elections, some white voters who told pollsters that they are going to vote for a black candidate did not in fact do so, so that a black candidate with a lead in the polls ended up losing on Election Day.
This is supposed to show how much covert racism there is. It might instead show that people don't want to be considered racists by pollsters because they are leaning toward someone other than the black candidate.
In other words, the media helped create the charged atmosphere in which some people give misleading answers to pollsters to avoid being stigmatized.
All in all, going into the voting booth this year is not an exercise in futility for those who don't want to be bum rushed into voting for Obama by the media's picture of a done deal. If nothing else, genuine voters can offset some of the thousands of fictitious voters registered by ACORN.
Prescient ping.
Don’t be a POLLer Bear!........
That's My American Prayer.
“Does this man ever write a bad column”?
...don’t think so.
Ha!
Dr. Sowell bump.
Printable version with photo:
http://www.creators.com/print/opinion/thomas-sowell/polls-and-pols.html
Another good one, thanks
If so, I've never read it. Anyone?
Thank you for posting this.
I only wish some pollster would call me and ask who I’m voting for. When asked why I’m not voting for BHO, I’d beat him to the punch and confirm his already blatant but false assumptions by just saying because he’s a n***o.
Polls are worthless. Liberal media polls have always been off by large margins. I keep mentioning 1996... this is looking like 1996 again. Back then, the polls were off the mark in double digits. Polls can be used as propaganda tools.
I took statistics in college. One of the main rules in statistics is accuracy depends heavily on the size of the sample. You can't poll 1,000 people in a country of millions and realistically expect to get an accurate measure weeks away from an election.
4% margin of error? How do they figure that margin of error? In 1996 election alone, 90% of the polls were OUTSIDE their margins of error. I post this again... what good is a margin of error if it can be exceeded?
We must guard ourselves against propaganda, and polls are a powerful propaganda tool. They have been used that way before, and they are being used that way again.
All these problems for Obama they keep talking about... They say 30% of DNC will not vote for him because of his color, admitting DNC has a racism problem. How can he lose 30% of his own base and still win by 10%? How can he win by 10% if the leaders of NOW are standing on the stage with Governor Sarah Palin making speeches? How can he win by 10% if he depends heavily on a youth vote that has been promised in every election but has never shown up? With all these negatives he has, the bloom is off the rose... they ain't gonna show. Remember 2000? Vote or Die? They were supposed to have the youth vote FIRED UP! Here they come! (Nope!)
With two weeks to go, the college age population will have some time to think things over. Do they really want an untested socialist? This racism cloud is going to pass. They can't sustain it for two weeks. They can't make this election a mandate for racial harmony.
What we need is for J.C. Watts and others to come forward and loudly support McCain right now. They cannot sit on their hands and let this honorable man John McCain get slandered as a racist like this. Right when we needed his help, Powell has stabbed us in the back. It is time for all good black men and women of the conservative persuasion to stand up for our Republic!
Thomas Sowell does it again. There’s a bumper sticker somewhere — “The MSM is giving you the bum’s rush into voting for Obama.”
“Does this man ever write a bad column?
If so, I’ve never read it. Anyone?”
No. And the man is 78!
Give the pollster a heart attack - use the N word.
Then say you’re voting FOR Palin “cuz she’s so HOT”.
“In other words, the media helped create the charged atmosphere in which some people give misleading answers to pollsters to avoid being stigmatized.”
And it only takes one easily-intimidated voter out of 20 to throw the entire poll into the dumpster.
I only wish some pollster would call me and ask who I’m voting for. When asked why I’m not voting for BHO, I’d beat him to the punch and confirm his already blatant but false assumptions by just saying because he’s a n***o.Better yet, tell them "Look, I am a Democrat. My family has been Democrat for generations. I am disappointed in my party. We didn't start the KKK for nothing! Where are our leaders like Sen Byrd?"
Bet that would freak 'em out!
Libs should be forced to read Dr. Sowell every day as a cure for their mental disorder, though I doubt they would have to be forced to read his stuff after a couple of weeks or so.
“Some of these polls seem like they are not trying to report facts but to create an impression.”
Bingo!
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