Posted on 09/27/2012 8:22:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Once you know the secret behind a magic trick, it loses its appeal.
No matter how carefully crafted, no matter how spectacular the effect, no matter how much skill goes into its design, once you see the wires, or know where the secret compartment is, the trick stops being magic and becomes nothing more than engineering.
The trick the Obama campaign has executed beautifully this month is to demoralize and dismay the GOP base. A combination of a very, very, very heavy TV buy in swing states (pay attention, because this is a rabbit they can't pull out every week), a fierce assault on Romney at every turn (abetted by a cooperative press that loves the taste of blood) and a series of public polls that have played into a self-reinforcing narrative that Obama is inevitable.
The trick is a good one, and to judge from the wailing and lamentations on our side, it's been working.
But it's just a trick.
Let's pull back the curtain, shall we?
The polling-validity battle has gone on for weeks now, and I'll skip recounting the arguments on both sides. Yes, they're playing 2008+ model games. No, it isn't a just a conspiracy by the liberal media. Yes, the race is closer than the public polls show – on either side. The poll coverage looks the way it does because the media monster is always hungry, confirmation bias is like slipping into a warm bath and the herd runs the same direction, despite the facts.
The polls are what they are and September polls are never, ever wrong... except of course in 1948, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. (h/t the amazing Jay Cost for that one).
See? You just saw one of the wires that make the trick work.
The polling is presented superficially, with typically only the toplines and a degree of analysis that is facile at best. There's no context, history or depth. I've covered this problem a bit here and here.
So the polls became part of the message of chest-beating triumphalism by Team Obama. The drumbeat of Obama's glorious, inexorable ascension to another four years in the Oval Office is something Chicago feeds to the media, but doesn't for a second believe themselves.
The entire purpose of the last two weeks on their side is to game early voting. That's it. It's not about the end game, but rather an attempt to roll up some numbers in key states before the debates start and the campaign joins in earnest. They're desperate to have you demoralized, depressed and sitting home in your living room, grumbling at Fox instead of voting early.
The Democrats know very well this race will tighten even further toward the end, and that the Potemkin Village of polls showing Barack Obama with a double-digit lead is just that.
They know that all the balls Obama is juggling now are, statistically and politically, impossible keep airborne. They know the run of Obama-is-God stories will collide with reality, whether economic, diplomatic or political. They know that Romney's spending is catching up, fast, and will peak in the last week of October in a furious orgy of television ads and a get-out-the-vote program like nothing the GOP has done before.
Their air of serene confidence is another part of the trick they didn't want you to see. They want you to view the campaign as a static object, fixed in the moment, not as the barfight we're about to experience.
They even know that their very cooperative friends in the media may be liberal, but they're driven by watching the Big Show, up close and personal. They want a contest, and a good number of the more professional of them (and no, kids, they're not a single, unified liberal cabal...more like an online Bieber fan club) admit that they've been soft on him. They want some sport. They want to see the fight last until the end. They're about to get it.
Now, you've not only seen what the magician is doing, but you know why. Now, you know who the mark is in this particular con game.
It's you.
” The trick the Obama campaign has executed beautifully this month is to demoralize and dismay the GOP base.”
I don’t think it worked. The lies have made us more energized.
Obama has already said he will have more 'flexibility' after the election - and we all know what that means.
So will we then see, startign two weeks before the election..articles that say "MITT SURGING!!"
Romney still doesn’t seem to be at all concerned about Florida. Listening to the radio advertising one would be hard put to say just who is running against the kenyan. This is NW Florida so Romney might take it as a gimme. The Romney signs hereabouts outnumber the Obana signs by 10 or 12 to one but there are only a few Romney signs, nothing like MCCain signs last time around. If Romney doesn’t show some sign of life most of the folks who aren’t enthusiastic enough to put up signs won’t be enthusiastic enough to vote either, and South Florida will carry the state for the kenyan.
His goal is not only to demoralize the GOP base, however. It is to create a “bandwagon” effect to influence the middle of the road independents......
The “how” the polls come up with these crazy results is by sample bias.
Bottom line - the results you see are not the raw response percentages. The results are “weighted” to correct for sampling error. This weighting needs to be done.
BUT weighting is supposed to achieve some “standard” proportion balance that matches the voting population. Weighting inherently involves judgement. It is by using skewed (intentionally or unintentionally) weighting factors that these strange results come up.
Strangely enough they all seem to show Obama in the lead...Curious
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