And the winner is....polling!
All over the blogosphere there are analyses, celebrations and sage "I told you so"s from left-leaning bloogers, and recriminations, disbelief, wailing and gnashing of teeth from right-leaning bloggers. I'm not going to touch much of that, at least not today.
Today, I want to address the real winner of this election cycle: The polls!
Yes, the polls raced to an astounding victory, after 12 years in the wilderness following the 1994 Republican Revolution.
Castigated and cast out, the way to your follower's hearts was perceived, by politicians, to proudly claim, "Just because those polls are scientifically proven doesn't mean their accurate!"
Of course, if you were paying attention, they only made that proclamation when they were down in the polls. That should have been the first clue that they never really stopped watching them like they claimed.
But after disasterous predictions via exit polling in a couple elections, Americans started to listen: "Yeah, those polls are stupid! Phooey on them! The media just makes them up!"
Well, that all came crashing down in flames on the evening of Nov. 7.
Even the exit polls were like statistical heat-seaking missiles slamming into the pulse of America.
CNN was so confident in its exit polling science that it predicted a Cardin win in the Maryland Senate race while Republican challenger Michael Steele was AHEAD in the actual numbers!
That takes guts...or a lot of confidence in your polling methods.
Although most Democrats never claimed to shun polls, Republicans did. This election cycle, however, showed us that usually what a Republican leader protests (like gay sex, drug use, and the exploitation of children) he's usually secretly approves of, or at least does in his own private shame. No surpise then that Republicans, who most often claim to never listen to polls, were outed as poll-lovers during the last days as well. Republicans jumped up and danced when poll numbers showed the Grand Canyon-esque gulf between them and the American voters closing a few points. "We have the momentum!" Ken Mehlman shouted on news shows all over.
Of course, Tuesday night they discovered that the light at the end of the tunnel was actually a train, but they are now officially out of the closet as poll-lovers. They love them some hot polls!
So how did polls come back? Simple. They had to.
Polling places make a lot of money on accurately predicting outcomes and the mood of large numbers of people for their clients. If their poll numbers are inaccurate, then people don't employ them, they don't get paid, and lots of college students don't make this week's beer money by manning phones and standing outside of voting places accosting old ladies wearing those sunglasses from "V". In a restaurant, if your burger sucks, you make a better burger. There's obviously been some revamping of the 'secret sauce' used to cook up poll numbers. Just look at how accurate they were. Most polls said Dems would gain 25-30 seats in the house and and 5-6 seats in the senate. So, how'd that work out for them?
Dead on the money. Dems have 24 seats with 10 races still too close to call two days later. Chances are half of them will go Dem, if not more. As to the 5-6 Senate seat prediction, that was right on the money too, and the "5 or 6" indecision can be explained by how close a couple of those senate races were.
What does this mean for us as voters?
Well, hold onto your margin of error baby, we're going for a ride! There will be polls on everything! Polls on candidates, polls on trends, lifestyles, economics, hell...I predict there will be polls on polls!
2008 is going to be the year of the poll! That entire election is going to be the most massively poll-driven election you've ever seen. Politicians will point to positive poll numbers as proof positive of the position of the American people.
Republicans will cite polls, Democrats will cite polls, libertarians will cite polls, even evangelicals will cite polls.
You'll be overwhelmed with people pointing to polls.
But here's the thing:
They've been doing it all along. And the ones who claimed to never cite polls, they're usually the ones who read them the most.
I'm not sure what the effect on us will be, but I'd say there's a 96% chance it won't be good.
Of course, there's a margin of error there of about +/- 4%....
Today, I want to address the real winner of this election cycle: The polls!
Yes, the polls raced to an astounding victory, after 12 years in the wilderness following the 1994 Republican Revolution.
Castigated and cast out, the way to your follower's hearts was perceived, by politicians, to proudly claim, "Just because those polls are scientifically proven doesn't mean their accurate!"
Of course, if you were paying attention, they only made that proclamation when they were down in the polls. That should have been the first clue that they never really stopped watching them like they claimed.
But after disasterous predictions via exit polling in a couple elections, Americans started to listen: "Yeah, those polls are stupid! Phooey on them! The media just makes them up!"
Well, that all came crashing down in flames on the evening of Nov. 7.
Even the exit polls were like statistical heat-seaking missiles slamming into the pulse of America.
CNN was so confident in its exit polling science that it predicted a Cardin win in the Maryland Senate race while Republican challenger Michael Steele was AHEAD in the actual numbers!
That takes guts...or a lot of confidence in your polling methods.
Although most Democrats never claimed to shun polls, Republicans did. This election cycle, however, showed us that usually what a Republican leader protests (like gay sex, drug use, and the exploitation of children) he's usually secretly approves of, or at least does in his own private shame. No surpise then that Republicans, who most often claim to never listen to polls, were outed as poll-lovers during the last days as well. Republicans jumped up and danced when poll numbers showed the Grand Canyon-esque gulf between them and the American voters closing a few points. "We have the momentum!" Ken Mehlman shouted on news shows all over.
Of course, Tuesday night they discovered that the light at the end of the tunnel was actually a train, but they are now officially out of the closet as poll-lovers. They love them some hot polls!
So how did polls come back? Simple. They had to.
Polling places make a lot of money on accurately predicting outcomes and the mood of large numbers of people for their clients. If their poll numbers are inaccurate, then people don't employ them, they don't get paid, and lots of college students don't make this week's beer money by manning phones and standing outside of voting places accosting old ladies wearing those sunglasses from "V". In a restaurant, if your burger sucks, you make a better burger. There's obviously been some revamping of the 'secret sauce' used to cook up poll numbers. Just look at how accurate they were. Most polls said Dems would gain 25-30 seats in the house and and 5-6 seats in the senate. So, how'd that work out for them?
Dead on the money. Dems have 24 seats with 10 races still too close to call two days later. Chances are half of them will go Dem, if not more. As to the 5-6 Senate seat prediction, that was right on the money too, and the "5 or 6" indecision can be explained by how close a couple of those senate races were.
What does this mean for us as voters?
Well, hold onto your margin of error baby, we're going for a ride! There will be polls on everything! Polls on candidates, polls on trends, lifestyles, economics, hell...I predict there will be polls on polls!
2008 is going to be the year of the poll! That entire election is going to be the most massively poll-driven election you've ever seen. Politicians will point to positive poll numbers as proof positive of the position of the American people.
Republicans will cite polls, Democrats will cite polls, libertarians will cite polls, even evangelicals will cite polls.
You'll be overwhelmed with people pointing to polls.
But here's the thing:
They've been doing it all along. And the ones who claimed to never cite polls, they're usually the ones who read them the most.
I'm not sure what the effect on us will be, but I'd say there's a 96% chance it won't be good.
Of course, there's a margin of error there of about +/- 4%....
posted by Dark Lord at 9:27 AM
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