There have been a whole slew of state polls out in the last few days, and while most of them show little that is surprising, there are a couple worth mentioning. First up are the latest SurveyUSA (September 6-8, 671 LV) numbers from North Carolina:
McCain (R) 58 (+9)
Obama (D) 38 (-7)
Next we have the most recent Rasmussen Report (September 8, 700 LV) from Montana:
McCain (R) 53 (+6)
Obama (D) 42 (-5)
I tend to get a lot of crap (largely from my father) for closely following the polls, and in fact for buying into the whole horse-race aspect of elections in particular and politics in general. That's just fine; most days it embarrasses me too. I would now, however, like to take this opportunity to point out some of the possible uses of this much derided tool.
Ever since Obama's 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, he has cast himself as a post-partisan uniter, the kind of guy who can win in states both red and blue. He sold himself to the Democratic electorate as the kind of candidate who could put so many states in play that it wouldn't just be another replay of 2000 and 2004, where we're sitting around for way too long waiting for some obscure precinct in Jefferson County, Colorado to turn in their ballots.
The fifty-state strategy isn't a bad one in terms of either PR or long-term party vitality, and for awhile, it looked like it might be the ticket this year. But then came Sarah Palin and the reemergence of the Culture War, and if these latest numbers hold, places like Montana, North Carolina, and even Missouri may suddenly be out of reach. Obama has a lot of time and money invested in those states, in those communities, and it's going to be very hard to pack it in.
But pack it in he must. Obama still has the edge in financial resources, based upon his decision to forgo public financing. As a result, if he closes ranks around Ohio and Florida, while maintaining a large presence in Colorado and New Hampshire, he is still very likely to eke out a win. But failing to note the direction-change of the prevailing winds could result in disastrous consequences.
Polling doesn't necessarily tell a politician what to say; sometimes, it tells them how to play. It's instructive when it comes to maximizing both resources and advantages, while minimizing liabilities an handicaps. Bad candidates win because of good public internal polling and accurate analysis, and if politics is to be treated at times like a sport (a forgone conclusion in this country), this fact cannot be ignored.
So there.
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4 comments:
It is in accepting the way things work, when they work badly, that we relinquish the right to hope for change we can believe in.
Now that I have a few more moments at my disposal, I'd like to extend my earlier comment to elaborate on its point. As you correctly point out, given the thoroughly dysfunctional nature of your current political process, it is both right and proper for Senator Obama, his campaign staff, and his hopeful supporters to write off North Carolina and Montana. Those who genuinely seek to implement change and reform, rather than just sloganize it, however, should never write off the people of any region, state, or precinct based on the reported results of public opinion polls. Because they are deliberately designed to conceal and suppress dissent, the polls gauge and report the opinion trends of voters, not non-voters.
Somewhere between 50% and 55% of eligible voters in both North Carolina and Montana will be staying at home on election day, many of them because they have already rejected both candidates of stasis and have been taught to believe, largely through tools like public opinion polls, that they have no other options. The hearts and minds of a great many Americans already belong to an underorganized grass roots reform movement. The battle is in convincing them that their hearts and minds count for something in the real world. The role of public opinion polls is to help make that battle unwinnable.
It isn't polls that are the problem. If used unbiasedly and objectively they might be great indicators of political trends. Unfortunately, as alluded to by Guiseppe, it is the manner in which polls are used that is the problem. Even more fundamental than that is the more general worry that so much of our political process is plagued by deceitful, partisan, sleight of hand in a media atmosphere of fear. And this boils down to the all too tight connection between a great deal of the money in this country and the people who have the power to enact law, and even those who interpret the law... most unfortunately. I'm worried about this ignorant country and it's predominantly egomaniacal legislators most of whom are invariably guilty of harms to this country through omission, or worse, direct action against the interests of its people.
True enough, deacon, that public opinion polls are not the real problem. But it remains important to recognize and identify the ones released for public consumption as tools being used to distort the truth and manipulate voter behavior, and to call out those who would assign them a legitimate role in an honest democratic process. The internal polling cited by this blogger is an entirely different animal. These polls, not for public consumption, provide the bread and butter data crucial to the gamers and strategists hoping to survive in the highly competitive, but perversely corrupt, political system that keeps intact the power structure that you so accurately describe as based on a hierarchy of capital.
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