I hear many people ranting about how Bush is behind in the polls. I hear many people indicate that ‘his lack of support on the war is causing his poll numbers to slip”. I think that this is comical. It shows that once again how the ‘anybody but Bush crowd’ will use any excuse to pound on their chests and cry victory.
However if you look at the polls from the 2000 election you will clearly see that at this time during the election year Gore had a lead over Bush. http://www.gallup.com/content/?ci=1216
Then about the end of September Bush jumps ahead to lead the rest of the election year. So with this data in mind I could easily make several assumptions on a repeat victory for Bush. I am not going to do that. Instead I am going to pose this question;
The ‘anybody but Bush’ crowd’s favorite mantra is that Bush stole the 2000 election. However Gallup had Bush clearly ahead at the end of the election. So how can they have it both ways? Either Bush did steal the Presidency and the polls don’t mean anything (so they can stop pounding their chest over the current polls) or the polls are correct and Bush didn’t steal the Presidency. (after all Gallup had only been wrong 2 times on the election since 1936 http://www.gallup.com/content/?ci=1258)
Posted by cwilli at May 31, 2004 11:57 AM | TrackBackcwilli:
First off: I followed the link...your website seems pretty cool.:-)
Secondly: As far as Bush "stealing" the presidency, I thought it was you or skywalker who had once pointed out that if anyone wanted to blame anyone else for Bush's presidency then to blame the court for deciding in his favor. That wasn't word for word as I have NO IDEA under what post to look for that statement (nor do I care) so which ever one of you made it, you can just correct me if I got the message wrong.
Thirdly: I think people should only look at polls to get an *idea* of what is "supposedly" going on. However, I don't think they should *neccessarily* be taken to heart.
Posted by: mrs. muddy at May 31, 2004 01:28 PMMrs Muddy, I do believe I was the one who pointed out that the courts decided whom had won and you got it correct. Also thanks for the comments on my website.
Actually, all the courts said was that if Florida wanted to recount votes they must do it with identical standards across the state. Gore didn't want that. Ironically, according to the Florida newspapers who DID do the recount after the certification of the elections, not only did bush win under indentical standards, but Bush's lead increased using Gore's standards. Go figure.
Polls are inherently flawed. The very nature of a telephone poll ensures that you're more likely to get a democrat voter anyways.
Posted by: skywalker at May 31, 2004 11:15 PM"Polls are inherently flawed."
Yes, yes. True, true. I actually worked for a market research firm a while back. It was during the time when Clinton was in office and a few months after the Lewinsky scandle hit. Normally, we didn't do too many polls but we did do our share. In this case, we were hired to do this poll to see where the public *supposedly* stood on their reaction to his behavior. The wording of this poll was SO incomplete AND very STUPID. I remember ALL of us at the time were just agrivated to the core of how DUMB it truely was. The first part of the question was something like:
"In light of the situation happening with the President..."
The second part I remember very well:
"...has your opinion about the president changed."
That's the dumbest (not to mention a very biased) way to ask about that situation. It was SO obvious who hired us to do the poll. I never even like nor trusted the guy - before AND after the scandle. So *my* personally opinion of him never changed at all. All of us in the office agreed that because of the wording, this poll was going to definately turn out in Clinton's favor...and acording to our "research" and "findings", it *did* turn out in his favor. Ever since then, I'm not one for trusting too many "polls".
Posted by: mrs. muddy at June 1, 2004 12:14 AM