Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
The Trouble With Polls
The central theme of this blog has to do with the prevailing viewpoints of our generation; the expectation on the part of the elites, of what the commoners are supposed to thinking, and how they’re supposed to think about it. And, more specifically, the disparity between this what-to-think/how-to-think paradigm, and a more rational process of forming of reasonable inferences from established facts, and figuring out what to do with those inferences.
So it’s good we’re talking about polls. A lot. We’re discussing polls, specifically the approval polls of our current President, a heap-big, massive amount. How much are we talking about them? Well, we had some stories come out just yesterday morning about the President’s “record low,” which cited a USA Today poll to peg the rating at 31%. It’s twenty-four hours later, now. We have another news story which cites an Associated Press/Ipsos poll to place the magic number at a “record low” of 33%.
Now, I don’t think a 2-percent uptick between Monday and Tuesday, taken by two different polls, supports an inference that the downfall has reversed itself. I’m not saying that. In fact, that’s kind of the point. All this movement is taking place within the margin of error; here in real-life land, what the polls show is that President Bush has an approval rating of about a third of us.
Wow, he’s fucked.
Well, maybe not. There are a few problems with this paradigm.
The first problem is a notion that just about everybody supports at one time or another: Two-thirds of us can be wrong. There have been several times in our history that two-thirds of us have been wrong. The pressing question about whether to declare independence from Great Britain back in 1776, for example. Independence carried the same “approval rating,” pretty much exactly, that President Bush carries today.
But there’s another problem, one far more important. This problem cuts to the quick of what we’re arguing about, when we argue about whether the polls mean anything or not.
Let’s examine what’s being argued about: The House of Representatives. The polls mean something because it’s an election year, and the election taking place this is year is the mid-term congressional elections. “Congress” means the House and Senate; the notion that the Senate is in a state of uncertainty, with only a third of the seats up for re-election, is a bit extravagant. Where you can find Democrats salivating over the chance to take over the upper chamber, it’s mostly grandstanding and cheerleading. Nobody’s placing their nuts in a vise and saying they’ve got a shot there.
So when we argue about the President’s approval ratings taking a downturn, sinking lower and lower, how mad people are at him, blah blah blah, we’re arguing about what kind of House of Representatives we’ll have next year. Now, if you want to huff and puff about how cooked President Bush’s goose really is, there’s a great way to make your point. It’s rock solid. We’re arguing about something subject to a state of uncertainty now, that six months from now, will not be. How do you prove something that is unproven now, but will be a settled matter of history in six months? How do you do it?
You wait six months.
Well, those who want the President to be saddled with a hostile Congress, have decided this isn’t the tactic they’re going to take. It’s too quiet. They want noise. They’re going to take polls and talk about the results, every single day…because, to talk about it any less often than that, would not serve their purposes. Apparently, these “declining” polls don’t hand them the victory they want, without lots of reverberation helping to galvanize it. They feel the job is left undone, unless there’s lots of propaganda on the news, in the blogs, by the water cooler, in the forums on the “innernets.” Without that, they can’t win — and that’s not my opinion, it’s theirs.
And, yeah, those who would like the President to be saddled with a hostile Congress, include, right or wrong, the entities we sometimes call “news.” It isn’t hard to prove that at all. Think back. The President’s approval rating was holding steady and slightly up-ticking after the State of the Union in February…which is typical for the SOTU, although not a completely unbroken pattern. By February, we were in a mid-term election year. So the approval ratings polls would have been important back then, right?
Well, where were they? Where? I didn’t see any. How are they any more important now, than they were three months ago?
Here’s another problem. What does it mean when a conservative “disapproves” of President Bush? Does that mean he wants the House to go to the Democrats, just to show the President how miffed he is? Hey, I know a few conservatives. I know quite a few who would check that “disapprove” box on the poll — I’m one of them. None of us are willing to go that far. So out of a thousand randomly-selected, registered voters, can Nancy Pelosi really count on 670 to 690 of them to make her the next Speaker? I don’t see anyone betting their family jewels on that, either.
You know, if the Bush administration has really screwed the pooch on this one, and “everybody” is getting ready to vote against them, here is what I’d like to see. I’d like to see some of the Democrats who “hate” him so much, and are so sure that Congress is going their way next year, put their money where their mouth is. If you can’t bet some money, bet something else…it helps keep things light, jocular and friendly anyway. Bet a nice dinner with that conservative co-worker or neighbor on whether we have a House Speaker Pelosi next year, or not. Or a slightly-humiliating kitchen/yardwork chore. Depending on how the elections turn out, one of you gets to do “the work Americans will not do.”
I have not heard of any liberals or Democrats doing that. With all the blustery, bumptious, apparently insincere Bush-bashing optimism in the air, I haven’t heard of any Democrat betting so much as a dried crusty piece of nasal debris. Certainly nothing better than that. Not nice dinners. Not testicles. I’m sure I would have heard of such a thing by now if it was taking place.
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