House of Eratosthenes

I admit I’ve been a little bit of a Kerry-style flip-flopper on this thing. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I noted how bad things looked and I reverberated this sentiment two months later. And of course yesterday morning, my optimism rebounded, not so much because of Republican competence but because of Democrat incompetence in the one thing Democrats are known to do really well: public relations. I would defend myself by saying, Kerry-style again, that my message has Always Been Consistent Back To Day One. 1) Democrats have a decent, but still remote, shot at taking over the House; 2) they can’t even think about the Senate; 3) the House will be decided based not on the answers the two parties bring to the table, but by the questions voters feel like asking.

Well, an Associated Press/Ipsos poll says that the elections are all locked up, and the Donks are going to take over both houses of Congress. Americans are going to vote for Democrats three to one. Three to one! At least, that is how the story is being promoted. Is there anything to that? Why, yes there is! Quoth the first paragraph of the story…

Republicans are in jeopardy of losing their grip on Congress in November. With less than four months to the midterm elections, the latest Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that Americans by an almost 3-to-1 margin hold the GOP-controlled Congress in low regard and profess a desire to see Democrats wrest control after a dozen years of Republican rule.

Oooohhh…kay…now then, to the meat of the poll results:

The AP-Ipsos survey asked 789 registered voters if the election for the House were held today, would they vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in their district. Democrats were favored 51 percent to 40 percent.

Not surprisingly, 81 percent of self-described liberals said they would vote for the Democrat. Among moderates, though, 56 percent backed a Democrat in their district and almost a quarter of conservatives 24 percent said they will vote Democratic.

Democrats also held the advantage among persuadable voters those who are undecided or wouldn’t say whom they prefer. A total of 51 percent said they were leaning Democrat, while 41 percent were leaning Republican.

Er, wait a minute. That’s a ten-point lead. That’s not three-to-one. Where’s my three to one thingy?

I see, it’s in the fourth paragraph from the end.

Overall, only 27 percent approved of the way Congress is doing its job. Lawmakers get favorable marks from 36 percent of conservatives, 28 percent of moderates and 17 percent of liberals.

Whoops!

There’s your three-to-one. See, you round up a hundred of us at random, 27 of us are going to like the job Congress is doing and therefore vote for the incumbent who is a Republican, and 73 of us are going to detest the job Congress is doing and therefore vote for the challenger who is a Democrat. A third of 73 is 24+1/3, which is just shy of 27, so that’s your three-to-one.

The deception factor is obvious. The poll specifically asks respondents who they are planning to vote for, a Republican or a Democrat. For anyone wanting an answer to that question, the answer is that Democrats lead by eleven points right now. “Democrats were favored 51 percent to 40 percent.” That right there is your answer. Everything else is a red herring. Question answered.

There is no need to apply fanciful and misleading conjecture to the only-partially-related question of congressional approval. The story that is worth reporting, here, is that 27 is something of a nadir compared to historical trends involving congressional approval ratings. And that could mean something…it could. But to say three out of every four of us want Nancy Pelosi to be the new House Speaker, which is the way this story is being spun today…well, it’s just a notch or two shy of outright fraud.

You know what the real story is here? That Republicans are definitely in trouble compared to where they should be. At least, according to “On Your Left Nut” kind of thinking. No sane and knowledgeable man is going to throw his left testicle on a block, and assert, with a forty-pound sledgehammer held menacingly over his ‘nard, that we have a more important issue to worry about compared to the threat of Islamo-terrorism. He certainly isn’t going to say he’s more worried about old people on Social Security, getting their benefits cut, than he is about another terrorist attack (the latter has precedent, the former does not). He’s never going to say he’s genuinely concerned about the Religious Right turning the United States into a theocracy, or about having the police barge into his bedroom to arrest him because he’s having sex with his wife in the wrong position.

Now will he try to persuade anyone, with his family jewels depending on the verity of his statements, that another terrorist attack would be just fine with him as long as rich old people with summer homes and Winnebagos can find another way to rob thirty-something apartment rats of their federal payroll withholdings, so that said wealthy old people can get more Viagra for free. In fact, as of today, there is not one single Democrat talking point with a suitably strong relationship to The Truth, to merit a Democrat vote when & where something critically important is at stake. The Donks can only motivate voters to support them, by saying a whole lot of cock-and-bull stuff that sounds good. None of it anything on which you’d bet a body part.

The poll says the American landscape is experiencing — I would say suffering, since this phenomenon never leads to anything good — a paucity in “On Your Left Nut” thinking. Fifty-one percent of us, give answers to pollsters that we wouldn’t give in situations where our actions have a direct relationship to ensuing events, and ensuing events have a direct relationship to the personal well-being of ourselves and those we love.

It all comes down to that old saying: “A Republican is a Democrat who got mugged.”

Thing I Know #16. A man’s determination to punish the guilty tends to wax and wane with his prospects for living amongst them.
Thing I Know #127. The measure of a person’s happiness and success is proportional not to his ability to form opinions, or to his tenacity in sticking to them, or his outspokenness in arguing them or to the number of people who agree with him, but to the sense of personal responsibility he places in having them.

NB: they also polled registered voters not likely voters. Big difference.
- Duffy | 07/14/2006 @ 11:51

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Three to OneFriday, July 14th, 2006

Three to One
Friday, July 14th, 2006