Posted by
VBushmills on Wednesday, April 08, 2009 7:50:10 AM
If you are a poll watcher, and allow them to alter your mood (as they are intended to do) you should take some comfort (?) in the fact that the majority...correction, vast majority...of Obama voters in November were as ignorant of any facts relating to the election, the candidates or election issues, as your average sea otter.
Serious minds are still trying to make some sense of the famous and somewhat embarrassing
Zogby poll conducted just after the election, showing that what Libertarians most fear about our most recent form of government, which gave far too much power to the C-students of the country (in their minds' eyes), instead is now in the hands of millions of D- know-nothings...and worse, those know-nothings are all aligned with the Democrats.
We're not waiting for the Republicans to grasp this rather tasty fact. Without teeth they can barely chew their own gums, let alone a Tastee-Freeze soft-serve like this. We've moved on to the really dispiriting bottom line of the Zogby poll, especially if you're a news analyst driven by polls or in the polling business; namely the polls aren't worth squat, and pre-election tags such as registered Democrats, Republicans, Independents, or "registered voters", "likely voters" simply have no real meaning, when a solid two-thirds of the majority 55% of the votes cast in the last election (app 37% of all voters) couldn't find their arse with their hats.
Pre-election polling nomencalture is designed to convince us those being polled are engaged and aware, and take this voting stuff seriously...uh, do I get my 7-11 coupon now, or after I vote? Probably the one question Zogby didn't ask that would've completed the profile of the typical Obama voter was whether they thought O'Bama was a black Irish leprechuan.
And by typical, I mean over half. Barely 50% got half the questions right. 2% got them all correct, so against any ordinary A-B-C-D grading system for average citizenship, the profile would have been shaped more like a snail than a bell. A 70 (C-) would have been a great score among Democrats. (We always sorta knew that, though, didn't we?)
Just keep this in your head as a calculator for evaluating future polls, which will, for the sake of continued business (how many pols have been published since November?), ignore the simple fact that 37% of those queried about any issue other than Jolie's mysterious new tat on her ankle, haven't a clue. As a test, we suggest pollsters either first ask a simple question, Who is the president of the United States?, or better, ask the same question two different ways; e.g., 1) what's your opinion of President Obama's performance in office, and 2) what's your opinion of the president's performance in office? This early in his term, I guarntee at least a 15 point swing.
No matter. Whatever numbers you see reported favoring Democrat issues, just multiply that number by 62% (.62) and you have the real figure.
As a citizen wanting to grab hold of any edge, that should encourage you just a little...while, as a citizen who worries about the growing distance between citizens and their Constitution, that should cause you to just sit down and cry.
Finally, the hard part is figuring out what to do about all those stupid, uninformed voters out there.
Sadly, the socialists already have a plan.
Bernard Chumm