Exit Polling a Sham?
Published November 03, 2004
I certainly don't know what is going to happen in Ohio in the coming days, but I do feel something important happened last night that lets us in on the mood of this country.
Exit polls apparently were inaccurate across most of the states. They seemed to be underweighted on the Republican side time and again. The Bush family experienced a lot of those ups and downs early on before realizing that the polling information was being slowly, but surely, debunked with actual counts. The exit polls were just inaccurate. That strikes me as odd.
Why on earth would the exit polls not work? There will always be possibilities of sampling irregularities and other statistical modeling problems, but I think it could be some other things related to the political climate right now. How else can we explain it?
Are Republicans more secretive than Democrats? Did they just not talk to the pollsters? Did they lie? I don't know for sure, but I think the natural inclination is for incumbents to be far less vocal than challengers. That's just the way it works. This is why you don't see all that many pro-choice "protesters." So, I think that has a lot to do with the inaccuracies, but I think there is something else working here too.
I think the environment created by the most vocal Democrats had a whole lot of people in a situation where they didn't want to admit they supported Bush. Call it spineless. Call it what you will, but I am not sure that, given the exit polling, and what appear to be the final results that it can be denied.
This leaves some final questions. What were the issues that were pushing Republicans into the closet? Was it the war in Iraq? How about terrorism? The economy? Or, maybe in the largest twist of irony ever known to human kind. Were Republicans forced into the closet in this election by the issue of gay marriage?
Certainly with the amount of times that issue appeared on state ballots (and disgustingly passed) around the country to define marriage constitutionally, it is high on the list of possibilities.
(For more go to FILTERINGCRAIG.com)
- Exit Polling a Sham?
- Published: November 03, 2004
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- Section: Politics
- Writer: Craig Lyndall
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Comments
They lied, Craig.
I know you are a conservative, but you are not the kind of conservative you are wondering about. I can provide you with a specimen of what we speak of. Andy Marsh is. That contempt is the main motivation in life for peope like him. In the 'good ole days,' they put on robes, covered their faces and hung thousands of other Americans from trees. Now, they no longer need to do that to continue a long history of depriving other people of their rights. They can just vote Republican instead.
Furthermore, George W. Bush set the stage for the lying by his own prevarication during the debates. Everyone knows he will try to use the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The wink-and-nod technique he used during the debates was meant to send a message about stealth, and it did.
I have never used the c-word referenced to by diva in any thread on this web site!
Here we go again...all republicans are racists...try a new message diva, that one's not working...if you don't believe me, check the election results!
Craig, I've seen comments on blogs, but no news story on it yet, but people swear that exit polling has never been SO wrong, and that in the cases where it is really wrong THIS election are in areas with Diebold voting machines. Hopefully someone is following up on the story.
The exit polls were also badly wrong in the 1992 British election; that was a 'lesser of two evils' election where people were embarassed to admit to voting Tory.
Everything went totally pear-shaped for John Major's administration within a year. Then in 1997, Labour won by a landslide.
Disconsolate Democrats (and gloating Republicans) should bear that in mind.
With all due respect, Andy is correct. BoomCrashBaby and Tim are having a hard timing accepting the results. Republican's didn't lie and they weren't scared or ashamed to admit that they voted for Bush. That is ludicrous. In all likelihood, they weren't asked the question. The polls were just wrong. They over emphasized the female and black vote. Simple as that. The Republican base came out in huge numbers because we felt that Kerry was a creap and a liar. He was dangerous for our country. You can debate the point as long as you want. You can get angry about my post. But at some time you have to understand that liberalism has been losing for a decade now. It lost big time last night. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Liberal, got his lunch eaten, because he was a Liberal and the majority of the people in this country don't like liberal values. Until you accept that and change your party ideology, you will continue to lose elections. There is no need to be confused. The pollsters failed to understand this and polsters such as Zogby, etc, who have been in bed with Kerry for months, fail to understand this.
I am not so sure it is as simple as "liberalism has been losing" etc. but that certainly seems to be the opinion for now.
Remember that it is a pendulum and it will swing back the other way just as hard as it swung in this election.
My idea?
Let's get Barack Obama all ready for a run at the presidency in 2008.
and the majority of the people in this country don't like liberal values
slim majority.
and plenty of people (like our own mr. olsen, crossed over because of the 'war on terror' issue)
boiling it all down to 'liberal values' is a gross oversimplification.
Exactly right Mark. Also, let's hope Bush does a couple things to disappoint the super religious base that he pandered to during the campaign. If for no other reason than all the people who did support him on foreign policy and terror concerns.
Frankly, I don't believe it was Republicans who lied. Why should they? The folks who lied were Democrats or otherwise progressive people. They lied about who they were voting for. Did anyone notice the margins those gay marriage amendments passed? Republicans alone could not have accounted for those huge margins.







Craig - perhaps it's because of reactions like this from Kerry supporters last ight in Boston that Bush supporters chose to keep quiet...
kerry supporters turn to bitterness
sort of like it is around here when a liberal democrat gets wind of someone that's doesn't agree with them.
of course...that's just my opinion