2008 is an election year. Anyone who flips on a television, turns a radio dial, opens a newspaper, or presses power on a computer would know this. It seems that everybody wants to know who America’s presidential “hero” will be. And since everybody wants to know who it will be, everybody wants to tell who it will be. In a society ruled by the fast forward button, one where immediacy is expected and is just minutes away from being considered outdated, people want answers to questions about the election. Not only that, but in a period where Washington seems to be trapped in a deliberating room lined with black and white, red and blue lines people want to know who will prevail… red? Blue? Will a Republican manage to pull through with an election victory despite the Republican Party’s guilty by association wrap for the war? Or will a democratic candidate take the cake, capitalizing on America’s war angst? Will it be a woman? Will it be a black man? Will people vote on issues? Will Iowa determine it all anyway?
The American voter is bombarded with “answers” to these questions. Poll results are everywhere. Polls taken on poll’s results are everywhere. Polls on the issues, polls on the candidates, polls on approval ratings, and polls about imaginary elections on imaginary people in non imaginary parties are absolutely crawling down the throats of the public. Everyone wants to predict. Everyone wants to tell. Everyone holds themselves responsible to inform. It is like someone has given a room of random weathermen magic eight balls and said, “Go forth and prognosticate about the election, telling everyone what you discover… don’t stop talking and don’t stop reading that beautifully reliable blue triangle.”
Point being, the polls are obnoxious. These polls are not thorough, and are given WAY too much credit. If you want to make up for that .4% error rate, think about this. I am a producer three days a week for a daily news cast on a large public college campus. I am more in tune with the student body than the 99 cent songs they stream through their headphones. As these students play around on their iPODs, polls are being taken. Oh, not by them. Taken by their parents? This may be so- but if their parents are as hip as the commercials for retirement planning make them out to be, then probably not them either. These polls, for the most part, consist of responses from the older (grandparent-ish) generation.
Article comments
1 - Joe
Well done. Don't worry, your generation is not the only one sick to death of polls telling us what we're supposed to believe. I can't wait to see the post-election polls polling why the polls didn't poll well.
2 - JustOneMan
gee,,,I am dispointed! When I read the title of this post I expected to read about Obama!
JOM