NOTE: this blog is no longer active as of 12/07. New one: http://blog.kirchhof.com
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Fri, 17 Sep 2004
Tobias on the election
Andrew Tobias (yes, that Andrew Tobias) has a very heartening and very long column today on why we're going to win. The whole thing is worth a read; here are some selected excerpts:
We're going to win, first of all (before getting into turn-out, the
Electoral College, Florida and all of that), because over the next 46
days, as voters begin to really focus, they will conclude that on the
issues they care about, President Bush has not served us well.
Take jobs. After 9/11, and after he knew we were in a recession and
after the eruption of corporate scandals, President Bush announced
that his policies would create 6 million new jobs during his
presidency. Instead, we will have lost 1 million jobs -- a swing of 7
million worse than he promised -- not least because it turns out that
giving the biggest tax cuts to those who need them least is not the
best way to rev up the economy. (Could anyone, including President
Bush, actually have believed that it was?)
We didn't reelect Herbert Hoover -- the last president to lose jobs on his
watch -- and were not going to reelect George Bush.
[...]
We won last time when Democrats were largely complacent. Things
always seemed to get a little better every year (it's human nature for
the previous eight years to feel like always) so what difference did
it make? Well, now the difference is apparent. Democratic turn-out
will be enormous. We saw unprecedented turn-out in the primaries and
we are seeing direct-mail results that have direct-mail consultants
slack-jawed. We are depositing 50,000 checks a day. Millions of new
voters are registering, and Democrats who haven't voted for years plan
to come out this time.
Last time, we got 51 million votes -- 537,000 more than Governor Bush
despite 3 million votes that went to Nader. Nader voters are almost
all well-meaning and smart. My firm belief is that in swing states
where it matters they will not fail to do all they can to fire George
Bush. As reported here Tuesday, two-thirds of Nader's 2000 leadership
group have already signed onto a statement urging everyone in swing
states to vote for Kerry.
[...]
We've begun to fight back. If you saw James Carville on the Today
Show last week or have heard Paul Begala lately or caught Joe Lockhart
on TV, you know the Campaign has expanded to include some very
talented tough veterans of the Clinton campaigns. Was this a
shake-up? Whether you call it an expansion or a shake-up, Carville
cut to the heart of it: John Kerry sees a problem and fixes it.
George Bush sees a problem and denies it. What kind of leader would
you rather have?
[...]
Our guy is a fighter, and his pattern, in campaign after campaign,
is to hang back and finish strong. And win. Mock his Navy years if
you will, while insisting that Bush served honorably. (Bush had no
doubts about the Vietnam War he was all for it, so long as he didn't
have to actually fight in it.) But this is a guy who volunteered to
face death for months and who turned his boat into oncoming gunfire
and attacked the enemy head on. So he may not be quite the indecisive
wimp Dick Cheney and the rest of the team are having so much fun
portraying him as.
There's plenty there. I am not much on triumphalism this far away
from the election (or anytime, really -- knock wood early and often),
but good points are made here, and it deserves attention.
Just don't let it create any complacency.
Posted at 17:56 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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Breslin on polling
Jimmy Breslin makes what I think are some very compelling points in
this column:
Anybody who believes these national political polls are giving you
facts is a gullible fool.
Any editors of newspapers or television news shows who use poll
results as a story are beyond gullible. On behalf of the public they
profess to serve, they are indolent salesmen of falsehoods.
This is because these political polls are done by telephone. Land-line
telephones, as your house phone is called.
The telephone polls do not include cellular phones. There are almost
169 million cell phones being used in America today - 168,900,019 as
of Sept. 15, according to the cell phone institute in Washington.
There is no way to poll cell phone users, so it isn't done.
Not one cell phone user has received a call on their cell phone asking
them how they plan to vote as of today.
Out of 168 million, anything can happen. Midway through election
night, these stern-faced network announcers suddenly will be frozen
white and they have to give a result:
"It appears that the winner of the election tonight is ... Milford
J. Schmitt of New Albany, Ind. He presently has 56 percent of the
vote, placing him well ahead of John Kerry, George Bush and another
newcomer, Gibson D. Mills of Corvallis, Ore. It appears the nation's
voting habits have been changed unbeknownst to us. Mr. Schmitt was
asked what party he is in. He answered, 'The winning party.'"
Those who have both cell phones and land lines still might have been
polled the old way - on their land lines by people making phone calls
with scientifically weighted questions and to targeted areas for some
big pollster. These results are announced by the pollsters: "CBS-New
York Times poll shows George Bush and John Kerry in a statistical dead
heat in the presidential race."
Beautiful. There are 169 million phones that they didn't even
try. This makes the poll nothing more than a fake and a fraud, a shill
and a sham. The big pollster doesn't know what he has. The television
and newspaper brilliants put it out like it is a baseball
score. Except not one person involved can say that they truly know
what they are talking about.
Posted at 11:13 by Randy Kirchhof [Permalink]
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