Pacific Views

Who's Electable? A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

I watched Lou Dobbs on CNN tonight comment about the upcoming primary in New Hampshire. In the hour-long show, neither he nor his guests mentioned a word about any of the candidates' views on the issues. Instead, we were fed pablum about how close or far away the candidates were to winning the state in the polls. In fact, they seemed proud to announce that there was no difference between the seven candidates.

The truth of the matter is, this is not a race driven by the issues. Sorry, folks. It just isn't, because there isn't much difference between these candidates on the issues. They all basically agree they want to repeal the tax cuts, or at least part of them or all of them. There are just nuances of difference.

They're all against what we're doing in Iraq, but there are just little nuances of difference. They're all for abortion rights. I mean, basically, they all agree on most important issues.

DOBBS: Well, they're all Democrats, right, Bill?

SCHNEIDER: They're all Democrats.

(LAUGHTER)

Especially embarrassing was the performance of talking head William Schneider. Billed as CNN Sr. Political Analyst, he filled up a lot of air time just to say that Kerry was in the lead. This is a job that I want. I bet the "Senior Political Analyst" at CNN pulls down some righteous green, but I can tell you that he knows little to nothing about politics, or about polls.

Well, let's take a look at that latest horse race figure for where the race stands as of last night. Kerry is in the lead, 36 to 25. That's an 11-point lead, with a very tight race, as you indicated, between Wesley Clark, John Edwards and Joe Lieberman. Now, I should point out that there are about five or six tracking polls bouncing around New Hampshire. They all show Kerry ahead. But the margins vary from three points in one poll, 11, as you see here with our poll. Some of them are as high as 18 and 20 points. So there's a huge variation, all of them Kerry in the lead...

But then he goes merrily on to contradict himself:

New Hampshire polls have a terrible record of predicting. These days, voters make up their minds on their own time. So I'm saying is, you don't believe any one poll. That one has three points. Ours had 11. You look at all of them. And when you look at all of them, you say, well, it looks like Kerry is ahead, but we don't know by how much.

Did you learn anything from that "analysis"? One after the other, these talking heads appear on TV shows, posing as experts and all they do is quote their pet poll, as if tracking numbers are handed down by God. Even after being proven completely wrong like they were in Iowa, they doggedly stick to their numbers crutch. To make matter s worse, they knowingly intone "with a 4% margin of error ...", not knowing that the 4% only applies if 100% of the generated random sample agreed to be interviewed. Joe Klein of Time magazine said in a 12/12/03 article, if I recall correctly, that some polls only have a 5% response rate. I don't agree with much of what Joe says, so this factoid deserves to be validated. If true, it just reinforces my point that polls are meaningless. They're worse than meaningless, they're downright dangerous.

So-called experts appearing on TV, backed by polling data have a profound effect on the way people vote. Instead of comparing the real issues that separate the candidates and giving people the criteria they need to make an informed decision, the media "experts" talk exclusively about who is in which position in the polls. They might as well be commenting on a horse race. Why they do this is unclear. I have my hunches, but I'd like to hear from you what you think.

Dobbs and Schneider then conclude that the only criteria the voters have on which to differentiate the candidates is which one is going to beat George Bush. It's all about who's electable and who's not. But still quoting tracking numbers, they branch off, inserting personal opinion in the guise of polling data.

That's why I said, if Clark had run in Iowa, he might have been Kerry. He might have been the winner, because they're both electable, but Kerry got there first. They both promise to keep you safe. They have military experience. They have foreign policy experience. They look like people who can stand next to Bush and talk credibly about national security. And you know what? The other Democrats can't.

How close-minded and politically ignorant can you get?! The sad part of it is, that if enough people watch these shows and believe the misinformation they're being fed the self-fulfilling prophecy will become true. Just remember this: the candidate with the most electability, for the only person that matters -- the only person that you have a direct influence on -- is the one who gets your vote.