My worry with the American Election of 2008 has nothing to do with the candidates, themselves, but really about the business of political analysis (which is my professional background). There is very little money in political analysis. So people either look to the business world to see how to make money the legitimate way (which is the path I chose), or one can corrupt one’s practice, say whatever a certain candidate wants, and become a hack. One becomes a hack either because of money or because of partisanship. Either way, good political analysts do not let emotions or money get in the way of measuring the reality on the ground. Yet, what I’m witnessing is the self-implosion of my old profession. I’m not exactly sure what the intentions are for some of these companies, but they aren’t even trying to get it right in their methodology.
An example is the voter ID spreads. Nationwide, the voter spread was 37 D 37 R in 2004. In an off year election, 2006, the voter spread was, I believe, 37 D 34 R, a difference of three points. Republicans didn’t turn out to vote that year. The ‘base’ was unhappy with their politicians. It happens with every party time to time. If a pollster used the spread of 37 D 34 R in 2008, they would be veering on the side of wrong since it assumes the Republican base will be depressed in a presidential election. When I say ‘veer’, I mean there is a slight possibility of that occurring. But not much. In this business, the maximum amount of a spread difference would be around 4 (and 4 is heavily pushing it). However, today pollsters are using polls with the spread of 10+ spread such as 44 D 34 R. It is absolutely laughable.
To those of you who are actually interested in being an information junkie this election, I ask you to do one thing: go into the internals and find the spread (difference in voter id for Republican and Democrat). What you will find are outrageous spreads of 10 points or so. Anything going over 4 points is laughable. This is what we call ‘cooked polls’. Why are they cooked? Well, your guess is as good as mine. But I know for sure there is intentional screwing around with the spread. Often, pollsters do this early on in the election (for payment or for partisanship) and the polls always tighten up at the end mostly because pollsters are running a business. They need the last polls as accurate as possible for future business. But, for some reason, pollsters are sticking with the flawed methodology. I give credit to Rasmussen for at least offering his internals. But he is intentionally messing with the spread to the end of the election for some reason.
And with the situation of the Old Media, let me give an example of my newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, for a microcosm of what is going on as a whole. Texas, as many know, is one of the most Republican states in the country. However, prior to the 90s, Texas was one of the most solid Democrat states in the country. It was the state of LBJ after all. For forty years, since LBJ, the Houston Chronicle endorsed a Republican candidate for President. Every other candidate, from senator on down, the Chronicle would go off on its own quirky endorsements.
The reason why the Houston Chronicle would always endorse a Republican candidate for President is because of business reasons: when anyone accused the Chronicle for being ‘liberal biased’, they could say, “Well, we have endorsed the Republican candidate for President for every election since LBJ.” Most of the paper’s other endorsements went against what most of their customers thought. The reason for the Chronicle to endorse a Republican presidential candidate every four years was their way of keeping customers.
Everyone is misunderstanding why the Houston Chronicle is endorsing Obama, the first Democrat presidential candidate the paper is endorsing in forty years. The reason is because the Houston Chronicle, like most of the old big papers in the nation, is dying. They know they are dying so they have decided to stop making the token effort which they pointed at whenever customers complained about them. They no longer care about what their customers think of them. Look at the front page and you’ll see, hammered over and over again: “Democrat landslide!” “Never before have we seen so many people coming out for Democrats!” This is laughable as this is Texas. What has happened is that the Houston Chronicle, growing weaker and weaker, was bought by a company in San Francisco.
But the point is that the Old Media, of newspapers, of even television news, is all dying. The stock of the New York Times is now pure junk. The paper keeps getting thinner and thinner. News rooms keep having to lay off staff. The reason why they are dying isn’t really because of the Internet as is that these companies simply don’t measure value in the eyes of the customer. Old Media is the only business I know where a customer can say, “Hey, you got this story wrong!” or “You guys don’t print out news much anymore,” and the business will respond to the customer, “SCREW YOU! Who do you think YOU are? We are JOURNALISTS! You don’t like what we do? Well, here is EVEN MORE!” You don’t stay in business long with that attitude. Old Media is rapidly dying before our eyes simply because of an attitude problem.
Perhaps it is too early for me to talk about the implosion of political analysis. But after the election, you will realize something has gone horribly wrong in the political analysis department.
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