Above: Kermit sings.
Control of presidency? Toss-up, they say.
Control of senate? Toss-up, they say.
Control of House? Conceded.
I’m curious how the presidency can be that much in question if Democrats say they have no chance of taking back the House? Sure, there is gerrymandering, but nothing that would make it impossible for Democrats to win back the House. Remember that House flipped to Democrats in 2006 and stayed that way in 2008 when Obama was elected.
Obama would have to get crossover votes from people who are voting for House Republicans. I don’t think this is likely. Clinton campaigned as a New Democrat, a centrist, which is how he got some Republicans and independents to vote for him. Reagan and Bush I had the Reagan Democrats. I don’t see Obama getting Republicans or most Independents to vote for him this time especially the ones who voted the Tea Party House Republicans. I confess there may be something that I don’t understand, but I don’t see how Obama can win the presidency if the D party has conceded the House already. If the D party can’t win the House, they aren’t going to get much of the popular vote.
“But they don’t need that, Malstrom,” you say. “The election is about electoral votes.” This is true. However, the probability for the electoral victor not to match the popular victor is extremely unlikely. The pattern for most presidential elections is to be lopsided one way or another. And, incredibly, both sides say it is lopsided in their favor as of today.
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Someone asked me, “Why do the Rs keep questioning the polls.”
The answer is so simple it will shock you. It is because the polls never show the Republicans winning… even when they do win the election. I know people alive who say, “I’ve never seen the Republican presidential candidate ahead in the polls.” Well, in 1980, the polls were always ‘tied’ until election day when Reagan won 44 states. In 1984, there was very little reporting of the polls. It’s like the polls had a holiday. Then came election day when Reagan wins 49 states. Again, in 1988, the polls say it is tied until Bush wins in a massive victory.
However, in 1992, 1996, and 2008, the polls kept saying Clinton or Obama was ahead throughout the campaign.
Prior to 1980, there wasn’t as much talk of the polling. If polls existed, they were buried in a news story. So the answer is that Republicans think that if they hear the polls are tied, it means they are actually ahead because they’ve never heard the R candidate being ahead. Young people haven’t experienced the big R wins where the polling was hidden or ‘even’ until election day and think the old people are loons.
However, I think monetary pressure explains any misbehavior of the polling more than bias.
From the Huffington Post:
The polling profession is crashing. With this trend, I see polling becoming more inaccurate and more expensive in the future.
That Democratic emailer said this is all just a media ruse to ‘keep the horserace going’ in order to keep people interested. However, it wasn’t done in 2008 or 1996 or 1992.
No matter how one thinks about the polls, have you noticed the change in behavior with people concerning the polls? They give polls so much power by allowing their personal happiness to be affected by it. Unless your career depends on these polls, what they say shouldn’t affect your own life. And the only careers that do are people inside the campaign… and they don’t even use the media polls. They have their own internal polling. Have we turned into polling junkies where we look at the polls we want in order to get that feeling of ‘high’?
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