So what do I see after I hit Publish on my last post? A comment on my Obama the Socialist Revisited post that pastes an article about how Obama has leads in “key states”. I don’t think the comment was from a malicious liberal, since it was headered with “more bad news”, but I’m not going to post the comment anyway. Why? Well, you know how I feel about polls, right? I made a post about it all the way back in June. When someone tells me about the latest poll, whether it’s for or against the person I’m rooting for, I will always think and sometimes say: “Well, I wasn’t asked.” And that’s my whole point.
These things are based off of serious statistical extrapolation. Honestly, the 2008 estimated population is just over 300,000,000. That’s 300 million people. Of course, not all of those are legal voters, but even if 100 million people weren’t voting, that’s still a lot of people to extrapolate for. If you want to get technical, you’re only supposed to take each state’s population, but please, save your breath. I’m not interested in particulars and I only mention it to shut up those of you who would use that to deflect my points as liberals are so keen to do.
But! I’ll humor you. Let’s take the population of Ohio, which has been repeatedly called a key state in this election. 2007 estimated population? Somewhere around 11 million. Okay. I read on Slashdot that a “good” poll consists of somewhere around 1,000 people. This is backed up by the Opinion Poll article on Wikipedia. 1,000 is a statistically good number to poll, apparently. So see, with the absolutely blatant partisanship the mainstream media has in favor of the Democrats, you can bet your bottom dollar that these so-called “reliable polls” are going into the heart of liberal cities, conducting their polls, and then taking it back to their news processors to interpret the results as much in favor for Obama as they possibly can. They’ve done this for as long as I can remember and they’re doing it as I write this. It’s the mainstream media! Anyone at this point who thinks the mainstream media isn’t completely in the tank for Obama and has unceremoniously thrown objective reporting out the window is lying to you and themselves, period. There is absolutely no way anyone can believe that and be honest with themselves, it’s that simple.
So they go into Columbus or Dayton, Ohio and they conduct their poll of 1,000 people. Okay, well, that still leaves out the other 10,999,000 citizens of Ohio, now, doesn’t it? Oh, they’ll pull some mathematical and statistical formulae to bedazzle you with how accurate their poll is and it may very well be statisically “acceptable” for a poll, but it does not at any moment give you even the slightly picture of what the voters are feeling like. I’m sure that mathematical geniuses will at this time want to wring my neck and scream at me as to how foolish I’m sounding and by all means, leave a comment and tell me how wrong I am! Doesn’t mean I am wrong and I will most likely not be inclined to agree or humor you, but you can leave a comment! That’s what comment forms are there for! Go ahead… I want to hear your arguments. Because I have the perfect example that will utterly crush any and every argument you have in support of polling data and how accurate they may be. Ready? Hold on to your hats, folks!
President George W. Bush.
With his name alone, I have flawlessly proved my point that polls mean absolutely NOTHING. Everyone remembers how Bush was supposed to lose to Gore in 2000. The polls called for landslide victories on Gore’s part and reports started flooding in that Gore’s campaign was beginning to “measure for draperies” and otherwise planning their stay in the White House far before the election. (Kind of like how Obama’s campaign is acting right now, wouldn’t you agree?) The mainstream media hyped their polls and estimates so much that all the networks were so eager to declare Gore the winner before everyone was finished counting the votes, because “oh, it’s statistically impossible for the Republicans to win!” Turns out that there was this little state called Florida that managed to vote just barely enough for Bush that he won the election. So close, in fact, that Democrat voter fraud could have changed the outcome entirely, so that’s why ACORN is so important, kids. Since the media has pretty much declared Gore the winner before it was all over with, all the Democrats rejoiced, and then when they heard Bush had actually won, they began their chants of a stolen election in spite of all the evidence (and a court ruling, which the Democrats like treat as Constitutional amendments when the rulings support them).
And then what happened next election? Bush vs Kerry? Pretty much the same exact thing, wasn’t it? According to the polls, nobody wanted another 4 entire years of “failed Bush policies” (a favorite phrase with the Democrats, it seems) and he might as well drop out of the race because John Kerry was going to win the election! Then, shock and horror: Bush won his second term in spite of all the polls. The only thing different this election cycle was the new law that prevented the networks from prematurely announcing a winner during the counting process when it was clearly a tactic to sway voters in the western states. The only thing different this election was that the media didn’t actually declare Kerry a winner, but they sure as heck let the polls do all the talking.
And they’re doing the very same thing again this year. Will they never learn? Polls mean absolutely diddley-squat! If you insist on using them, be aware of this fact and treat them only as extremely broad interpretations of what might happen. Come on, if you poll 1,000 people in a city, then you’re going to get a majority of Democrats. This is a fact. Cities tend to be more Democrat than Republican. If you poll 1,000 people in the rural areas, then you’re going to get predominantly Republican results, aren’t you? Read my lips (or words):
POLLS ARE DESIGNED FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF DISCOURAGING REPUBLICAN VOTERS.
They have been for ages and will continue to be… So ignore them! Ignore them completely! They mean absolutely nothing! Shame on you Republicans who, after this year, think there’s still a shred of reality in any major news network today and shame on your Republicans who look at these polls and think the end is nigh. It’s not! McCain’s poll numbers are higher than Bush’s when Bush was running against Kerry. No mainstream media outlet tells anyone that, now, do they? If you really want to use a poll, look at it that way and it pretty much guarantees a McCain win. But don’t even do that… Don’t listen to polls, period. The only thing that matters in the end is the election process. (Which is being clouded by ACORN activites, but that’s beside the point, although completely relevant to the election despite what Senator Government and his cronies would want you to think.)
Polls have always been a pointless way of determining the outcome of elections… As Election Day draws ever nearer, you’re starting to see the leveling off of several polls (much to the panic of liberals across the country). They still aren’t willing to show McCain with even a shred of hope for victory, but as Rush Limbaugh said a few days ago, the pollsters have the uncanny ability of tilting the results in favor of who they want to win up to and including the day of the election, but as it gets more down to the wire, you start to see some accurate readings. Why? Well, because the pollsters want to be able to say they were right, after all! They want to be able to point at something and say “look how accurate we are! You should use us for poll results!” However laughable it is to do that, that’s what happens… But it still stands that polls mean absolutely nothing. Just repeat that to yourself. Polls mean nothing. Never have and never will.
I leave you with this one last example. The election of 1948. Someone was expected to lose so badly that newspapers actually started printing their next issue with the story of how badly the guy lost! Seems rather like the Bush vs Gore debacle if you ask me, but nope! It wasn’t… Know who it was? Harry Truman vs Thomas Dewey. Truman was expected to lose… He didn’t… At all. In fact, he won by a shocking landslide of 303 electoral vote! Here’s the proof:

Republicans have seen that picture an awful lot lately… You Democrats should appreciate this especially, because Dewey was the Republican! Imagine a time where the mainstream media actually tried to elevate a Republican… Wow. Whether or not it was intentionally done, as Wikipedia is so keen on trying to explain away, the fact remains that polls are a sickeningly poor method of predicting election outcomes. Even if you think the mainstream media really isn’t biased for Obama (which, if you do, you’re insane), there’s no arguing that polls have been shown time and time again to be dead wrong and used almost solely for discouraging voter participation. Don’t let it happen. Get out there, vote for McCain and Palin and show everyone we conservatives mean business and that we’re not going to sit by and watch a Socialist take over this country just because all the lazy liberals want government checks and “free” health care.