Ms. Hollis teaches business law and accounting at the University of Notre Dame
Posted on 10/02/2012 7:32:45 AM PDT by Zakeet
The prevailing “narrative” is that Romney is doomed.
It seems to be that we have a case of the “shy students” and “fearful faculty” going on here, writ large. I suspect that what we are seeing in many “close” races is not a reflection of what people themselves plan to do, but their beliefs about what other people plan to do.
This is where the media bias and manipulation is so influential, inaccurate, and potentially destructive. An individual’s vote may not initially be affected by what the media says. But their perception of what “everyone else is doing” most certainly will be. If, at some point,that perception becomes overwhelming, it may persuade some to give up and stay home. Even if they are in the majority, they’ll never know it.
That of course, is the point.
All of this might be little more than idle speculation except for one thing – the media’s predictions, as well as many of the polls they have touted – have been WRONG in most of the elections since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008.
[Snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Ms. Hollis teaches business law and accounting at the University of Notre Dame
It is never a good sign when one side keeps claiming that the polls are “wrong” or “biased”.
It is even a worse sign when people start claiming that the poll respondents are giving wrong answers due to....fear, political correctness, fatalism (fill in the blank).
The link below is a time machine going back to October 2004 when the maggot infected mediots and their knee pad pollsters were declaring Kerry would be president:
They were wrong then and now!
It is never a good sign when one side keeps claiming that the polls are “wrong” or “biased”.It is even a worse sign when people start claiming that the poll respondents are giving wrong answers due to....fear, political correctness, fatalism (fill in the blank).
Polls have been showing the Democrat beating the Republican since Reagan beat Carter, and probably before that. They show it before the Democrat actually beats the Republican, and they show it before the Republican actually beats the Democrat. That's not a "claim," it's a fact.
When the Gallup organization came out with polling data that displeased the Obumma administration, David Axelrod threatened them with a lawsuit, and within a day or two they were sued by the United States Government. Since then, they have produced a string of polls that show Obumma running a huge lead over Romney. Fact not claim.
As to the "[claim] that the poll respondents are giving wrong answers due to....fear, political correctness, fatalism (fill in the blank)" ... well, ok, how do you explain the failure of the polls to predict election outcomes when Republicans win? There must be some explanation, what's yours?
“how do you explain the failure of the polls to predict election outcomes when Republicans win?”
Not all polls fail to predict Republican wins - see Wisconsin Recall this year.
The problem is ALL of the polls (including Rasmussen) are showing President Obama with the lead. No polls are showing Romney leading.
If Romney was leading, one would think at least ONE poll would show him in the lead. If Romney was relatively close, one would expect at least ONE “outlier” poll showing him in the lead - but we are not seeing that. Therefore, he must be quite a bit behind.
The inept Romney campaign has positioned things so that now Romney needs to hit a “home run” at tomorrow night’s debate to make this race competitive. Unfortunately, the chance of Romney hitting a “home run” is low due to the moderator, the debate format, and the resultant media coverage.
When a problem comes around ....
This is a special year. The Pravda Press is ALL IN for OTrauma, and also, traditional polling might be broken outright. Only 10% continue the poll when called these days, and land lines are almost extinct.
We haven't had even one debate and you are wringing your hands over “ALL of the polls”? How old are you? It is too early in the game to be calling the contest for one candidate or the other.
To put it in the most charitable terms... many of us here have never been excited about Mitt Romney. But the one thing that we all have to concede is that he is a tenacious fighter. Every other candidate in the primary went after him. All were hoping to be the non-Romney candidate and all of them stumbled at some point. But Romney never stumbled he just kept plodding along and never made a major mistake.
None of the supposed gaffes Romney has made were really gaffes at all. They even had to cut two or three minutes out of the 47% “gaffe” to make a statement of fact sound worse than it was. Romney is disciplined and cautious to an annoying degree. When Obama is off the prompter he is constantly making stupid comments. The media covers for Obama, but if he flounders in the debates... which is fairly likely... Romney will plod along straight into the white house.
It is definitely a tortoise vs the hare contest this time around. Romney is an experienced mature businessman who has surrounded himself with the best help that our side has to offer. I believe that they have a course charted out and are sticking to a plan. It is a scary time, but I believe that our side is going to win.
That was a great read!
Thanks!
Interesting article.
I wonder if the media, in its drive to convince us that Obama has the election locked up, hasn’t shot itself in the foot here.
Their obvious intent is to convince people who are on the fence, but leaning toward Romney, to either switch to Obama (to be with a winner) or to stay home (either because they don’t want to feel like they went with a loser, or because they figure the election’s already lost anyway.)
However, most people that are going to vote against Obama this year are determined to get to the polls; they aren’t likely to be discouraged from voting, nor will they change their vote.
But how about the marginal Obama voter? (And let’s face it, anyone who could vote for someone with his track record, unless they’re a rapid liberal/socialist, is a pretty marginal voter.) You know, the ones who trade their vote for a free meal, or a free phone this year perhaps? Well, why waste the time if the election’s in the bag anyway? Besides, it’s all a pile of hogwash anyway, this voting nonsense. Everyone knows it’s all rigged anyway. To heck with it.
See what I mean? There’s an excellent chance that potential Obama voters will be much more easily dissuaded from voting by this sort of press coverage than will potential Romney voters. And if the media overplays this the way they are likely to do, they might even cause one of those “landslides” like we’ve already seen these past two years, as Ms. Hollis described. Maybe that’s even why those landslides occurred in the first place?
“We haven’t had even one debate and you are wringing your hands over “ALL of the polls”?”
The whole point is NOT to wring hands. However, when there is a never-ending bleating chorus of “bad polls, bad polls”, it makes us look like we are wringing hands, and that is a sure sign of weakness.
I’m not saying there are not bad polls out there. I am saying that Romney is behind and that carping about bad polls is counterproductive.
“It is even a worse sign when people start claiming that the poll respondents are giving wrong answers due to....fear, political correctness, fatalism (fill in the blank).”
Then I guess you don’t “believe” in the “Bradley Effect”...well don’t strain your faith for it is a FACTOID!
Calling the polls for what they are is not hand wringing. It’s pointless to post polls ad-nauseum, especially here; but many continue to post them. Therefore, someone calls the bull immediately following a poll posting.
Axelrood’s “disscusion” with Gallup combined with Ocommie’s extremely lackluster campaign are ample justification for not trusting any polls with the wun in the lead!
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