On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 Carrol Cox wrote:
> Does it make much difference? I'm a little puzzled by what I have come to
> think of as the "sports reporting" nature of conversation on this list for
> months now. It is like reading sports columns speculating on who is going
> to win the divisional title, et cetera. After all, we find out late Nov. 2
> or Nov. 3. So why not explore more interesting questions.
I think the puzzlement is easy to explain. It's a matter of perspective.
For a spectator like you, sitting on the sidelines, and not a fan of either team, of course this is all "inside baseball," miles beyond your interest level. But the people who are playing the game naturally feel differently. The closer it comes to the clock running out on the decisive final play, the more we care about every teeny sign of strength or weakness that might possibly be exploited.
And for that purpose, these polls couldn't be better for our side. If the polls were all saying Kerry would win, a lot of us wouldn't make that extra effort to get up early and take a bus to another state. If they all said Kerry was losing and we believed them, many of us would skip the bus because we were dispirited -- because we would hate the idea of spending 12 hours in the cold when we were almost sure we were going to lose. But these disputable polls are perfect. We think we're going to win -- but we're scared. And the more we talk about them, and the more we repeat and sift their disputability, the more we fire those feelings up until they merge into the conviction that we'll win -- but only by everyone making a supreme last effort, doing more than they ever have before.
That's the reason we keep talking about them, Carrol. It's partially an intellectual hobby for those of us who have taken statistics (which is another thing that probably bores you). But it's real value is motivational.
Michael