On Aug 13, 2008, at 8:14 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Aug 13, 2008, at 9:50 AM, Shane Mage wrote:
>
>>
>> On Aug 13, 2008, at 7:01 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>>> ....There is basically no support for third-party candidates in
>>> the U.S. this year, though you'd never know that by reading some
>>> left-wing forums...
>>>
>> Gallup admits its falsification--only using questions that cast no
>> doubt on the "horserace" propaganda of the MSM. As I wrote
>> recently (July 29):
>>
>> "Such polls are just noise, and not only because they have never
>> been of any use so far from the election. The fact is that the
>> pollsters, nearly all of them capitalist firms, have an enormous
>> financial interest in the outcome of their polls: the demand for
>> their product depends on a perception that the election is
>> *close*. And their control over their own methodology, especially
>> question formulation and weighting of respondents, enables them to
>> get as close a result as they want every time. Incidentally, an
>> honest question--used by no poll as far as I know-- would be this:
>>
>> "do you expect to vote for:
>> -the Republican candidate
>> -the Democratic candidate
>> -a Third-Party candidate
>> -no preference yet"
>
> So, "whom will you vote for?" with no names listed is somehow
> devious or propagandistic?
>
The public has been deluged with "news" about Obama and McCain. There
has been virtually nothing on MSM involving even the fleeting mention
of the names Nader and Barr, let alone McKinney or La Riva. So,
knowing that only two names spring to the minds of almost all
respondents, when you ask "whom will you vote for?" with no names
listed you are indeed both devious and propagandistic.
>
> Pollsters' economic interest is in being as close to the final
> electoral outcome as possible.
>
That is obviously false except for the final days of the campaign. No
poll ever would claim that as its objective months--or even weeks--
before "the final electoral outcome." What they claim to offer their
paying clients is a "snapshot" of opinion at a particular moment. Are
they really so interested in such a "snapshot"--what possible use is
there of such a snapshot, except to those willing to pay to see how
well their campaign tricks are working, or to have some numbers to put
on a screen or a front page? Or is the pollsters' really important
interest their bottom lines?
> And the generic party ballot of the sort you list is very
> misleading, since generic Dems almost always poll better than actual
> Dems.
>
You need to read more carefully. A generic ballot question would say
*a* Dem or *a* Rep candidate. The question I called for says *the*
Dem, *the* Rep. The difference is that every "likely" voter (those
selected for by polls) in this country knows that at present the Dem
candidate is named Obama and the Rep candidate is named McCain. It
puts the question anent 3rd party candidates as generic precisely
because virtually no "likely voter" can name more than two such
candidates, very few can name more than one, and many, perhaps most,
cannot name any.
> So just about everything you said here was wrong.
Shane Mage
"This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures."
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30