Jul

25

Polling.

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On January 8th, according to SurveyUSA, Howard Dean would have been endorsed by Iowa with 25-34% of the vote. On January 20th, the day after the Iowa Caucuses, Iowa chose John Kerry, leaving Howard Dean with only 18% of the votes.

One possible read on this is that of the 100,000 to 125,000 Iowans that participated in the caucuses, somewhere between 7000 and 20,000 Iowans changed their minds between January 8th and January 19th. This is possible, of course.

But isn’t the more rational conclusion to reach is that SurveyUSA screwed up? Perhaps its survey methods are flawed; perhaps its survey methods were corrupted; perhaps its statisticians are pranksters. Perhaps–and here’s what I’m really getting out–there isn’t really all that strong a correlation between what people say on the phone and what they do in the voting booth.

The Howard Dean “fall” is just an example. The news is riddled with many examples of supposed “sea changes” or “about faces” in public opinion that may never have happened. Isn’t it more likely that for every time a whole bunch of people went from being adamantly opposed to Issue X to being adamantly for Issue X, there are ten more times where the pollsters just didn’t find truth through the telephone in the first place? Isn’t it more likely that Howard Dean was never the front-runner?

Jul

24

Democracy for America.

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I have a confession. I was a Howard Dean fan. From pretty early on. Certainly before anyone was calling Dean the presumptive nominee, which itself was before anyone actually voted in a primary. I was a Dean fan because, despite how portrayed in the media, Dean was a moderate. A fiscal moderate–who actually believed in figuring out where the money is going to come from (something neither Kerry nor Bush seems concerned with)–and a foreign policy moderate–who actually believed in waging war when necessary.

So after Dean dropped out and endorsed Kerry, and after Dean for America morphed into Democracy for America, I looked to see what there was for me to do. What have I leaned? Not much. DFA paints itself as an organization. It is not. It does not provide as many concrete goals or activities that individuals can accomplish. It is more of a way to meet like-minded individuals, and there you can figure out what to do. Fine. But it isn’t even as effective as Meetup at accomplishing that very limited function. Oh well.

At first I was bothered by DFA’s reference to its fora as “forums.” So I checked. And Merriam-Webster agreed with the DFA folks. Apparently, the English language was butchered into allowing “forums” as an alternate pluralization so long ago that it is now an accepted form. Fuckers.

What next bothered me is that my suggestions regarding the Nader candidacy and gay marriage (look for posts by yllama) were not even addressed. I mean, what is wrong with these people that they don’t even ridicule a stupid idea, or fawn over a good idea, or critique a flawed idea, or whatever you want to call it?

But then I became less of a whining bitch, and realized that no one cares about ideas. Especially when they are old hat. These people just want to bicker amongst themselves and accomplish nothing. Fine. But in the end, that is all I want to do as well. Bickering is what makes life worth living, no? So who am I to criticize, just because they want to bicker about something different?