As the CNN poll of polls below shows, Obama's lead has been surprisingly stable over the last six months at about six or seven points.
chart by Jim Whiteside
The only things that have significantly moved the numbers are Sarah Palin's acceptance speech (which pulled the tickets even at 46 percent) and the economic meltdown (which not only erased the Palin effect, but pushed Obama over 50% for the first time).
More importantly, the trend for Obama leveled off at 51% about a week ago. If that holds, he finally has enough votes to win. In other words, the American public appears to have settled on Obama as a direct result of the present economic crisis.
That's not to say the election won't be close. The Bradley effect suggests that a large marjority of the undecideds will break for McCain. That's why breaking the 50% barrier is so critical...critical to a close win, in other words, nothing more!
Did you know there's one poll that claims to have no margin of error? Yes! It's the CNN National Poll of Polls.
chart by Jim Whiteside
How is that possible? By combining up to eleven different polls, it increases the sample size. That reduces the margin of error. Once the margin drops below half a point, you can say with a high degree of confidence that the results are accurate...but not perfect! There's still a margin of error. It's just very small.
Adding to its significance are the polls included in the CNN poll:
American Research Group
Franklin & Marshall
IPSOS-McClatchy
Fox/Opinion Dynamics
AP/GfK
Pew
CNN/ORC
ABC/Washington Post
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby
Gallup
Diageo/Hotline
There are several new factors, however, that may reduce its accuracy in this unusual election:
The Bradley effect
The inability of pollers to accurately sample cell phone users
Unknown turnout percentages for enthusiast new voters
Unknown turnout percentages for enthusiast young voters
Unknown turnout percentages for enthusiast Black voters
The Bradley effect suggests that nearly all of the undecided voters will break for the white candidate. Since the latest poll of polls has Obama at 51%, that shouldn't be problem unless the race tightens. The cell phone problem, however, will take several election cycles to clarify.
The effects of enthusiasm, however, have always been overestimated. Young, new, and even Blacks have always disappointed their believers in the past. Since Obama is Black, there's good reason to think this time might be different, but even that's not a sure thing.
Since it's not clear how the pollsters are weighting all of these factors in their sampling techniques, CNN's claim of a zero margin of error can only be taken with a grain of salt. Even if the election were held tomorrow, it's still possible that McCain would win.
As you can see in the chart* below, Obama has raised almost twice as much as McCain this year—603 million as of the end of September. It's estimated that he'll raise three quarters of a million dollars by election time.
There's little question that this has a distorting effect on the selection of our leaders. In other words, if Obama wins in a close election, the chances are overwhelming that he bought it through advertising! That's because most people get information about the candidates passively by overhearing it while watching something else, i.e. through advertising.
Why does that make a difference? Because ads are one-sided at best and misrepresentations, if not outright lies, at worst. They take things out of context and exaggerate the differences. The only way for the opposition to correct this fictional narrative is through ads that set the story straight. Without money, a candidate can't correct misimpressions much less play the game in reverse and define the opponent through distortions and misrepresentations of their own! That's how politics is played in America.
Is this fair? Of course not. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the free speech provision of the Constitution has hamstrung efforts to control spending. Until that changes, nothing definitive can be done.
In other words, short of a constitutional amendment or a new Supreme Court, the leadership of America is up for sale!
Image:
Open Secret. (2008, October 20). Banking on Becoming President. (OpenSecrets.org). Retrieved October 27, 2008 from http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php
The video above is over a month old now and still brings a smile to my face, but will it and others lampooning Sara Palin make a difference? That's the question.
There's no clear answer statistically. Campaign contributions usually go up after an appearance on a late night comedy show.* The prevailing opinion among the punditocracy is that it doesn't become a problem until the characterization begins to take hold and the public accepts the portrayal as true. That's apparently what happened with Chevy Chase's depiction of Gerald Ford in 1976.* The same thing appears to be happening with Tina Fey's Sarah Palin.
In other words, it could indeed cost McCain the election, not only because she's not ready for the Presidency, but also because it calls into question his judgment.
The long-range effect on Palin, however, may not be all that bad. Even I find her personally appealing. If and when she masters the background necessary to speak knowledgeably about the issues, she could still make a comeback. That's the kind of change, however, few people ever accomplish.
The accepted truth about how Americans choose a president is The Beer-Buddy Test. In other words, "Who would you most like to have a beer with?"
When the choice involves the opposite sex, though, there's a problem. Sex rears its ugly head! Palin is very attractive. There's no doubt about that. It undoubtedly plays a factor in the huge crowds at her rallies.
That's not the problem, though. The problem is why McCain chose her. She's so patently unqualified it raises the question of whether McCain's judgment was impaired by sexual attraction!
Let's call this The Beer-Babe Test. The fundamental question is "Was he seduced?" Ask yourself these questions:
Did sexual attraction play a role in his choice?
Did it cloud his judgment?
Was he so flattered by her attention he chose her in spite of her shortcomings?
If you can answer yes to any of these questions, the candidate should automatically be disqualified for office. (When the roles are reversed, the same questions apply. Only the pronouns change.)
The Beer-Buddy Test is only a metaphor. The real question is "Who's best on TV?" In other words, who can you live with the longest knowing you're going to have to watch him or her on TV for the next four years? Let's call this The TV-Tolerance Test.
It's still a ridiculous standard. Why can't the question be, "Who's the best qualified?" Call this The Qualified-Voter Test because unless you can answer this question rationally, it's you who's not qualified. If you haven't studied the issues, in other words, why are you voting?
The most disturbing trend in American politics is the embrace of the average Joe as a leader. I'm not only talking about the sitting president—a disaster by anyone's measure—but Sarah Palin as well. After suffering through eight years of incompetency, how could the Republicans, and perhaps the country, embrace yet another know-nothing?
The answer, of course, is childhood anger at people like myself who think we know more than they do. The fact that we do is immaterial. As they used to say about dictators around the world, "He may be a bastard, but at least he's our bastard!" In the case of Bush and Pallin, that should read, "They may be airheads, but at least they're our airheads!"
Image:
Pende, Brad. (2008, August 11). President Bush prepares to 'tap that.'" (flickr: cc-by bpende, August 11, 2008). Retrieved October 26, 2008 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/bpende/2753981194/
John McCain has disqualified himself with the public by letting his anger show so much on the campaign trail. That's not the kind of person we want running the country, no matter how angry we ourselves may be. The result is a collapsing profile in the electoral college.
Unfortunately, his anger is not limited to the campaign trail. Listen to the testimony of some of his fellow senators:
McCain's "temper would place this country at risk in international affairs and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." —Bob Smith, former Republican senator from New Hampshire
I don't "want this guy anywhere near a trigger." —Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico
"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded." —Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi
That's not to say he won't be elected. Racism runs deep in our society and may still put him office, but it will be because he's seen as the lesser of two evils....
ESNEAD. (2008, October 20). Why is John McCain so angry? Grrrrr! (The Los Angeles Times: The Dish Rag by Elizabeth Snead). Retrieved October 27, 2008 from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2008/10/why-is-john-mcc.html
Politics spring from family! That's the unifying message in this blog. Both Republican and Democratic positions spring from childhood pain and the anger it stimulated.
In the case of Democrats, however, the basic position is less a victim than as an observer of victims—in my case my Mom. Having suffered through fifteen years of screaming fights as a child between Mom and Dad, I swore I'd never allow that to happen again. Thus was born a Democrat!
I was a victim as well, of course, and reserve a well of hatred to this day for the stupid and cruel everywhere, but that's still unlike the basic Republican position in which hatred is reserved for the smart and cruel—those people who told them they weren't good enough!
The fundamental difference is success in school. Being smart and therefore successful in school, I resented schoolyard bullies, not bullying teachers. Thus the Democratic way: protecting the underdog!
We both hate bullies, but of different stripes. Unfortunately, we end up projecting that resentment on each other! That's why both bases—Democratic and Republican—hate each other so much. We recognize too many of each other's traits from childhood. They're the traits of bullies who made our lives miserable back then!
Image:
Eddie~S. (2008, May 17). Bully Free Zone. (flickr: cc-by Eddie~S, May 17, 2008). Retrieved October 26, 2008 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/pointshoot/2500644518/
It's the amount of anger in this election season that's so scary. We've finally seen first-hand the kind of emotions that produce dictators of all stripes as well as wars of genocide and mass destruction!
I'm talking about the McCain-Palin rallies, of course, the ones in which they inflame their audience by accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists." This has resulted in cries of "traitor," "terrorist," and most unbelievably of all, "Kill him!"
The amount of passion behind McCain voters cannot be underestimated. Consider this example published on postsecret.blogspot.com (October 18, 2008): pictures of JKF, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy—all with X's over their faces!—sitting beside a larger images of Barack Obama surrounded by the words, "It's only a matter of time!"
Some of my closest friends oppose Obama. Because the topic is so sensitive, we don't talk about him directly, but it obviously goes beyond dislike. They're passionate. They hate him. Frankly, it's hard to understand why they even continue to talk to me. That's how deep the emotions are runing in this campaign!
Such otherwise unexplainable emotion can be traced back to childhood humiliations for not being good enough. While that makes it understandable perhaps, it doesn't soften the blows that may yet land on me and others or stop the blood thirst that leads to war.
We've met the enemy all right. They're in our midst. We meet them everyday on every street in America!
To understand this country, you have to understand the mind of uneducated, Southern whites. These are the same people who owned slaves in the nineteenth century and then used lynching to enforce Jim Crow laws in the first half of the twentieth century. Since then, they've exercised their pernicious influence through Republican politics.
Here's a typical example of their reasoning:
Think about this for a minute or two!
Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed.
Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze? Don't you love our country?
The most shocking thing about this quote is that it was published in late October—a month after the economic crisis of 2008 began. Even on the verge of utter collapse for the brand of laissez-faire capitalism they champion, blue-collar conservatives still can't see the problem. All they see is the prospect of losing power! That's what scares them, not economic collapse (as long as they're still on top, that is).
The quote only looks like humor. It's not. Having heard a lifetime of it, I can assure you this is the equivalent of a carefully reasoned argument in more educated circles.The technique has been around forever, but was perfected by Ronald Reagan—the Patron Saint of the Uninformed!
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you would have $33.00 today.
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you would have $0.00 today.
But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you would have received $214.00.
Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It's called the 401-Keg.
Note: I received this tidbit from the Derita Reporter email service. It was created by someone named George, submitted by Rich Haag to somewhere unknown, and has been spreading virally ever since.
The Sarah Palin phenomena doesn't require interpretation. It's transparently obvious. She's talking to the nation the same way she talks to her children—simplistically, even childishly at times.
The problem is that's the way thinks as well. She can't then turn to a Face-the-Nation audience and change roles, speaking like an adult to other equally well-informed minds. That's because she doesn't have the general-knowledge base we associated with an educated adult. She sees the world through a child's eye.
She doesn't know, for instance, what the job of vice president involves. As a result, she assumes, as children do, that no one else knows either. This allows her to fabricate answers without any embarrassment whatsoever. She assumes we'll react the same way her children do. "Thanks, Mom. Boy, you're smart....See, Dummy, I told you Mom would know!"
In other words, she operates on the campaign trail like a kindergarten teacher in a classroom. She takes it for granted that we know less than she does.It's her job to educate us, not the other way around. That's why, in those long awkward moments with interviewers, she can't simply ask for help or admit that she doesn't know. That would undermine her authority as teacher!
In other words, Sarah Palin's not running for vice-president. She's actually running for President Mom...not just in 2012 either, but right now! Having overthrown the principal in Alaska, she thinks she can do the same thing in the lower 48. All she has to do is help Papa McCain a little to kick the bucket. That's why she refers to her husband as First Dud, not First Vice-Dud!...Freudian slip.
The shock is that anyone would take her seriously, especially after eight, disastrous years of President Grade-School-Bully!
Yesterday I was sitting in the waiting room at Honda of Lake Norman trying to prepare for an upcoming e-commerce seminar. The plasma-screen TV, however, was turned to the Fox channel where a beautiful, young female announcer was screaming denunciations of the Democrats for questioning the credibility of "Joe the Plumber"—the main character in the presidential debates Wednesday night—instead of focusing on Joe's question.
The problem was that Joe had created a fictional identity for himself to score political points in a conversation with Barrack Obama. Nothing about the story he created was true. He wasn't planning on buying a plumbing business. He couldn't even pay past taxes of some $1,500, much less buy a company that would have to be worth over a million dollars to generate the kinds of profits he describes.
Yet he claimed to be worrying about paying taxes on income over $250,000 for a company that only made $100,000 last year (his boss's company). Because his salary was only $40,000, the whole proposition was patently fictional. Joe was not even a licensed plumber. Even his name was fraudulent. He was called Sam by people who knew him.
Even if the premise were true, however, the chances were very slim that he'd have to pay any taxes next year. He'd be more likely to receive credits for new hires and other perks Obama promises small businesses to stimulate the economy.
The most surprising thing about the whole episode, however, was that when he later discovered he'd get a $5,000 refund on his taxes next year, he said he'd refuse to accept it...even though he's in arrears on his existing taxes!
How is all this possible? How can anyone make sense of it? The answer, of course, is that both Joe and the announcer are Republicans promoting an agenda. That doesn't really answer the question, however.
The real question has to do with the incredible emotion involved. Where does that come from? When you can answer that, you'll understand the American political system.
Fortunately, the answer is not only easy, but fairly obvious. It almost always starts with childhood bullying of one sort or another. In this case, it probably involved teachers and teacher's pets who were continually critical and perhaps even made fun of the people who were "slower." This kind of thing, when it goes deep into the soul over a long period of time, packs a powder keg of hatred and emotion toward similar people that can quickly be ignited by similar confrontations in the future.
That's almost certainly what happened in the case of the announcer. Even if she was putting on a show of emotion for the audience, she clearly thought that was what they wanted to hear, i.e. what they wanted to say if they could. "Joe," of course, was much calmer, but he was playing an elaborate game of Gotcha based on a tissue of lies.
His hope was to turn the tables on snotty teacher types and embarrass them the way he'd been embarrassed as a child. Unfortunately, he hadn't done his research. Even his fictional question turned out to have not one, but two embarrassing answers. Not only would his fictional persona receive government aid, but so would his real personna. Sam would receive a $5,000 refund check next year.
The proof of this analysis is suggested by Sam's reaction: "I won't take it!" Hear the voice of the petulant child inside? It's completely irrational. This is the actual basis of American politics!
Welcome to American Psyche—a website dedicated to exploring our collective soul.
We're a divided nation and always have been. We're riven by political passions we cannot control. We don't select our presidents; we line them up where the asphalt ends and careen down the road toward them at top speed! The winners are not chosen; they're simply the last ones standing. It's we who plunge into the waiting abyss of reeling depression and manic euphoria afterwards!
You'd think we'd enjoy the process more by now, but we don't. We're a lonely, brokenhearted nation that ran away from mother Europe long ago and never grew up. Completely unable to control our emotional appetites, we're doomed to repeat our innumerable mistakes through time immemorial!
This blog is dedicated to the emotional side of our history, both past and present. Not only will a diagnosis be made, but therapy will be offered as well. Only the patient itself, however, can decide to be treated!
Images:
Lexie. (2008, January 7). Day 59—Am I Dead? (flickr: cc-by gotplaid, January 7, 2008). Retrieved October 26, 2008 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/59953599@N00/2175171925/
wordjunky. (2007, November 27). sudden stop2. (flickr: cc-by wordjunky, November 27, 2007). Retrieved October 26, 2008 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/wordjunky/2070139479/
I'm a monk at heart, a therapist by training, and a designer by chance! That's why I became a writer!
My passion is for change—in religion and politics as well as art. Design is only the medium; a second Renaissance...The Dream!
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