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General Off-Topic Board / Re: why obama win
« on: September 23, 2008, 08:19:18 PM »
huh? you are being mean and using way too many fallacies.
the ad-hom. nice opener.
Lest you get all excited and end up suicidal, try to think back to Kerry - by all accounts, he should have won in a landslide because all the liberals convinced themselves that everyone they knew were going to vote for Kerry. Poll after poll showed Kerry ahead, pretty much throughout the election cycle. Then the results came in - Bush won reelection fair and square. Personally, I was destroyed.
http://www.ncpp.org/files/2004%20Election%20Polls%20Review.pdf
The polls were wrong 11% of the time, and with margin of error. Personally- and this it a totally unscientific and skewed off the cuff analysis- I thought Kerry ran a poor campaign, was totally uncharismatic and never challenged Bush in a way that looked like it would make significant inroads in defeating an incumbent, something historically very hard to do. Rolling over on the war, which at the time was still somewhat popular, and lacking significant domestic issues to run on, I personally was optimistic and hopeful but never really thought Kerry would win. Some were hopeful and others resigned to a third Bush term; but as for the polls, your argument seems wrong.
Then I realized something that you should think about: Who takes polls? I've never taken a poll. No one I know has ever taken a poll. My parents have never taken a poll and no one they know has ever taken a poll. I've never met or spoken to anyone who's ever taken a poll. What the hell kind of scam are these 'pollsters' running here?
Really? You don't see the glaring fallacy in your poll of 'every person you have ever met' versus the professional pollers? You think they are lying to you? Does your burning anger at pollsters consume you to the point that you feel obligated to ask every person they meet if they have taken a poll recently? Personally I don't know if anyone in my close family has taken a poll recently. Saying that no one your parents know has ever taken a poll assumes that a) they asked every person they knew if they took a poll and b) they relayed that information to you.
Housewives and the unemployed. The elderly and the disabled. That's who takes polls. Because those are the only people that are home when the polls are administered. When you work all day, you don't have time to take a poll. So how accurate are they really? Housewives, the unemployed, and the disabled on public aid tend to skew left.
http://media.gallup.com/PDF/FAQ/HowArePolls.pdf
Wrong. First of all, I have met plenty of disabled persons, housewives, and unemployed folks who vote for the GOP. Secondly, pollsters are professional statisticians who develop techniques to account for such discrepancies, such as making repeat calls to the same number at different times to account for at-home patterns and make multiple calls to reduce the error of excluding certain groups based at their habits of being close to a phone at any given time. Your guess that polls only occur 9-5 m-f is simply wrong, as is your assumption that being a working person requires you to only work those hour, because of course the economy shuts down nights and weekends.
That's why polls are so meaningless. That's why the President of the US has a low approval rating, but when he speaks he is greeted by adoring, clapping admirers. Because polls are nonsense.
Even if the president had say, a 10% approval rating, that is still 30 million adoring admirers ready to show up to any speaking event he makes. The Bush-rally-attending GOP card holding loyalists are a statistical outlier and not indicative of the national mood.
Housewives don't like the president. The unemployed blame him for being unemployed.
Huh? How about stay-at-home moms who actually enjoy what they do and want to maintain a strong economy and national security so their husbands can continue to support them and their kids stay safe, the same moms who go to church faithfully and believe in hard work and tax cuts? Or what about the eco-mommas who want nothing but to see an end to war and get solar panels on their roofs and healthy veggie meals at school? But wait, I'm wrong, any made-up demographic like 'hockey mom' or 'woman' is a monolithic voting bloc. Sorry, my bad.
My point is this - I don't underestimate the appeal of Obama to the stupid, the uneducated, and the party rabid loyalists. Don't underestimate the appeal of McCain to the very people who see him as a hero, as someone to look up to, or as an illustration of the american dream.
It cuts both ways. There are stupid uneducated people voting for McCain and there are others who see Obama as the American Dream as well, in addition to the legions of disgusted and widely disinterested others who will hold there noses and vote for whoever they think will screw them less (which, by my guess, is absolutely everyone).
For the first time since I became aware of your existence, something you said was funny.
Congrats. I know you try real hard. Just know that it has paid off.
the ad-hom. nice opener.
Lest you get all excited and end up suicidal, try to think back to Kerry - by all accounts, he should have won in a landslide because all the liberals convinced themselves that everyone they knew were going to vote for Kerry. Poll after poll showed Kerry ahead, pretty much throughout the election cycle. Then the results came in - Bush won reelection fair and square. Personally, I was destroyed.
http://www.ncpp.org/files/2004%20Election%20Polls%20Review.pdf
The polls were wrong 11% of the time, and with margin of error. Personally- and this it a totally unscientific and skewed off the cuff analysis- I thought Kerry ran a poor campaign, was totally uncharismatic and never challenged Bush in a way that looked like it would make significant inroads in defeating an incumbent, something historically very hard to do. Rolling over on the war, which at the time was still somewhat popular, and lacking significant domestic issues to run on, I personally was optimistic and hopeful but never really thought Kerry would win. Some were hopeful and others resigned to a third Bush term; but as for the polls, your argument seems wrong.
Then I realized something that you should think about: Who takes polls? I've never taken a poll. No one I know has ever taken a poll. My parents have never taken a poll and no one they know has ever taken a poll. I've never met or spoken to anyone who's ever taken a poll. What the hell kind of scam are these 'pollsters' running here?
Really? You don't see the glaring fallacy in your poll of 'every person you have ever met' versus the professional pollers? You think they are lying to you? Does your burning anger at pollsters consume you to the point that you feel obligated to ask every person they meet if they have taken a poll recently? Personally I don't know if anyone in my close family has taken a poll recently. Saying that no one your parents know has ever taken a poll assumes that a) they asked every person they knew if they took a poll and b) they relayed that information to you.
Housewives and the unemployed. The elderly and the disabled. That's who takes polls. Because those are the only people that are home when the polls are administered. When you work all day, you don't have time to take a poll. So how accurate are they really? Housewives, the unemployed, and the disabled on public aid tend to skew left.
http://media.gallup.com/PDF/FAQ/HowArePolls.pdf
Wrong. First of all, I have met plenty of disabled persons, housewives, and unemployed folks who vote for the GOP. Secondly, pollsters are professional statisticians who develop techniques to account for such discrepancies, such as making repeat calls to the same number at different times to account for at-home patterns and make multiple calls to reduce the error of excluding certain groups based at their habits of being close to a phone at any given time. Your guess that polls only occur 9-5 m-f is simply wrong, as is your assumption that being a working person requires you to only work those hour, because of course the economy shuts down nights and weekends.
That's why polls are so meaningless. That's why the President of the US has a low approval rating, but when he speaks he is greeted by adoring, clapping admirers. Because polls are nonsense.
Even if the president had say, a 10% approval rating, that is still 30 million adoring admirers ready to show up to any speaking event he makes. The Bush-rally-attending GOP card holding loyalists are a statistical outlier and not indicative of the national mood.
Housewives don't like the president. The unemployed blame him for being unemployed.
Huh? How about stay-at-home moms who actually enjoy what they do and want to maintain a strong economy and national security so their husbands can continue to support them and their kids stay safe, the same moms who go to church faithfully and believe in hard work and tax cuts? Or what about the eco-mommas who want nothing but to see an end to war and get solar panels on their roofs and healthy veggie meals at school? But wait, I'm wrong, any made-up demographic like 'hockey mom' or 'woman' is a monolithic voting bloc. Sorry, my bad.
My point is this - I don't underestimate the appeal of Obama to the stupid, the uneducated, and the party rabid loyalists. Don't underestimate the appeal of McCain to the very people who see him as a hero, as someone to look up to, or as an illustration of the american dream.
It cuts both ways. There are stupid uneducated people voting for McCain and there are others who see Obama as the American Dream as well, in addition to the legions of disgusted and widely disinterested others who will hold there noses and vote for whoever they think will screw them less (which, by my guess, is absolutely everyone).