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A concrete example of why I post poll results
A week or so back, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dhole mildly took me to task for treating a political opinion poll as if it were actually part of the electoral process as opposed to entrail-reading pointing obliquely towards an eventual outcome. I responded, as I have a couple of times, that I think that it's vitally important to remind people that, despite the tone of coverage, Bush's election in 2004 is far from certain.
Today I actually saw a concrete example of this.
From the Daily Kos:
Emphasis added. Probable voters are more likely to turn out if they think their candidate can win. So it's important to keep reminding people that Kerry can win, because the more that people believe he can win, the more likely he is to win.
dhole mildly took me to task for treating a political opinion poll as if it were actually part of the electoral process as opposed to entrail-reading pointing obliquely towards an eventual outcome. I responded, as I have a couple of times, that I think that it's vitally important to remind people that, despite the tone of coverage, Bush's election in 2004 is far from certain. Today I actually saw a concrete example of this.
From the Daily Kos:
If the latest SUSA poll is to be believed, Arkansas is very much in play.
SurveyUSA (PDF). 4/14-15. MoE 4.2%. No trend lines.
Bush 47
Kerry 45
Other 5
The internals show Bush with harder support. He leads 49-44 amongst those "certain" to vote. But amongst those that are "probable", Kerry wins 48-38.
Emphasis added. Probable voters are more likely to turn out if they think their candidate can win. So it's important to keep reminding people that Kerry can win, because the more that people believe he can win, the more likely he is to win.