Conservatives Flourish Despite Trashing By Media
By EDWARD ZEHR
According to a recent push-poll hyped by the New York Times, "More than half of Americans say they are uneasy about Mr. Bush's ability to tackle an international crisis, and more people than not say he is not respected by other world leaders ... And, by widening margins, people say they are less trusting that Mr. Bush will keep his word. The poll found that a majority of Americans seem disenchanted by what they view as Mr. Bush's inattention to matters they care most about."
I have already pointed out the inherent phoniness of polls taken among "all adults," most of whom would not recognize an international crisis unless they were told to do so by the mainstream press. Nor could many of them name a foreign leader, much less give a knowledgeable assessment of his "respect" or lack thereof for Mr. Bush. How many "adults" picked at random from a phone book could explain the difference between the administration's proposals for education and health, and the proposals made by Democrats? How many "adults" even remember what Bush promised regarding the issues that "interest" them? And if they cannot remember, how will they know whether he has kept his word or not?
The short answer, of course, is that the mainstream media will tell them. In fact, all of the complaints against Bush that were listed in the poll touted by the Times have been the focus of intensive propaganda campaigns conducted by that newspaper and the rest of the "dominant [liberal] media culture." The "adults" cited in the poll as agreeing with the media's position were merely prating back the disinformation with which they have been inculcated. It's sort of like a pop quiz, with the respondents straining to come up with the "right" answer.
The article which reported the poll results exhibited a relentless negativism towards Bush that was belied by the actual poll figures that showed a majority (53%) approving of the president's performance on the job. In fact, these results do not differ significantly from the results of a Gallup poll taken at about the same time, which gives Bush a 55% approval rating, about the same as Reagan and Clinton enjoyed at this stage in their term of office.
In addition, the Gallup poll contained a rather amazing result which went unremarked by the predominantly anti-Bush, overwhelmingly liberal, mainstream press. While 58 percent of whites and 59 percent of Hispanics approved of Bush's performance, 36 percent of blacks also indicated approval. That seems quite significant considering that only 9 percent of black voters chose Bush last year. What are we to make of this statistic? Is the difference of opinion between voting and non-voting blacks really that great, or has the president's popularity with blacks quadrupled since the election? Perhaps more to the point, how much do such polls have to do with the real world?
Columnist Donald Lambro comments that, "A CBS News-New York Times survey showing declining public support for President Bush, his abilities and his agenda is being criticized by pollsters who say its methodology is tilted toward Democrats and gives an inaccurate reading of public opinion. Some pollsters found many of its findings surprising and in some cases wildly out of sync with their own numbers."
The pollsters are particularly critical of the fact that the CBS News-New York Times survey took its sample among the general population of adults instead of polling likely voters. Independent campaign pollster John Zogby explains that, "They poll only adults, and all adults include larger percentages of minorities or poorer voters and voters even in the $25,000-to-$50,000 income range, all of which lean to the Democratic side. When you screen for voters, you screen out a substantial percentage of Democratic-leaning individuals who do not vote." Republican pollster Ed Goeas elaborates: "As you go from likely voters to adults, you are moving to an increasingly less-engaged individual, which means you are getting a false read."
Goeas makes the additional point that the survey was taken during a weekend, "when you get a type of voter that is more liberal and more disconnected. It's a questionable sampling." Republican pollster John McLaughlin also noted that "the bigger universe of just adult voters favors the Democrats."
Michael Kagay, polling director for the New York Times, had a ready explanation: "If you limit your sampling to likely voters all the time, you disenfranchise about 50 percent of the people." Besides, "That's a tradition that George Gallup established in 1935, and most polls have followed that same tradition," said Kagay.
And here I had thought all along that polling was about getting an accurate forecast of what the voters are likely to do. How could I have been so mistaken? What it's really about is giving everybody, whether they be astute or abysmally uninformed, a condescending pat on the head and telling them with the most extreme unction, "There, there -- we realize that you have neither a hope nor a clue, but your opinion is as good as that of anyone else. Far be it from us to disenfranchise 50 percent of the populace."
A more logical appraisal of the situation might lead us to conclude that most of the 50 percent who do not vote have "disenfranchised" themselves through lack of interest. Of course there are more substantive reasons for not voting, but lack of interest strikes me as a perfectly valid ground for not exercising the franchise. Do we really want public issues of vital interest to the nation to be settled by those who know next to nothing about them? I would think that the Reserve Army of the Uninformed have exhibited far better judgement in this matter than the mush-heads at the New York Times who published that pernicious push-poll. To say that you are doing something that is not only irrational, but also grossly misleading, because it is a tradition established in 1935 is to commit the sort of howler that drives sensible people right up the wall. And to think that these make-believe Brahmins at the Times are the very ones who keep telling us that Dubya is a dummy. As they say across the pond, "It's enough to make yer weep."
Zogby's results tell quite a different story. "Where my numbers are at real variance with [the CBS-Times poll] is when I see some of the job approval numbers," he says. "They have Bush's favorable-unfavorable at 37-29. My polls get a favorable-unfavorable rating of 60-30. Not only is that a huge difference, but in the Times poll, 33 percent don't even have an opinion," says Zogby.
The pollster (who is a Democrat, by the way) also finds it "strange" that Vice President Cheney was given an approval rating of 27-14 percent favorable-unfavorable score. "How can 59 percent not have an opinion on Cheney?" asks Zogby.
Lambro notes that Zogby's results "were among the most accurate of the 2000 presidential election," a fact of which I was made ruefully aware after following a couple of polls during the campaign that proved to be overly sanguine regarding Mr. Bush's prospects. Somehow or other, Zogby managed to anticipate and factor in the extremely high turnout among minority voters.
Conservatives in the Ascendant
The validity of one recent poll is beyond question -- it was taken on election day among ALL voting residents of Virginia's 4th congressional district. This special election was held to fill the House seat vacated by the death of Democratic Rep. Norm Sisisky, in a district described by the Wall Street Journal as "ancestrally Democratic." The victory of Republican Randy Forbes in this contest doesn't mesh too well with the theme currently being pushed by Democrats and their mantra-chanting acolytes in the mainstream press, which holds that voters are becoming weary of Bush after five grueling months of hardship and heartbreak, and are aghast at the "extreme" positions he has taken on issues of interest to them. Never mind that the president's positions are consistent with his campaign promises, except insofar as he has had to compromise them in order to accommodate the Democrats (and RINOs).
Fox News reported that, "Republicans touted Forbes' victory as an endorsement of President Bush's policies and indication of the party's growing strength in Virginia. The state delegation now consists of seven Republicans, one GOP-voting independent and three Democrats." With the swearing-in of Forbes last week, the GOP now hold a 12-vote lead in the House, 222 to 210.
Although the district is considered "competitive" -- it was carried narrowly by Gore in last year's election -- Clinton carried it twice and Republicans John Warner and George Allen both failed to carry the district in their most recent Senate races, even though they succeeded in winning statewide. Perhaps most significant of all is the district's high percentage of black voters (40%) -- only 32 congressional districts in the country have a higher percentage of blacks.The Democrats had called upon Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's campaign last year and was hugely successful in turning out the minority vote, to work her magic in the Virginia race, to good effect. The Journal article notes that, "Turnout was 38% of all voters, significantly higher than predicted."
Nevertheless, the GOP candidate, Randy Forbes, was able to defeat his Democratic opponent, Ms. Lucas, a black state senator, by 52 percent to 48 percent. As we have come to expect, Democrat spin-doctors have been playing the race card in an effort to explain their defeat. However, the Journal points out that, "Democrat Doug Wilder became the state's first black governor a decade ago by winning 55% in the areas making up the current district. Mr. Wilder won both black and white votes because he was a moderate who opposed higher taxes. Ms. Lucas lost because she was a liberal who had voted to raise gasoline taxes and against tort reform."
One reason the liberals have been able to get their agenda approved by voters in the past is their dogged persistence -- if we don't swallow it this time around they just warm it over and serve it up to us the next time. But there are indications that this tactic no longer works quite so smoothly. The Journal observes that in the Virginia House race, "Democrats also had plenty of money, a favorable district and their usual kitbag of scare issues. They still lost."
As the Journal points out, "House special elections traditionally give voters a ready way to convey discontent to the party in charge of the White House." Columnist Rich Galen has underscored the point with the observation that of the 78 special elections held during the past quarter century to fill vacant House seats, the seat switched parties in 19 of them, but in only 3 of these special elections did the party in power pick up a seat from the other party. Small wonder the Democrats and their propagandist pals in the media have little to say about this highly unusual outcome, despite the fact that they had touted the race in advance as a referendum on the president's performance thus far. Had the Democratic candidate won, of course, we would never have heard the end of it.
washington-weekly.com
More good stuff in the article. I got the internal error message when I tried to post the whole thing. |
