October 28, 2004
A pre-election discussion primer
We’re deep into T-minus time and things are getting a little crazy around these parts. With no tossup states nearby (sorry Virginia, you’re not going Blue), the only thing that’s left to do is talk, talk, talk. In bars, in restaurants, on the phone with you’re relatives back home, there is nowhere to hide from the endless speculation and strategizing about how The Most Important Election Of Our Lifetime is going to turn out. You can’t spit in this town without hocking your loogie on someone counting electoral votes or hashing out a scenario of some sort.
STOP IT!!!
Seriously, there’s no way the tea leaves everybody is reading now will tell you who the winner will be. Take the electoral vote calculators that have become too popular. Every day, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are going to this site every day and wiggin’ out about every last shift of the electoral vote totals. You’re wasting your time because:
- The site updates with every new poll, even if the polls are from different organizations. Different polls ask different questions. You’re comparing apples to oranges. In the case of so-called “robo-polls” that use pre-recorded tapes and take answers by touch-tone, apples to apple-flavored Jolly Ranchers.
- The site doesn’t give you any of the “internals” that tell you who the poll actually reached. How many Democrats? How many Republicans? How many respondents? These things matter.
- Imagine living in a place like Ohio. Pollsters could be calling you every day during dinner. Unless you’re a solid partisan who wants to make your party look strong, why would you answer the phone after the, say, twentieth time?
Right now, everything we know leads to the conclusion that it’s going to be very close. Therefore, unless some major news breaks that hurts one of the candidates, this election will be decided on factors such as whether it’s raining in Cleveland or if there’s traffic on Interstate 94.
Speaking of Cleveland, we’re focusing on Ohio right now, as well as Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and a few other states we think will be close. In 2000, the media obsessed about the same Upper Midwest states, but the closest results turned out to be Florida, New Mexico, Iowa, Oregon and New Hampshire. If any of these states are three points away from where the pollsters tell us they are, the lawyers and protestors are packing up shop post haste.
That being said, unless you plan to actually do something (like going out to a swing state and driving the senile to the polls) there’s nothing you can do anymore and hashing it out constantly won't help.
So relax and rent a movie or something. When the revolution comes, you’ll want to be well rested.
Posted by rj3 at October 28, 2004 10:57 PM
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Comments
Good advice! Thanks for talking us down from our freak out. If I ever have a bad acid trip, you'll be the first one I call to chill me out.
Posted by: MG at October 29, 2004 9:30 AM
in addition to being well rested when the revolution comes, you will also want to be well armed and have a ski mask handy.
Posted by: nm at October 29, 2004 3:32 PM
A little late, I know, but I'm just back from Ohio, where, yes, it was raining every second that I was standing outside a polling place on Cleveland's west side. Motherfucker.
Posted by: Matthew :) at November 4, 2004 7:30 PM