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Author Topic:   The Awesome Republican Primary Thread
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 639 of 1485 (650990)
02-03-2012 5:47 PM
Reply to: Message 634 by Taq
01-30-2012 5:51 PM


The fallacy of polling
You have to remember that it is only a minority of voters are voting in the Republican primaries. If a state has closed primaries and the state is split 50/50 between Dems and Reps then only 50% of state can vote, and primaries have very poor turnout. We are probably talking about 15% of voters actually turn out for primaries. This is why they try to appeal to the nutters, because those people do tend to vote at a higher rate.
This is but one reason, in a myriad of them, why I pay no attention to polls. Like you said, only a handful of people are voting in the primaries, and they usually are diehard politickers.
Secondly, polling is often manipulative. Pollsters are often asking questions in a specific way to get the answer they desire.
Thirdly, it's unreliable at best. One polling agency report virtually the exact opposite of another.
More to the point, it creates a false sense of security and fosters self-fulfilling prophecies. The media has a tremendous amount of fault in this, reporting these polls, thus giving the viewer a skewed idea of who is "in the lead." Because of this, people are more apt to vote for whoever will get the other guy out of office rather than simply voting for who you think is the best candidate.
And most importantly, what fucking difference does it make what other people are voting for? Who gives a crap. All that should ever matter are the reasons YOU want a candidate to win.
I pay no attention to these polls and strongly encourage others to do the same.

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 634 by Taq, posted 01-30-2012 5:51 PM Taq has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 640 by Perdition, posted 02-03-2012 5:57 PM Hyroglyphx has replied
 Message 644 by Rahvin, posted 02-03-2012 6:38 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 641 of 1485 (651001)
02-03-2012 6:06 PM
Reply to: Message 640 by Perdition
02-03-2012 5:57 PM


Re: The fallacy of polling
That's why it is better to average the polls together, perhaps leaving out any outliers.
Or dismiss them all out of hand.
One, it shows you how well your preferred candidate is doing.
But I challenge that it does that. I think it does the opposite. I think it tends to create a bias unnecessarily.
If your number one has no chance of winning, but switching to candidate B, who may not be ideal, but is pretty good, might get B over the top to defeat C, then knowing the polls could help you make that choice.
They say "throwing away your vote" is voting for someone you think has no electability. I say voting for the lesser of two evils is throwing your vote away. If you don't really like a candidate, but like them slightly better than another candidate, you're still settling for someone who doesn't deserve your vote.
I would rather write-in who I actually want to be president.

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 640 by Perdition, posted 02-03-2012 5:57 PM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 642 by Perdition, posted 02-03-2012 6:18 PM Hyroglyphx has replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 643 of 1485 (651006)
02-03-2012 6:36 PM
Reply to: Message 642 by Perdition
02-03-2012 6:18 PM


Re: The fallacy of polling
Only if there's a bias in the data. If the bias is dampened or filtered out by averaging the polls from both conservative and liberal, both democratic and republican, etc, then you're closer to working with raw data.
I should have clarified. What I mean is that these polls tend to create self-fulfilling prophecies. It leads the horse to water. Those who liked Paul or Santorum may all of a sudden shift their views in favor of Romney or Gingrich, simply because they're "winning in the polls." So the burgeoning question would be how people would vote if there was a total media blackout.
I, for one, would love to see a controlled study on that very thing.
But when the decision ends up putting someone in charge of a vast army and nuclear capability, the decision becomes harder.
Yeah, but if both candidates have similar tendencies, then it really doesn't matter. I would not like that on my conscience. Look at the debacle with Obama. He simply expanded Bush's policies when he was voted to stop them.

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 642 by Perdition, posted 02-03-2012 6:18 PM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 650 by Perdition, posted 02-06-2012 1:57 PM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 645 of 1485 (651011)
02-03-2012 6:49 PM
Reply to: Message 644 by Rahvin
02-03-2012 6:38 PM


Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma
The Green Party split the Democrat vote in Florida. If even a quarter of those who voted Green (knowing that their candidate had no chance of winning from polling and past trends) had instead voted Democrat, we would have avoided the Bush presidency
It's all speculative assuming no polls were reported, which is fundamentally what I'm referring to.
I agree that it's bullshit. I agree that it's not right. But the American presidential election is a winner-takes-all affair. Voting for the guy you really like often just winds up taking away a vote from the guy you at least don't hate.
I obviously understand why it's done, I just find that a very unfortunate reality.
I would be very interested in conducting an experiment where there is essentially a media blackout for one control group, and the other group it's business as usual and search for noticeable anomalies or disparities between the two.

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 644 by Rahvin, posted 02-03-2012 6:38 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 646 by Rahvin, posted 02-03-2012 6:59 PM Hyroglyphx has replied
 Message 649 by Taz, posted 02-06-2012 10:02 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
Hyroglyphx
Inactive Member


Message 647 of 1485 (651020)
02-03-2012 7:06 PM
Reply to: Message 646 by Rahvin
02-03-2012 6:59 PM


Re: The Prisoner's Dilemma
Seriously, I feel like Japan, voting for Godzilla to destroy half of Tokyo so that (insert monster here) doesn't destroy it all.
Well said, sir

"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine

This message is a reply to:
 Message 646 by Rahvin, posted 02-03-2012 6:59 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
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