Saturday, September 06, 2008

This Election is So Tied

Television audiences for the respective political conventions were of equal size.

Television audiences for the respective presidential nomination acceptance speeches were of equal size.

A poll shows that Sarah Palin is more popular with voters than either Barack Obama or John McCain.

Obama's massive lead with Intrade bets, arguably the best lagging barometer of public opinion, has slipped precipitously in the last week.

National polling shows anything from a slipping Obama lead to a statistical tie to a slight advantage for McCain.

State polls, which come out slowly, show a shrinking Obama lead in the Electoral College (soon to be renamed "Electoral University"?) which shrinks further when McCain's slight lead in close states is credited as wins. If a single state flips in the "no tossups" analysis, McCain wins.

In this age of cell phones no one is quite sure whether pollsters are reaching a statistically valid sampling by calling land lines.

In this age of American Idol no one is quite sure whether the remarkable turnout for Democratic primaries reflects a commitment stronger than the desire to vote on everything that's on TV.

In this present, evil age, no one is quite sure whether white folk who tell pollsters they'll vote for Obama actually will when they enter the voting booth.*

Both candidates have an enormous pile of moolah to lavish on a media hungry for advertising revenues and so ready to goose electoral interest with every aspect of its programming.

So tied it is!
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*SWNID recalls, but cannot document, a survey (in CT?) that showed only about 25% of white Americans articulate attitudes that can properly be defined as racist, coupled with the observation that this outcome means that there are two white American racists for every black American. We do not dispute in the least the nature of that finding.

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