That poll is at least somewhat irrelevant

Post #174,640 by ben_tilly 9/16/04 12:32:04 PM Reply	That poll is at least somewhat irrelevant What is relevant is not the effect on all voters. It is the opinions of potential swing voters whose minds might be changed by evidence. In a close election like this you don't need to care about most potential swing voters - just enough to swing the vote. This kind of thing is, unfortunately, harder to tell. A simple number certainly doesn't tell it to you. Another thing that polling is unable to address is how people are affected by information in ways that they think they won't be. You may not care about issue X, but if information on issue X is repeatedly presented indicating that a candidate is lying, you may well be affected. Even though you thought you wouldn't care about issue X. As evidence that these effects can be significant, on [link\|http://www.electoral-vote.com/aug/aug27.html\|http://www.electoral...om/aug/aug27.html] the effect of the Swift Boat ads was very noticable. Cheers, Ben About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
Post #174,641 by bepatient 9/16/04 12:35:31 PM Reply	Understand. The point was to show that this has been a non-issue since the last election. Polling data this weekend will show that the numbers aren't moving significantly (likely outcome...especially given the near admission that the docs were fake). At that point one must determine that this is an issue that nobody cares about. (something that most everyone except our shiny friend already knew) If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #174,644 by ben_tilly 9/16/04 12:46:38 PM Reply	I wouldn't say that Polling data are close enough that even if most people aren't affected, the ones who are may be significant. In fact following [link\|http://www.electoral-vote.com/\|http://www.electoral-vote.com/] in the last few days, it looks like there has been a big enough shift in the last few days to swing the election were it held now. I'm guessing that the memo issue is a significant part of that. (And the backlash is a bigger deal than the memos.) Cheers, Ben About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra
Post #174,646 by bepatient 9/16/04 12:53:45 PM Reply	Move 15 back to blue Ain't no way NJ will go Republican. Polling data or not. Backlash is a bigger deal simply because nobody gave a damn about the initial issue. Theres 4 years of polling history behind that statement. However, re-launching that dead duck based upon forged documents will certainly result in a negative for Kerry. Much of that negative comes from the perception at large (just not here) that the media is biased...especially CBS. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]

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