Every night for the last two months the lead news story on every cable and network news show has been the latest poll results on who’s voting for either party, where and why. Over one hundred major national polls were conducted every week, with hundreds more at the state and local level.
It’s still going on. We’ve become a nation of the polls, by the polls and for the polls.
It’s oddly disconcerting how the political parties are able to zero in on the most vulnerable voters with their advertising and speech making. They target distinct groups with numbing skill – women, minorities, hispanics, working mothers, white males, blue collar workers, coal miners, blacks. They play one group against another with consummate ease on divisive topics like abortion, gays, guns and the environment.
The net result of all this rabble-rousing is a fracturing of the American fabric. We’re not Americans any more. We’re blacks and hispanics and whites; men and women and gays; blue and white and green collar workers.
People are more and more identifying along racial lines. Blacks vote 99.95% for Obama no matter what their historical affiliations. It’s a cliche any more when you see a black political pundit or commentator being interviewed. They’re going to support the Obama platform come hell or high water.
I have yet to see a poll of illegals and how they’re going to vote. Where is the poll that questions how legal Hispanics feel about illegal hispanics? What about hispanic businessmen, who are doing exceptionally well during this down economy (presumably because they can hire cheap illegal labor with zero benefits) – they’re probably not impressed with Romney’s economy theme.
Doh! They’re in the gravy these days. They want more of it, four more years of Obama. Half of all the new jobs in the U.S. are in Texas alone; hispanics, all.
And how can they call contraception “Women’s Reproductive Health.” Contraception is by definition an abuse of a woman’s healthy body. It’s putting Drano into their reproductive tract.
It’s a constant, day by day, year by year warping their hormonal balance – to the point where taking the pill over age 35 is downright dangerous. Taking the pill before age 35 diminishes the quality of a woman’s health for the rest of her life. How come nobody mentions that, not even the Catholic leadership?
It’s kind of like realizing for the first time (for me this was 4 years ago and the Obama campaign) that politicians use teleprompters all the time giving their stump speeches. With the widespread discussion of all these polls, we now know how politics REALLY operates.
The major parties have always had all these polls at their disposal. They’ve always focused their resources on specific population groups or specific issues. The only difference now is that there are many more polls and most of them are paid for by the media (the taxpayers) and not the political parties.
Politicians have always known what buttons to punch and how. The whole nation is like so many puppets, dancing to the politicians’ tune at the end of gossamer threads so thin you can’t even see them.
Except now we can see the threads, loud and clear. I used to think these national campaigns were skillful. Now I realize they’re just ruthless, raw ambition.
I got a kick out of the first elections in Libya after the Arab Spring and their bloody civil war. They banned all polls! The media was distraught.
Then, when the results came out and the fundamental Islamists won by a landslide, it was months before any major outlet reported the results, and then it was in small print on page 60.
It’s Machiavellian how the campaigns focus on just a handful of swing states on account of the electoral college. And yet, if the president was chosen by popular vote alone the campaigns would never leave the major population centers.
I think we need a new system that’s a combination of the two. Something that will confound the polls and stop this name calling and this divide and conquer mentality that has ripped our nation apart.
If not, then the ongoing fiscal debate in Washington – the polls! – will never end. It pits half the people who don’t pay taxes and want more versus half the people who do pay taxes and want their money’s worth.
Polls take all the humanity out of the debate.
Death by statistics.
