A word from Japa: Sound and Fury

by Japa

Full of Sound and Fury. Signifying Nothing.

No, this post is not about Chip’s reaction to recent events on the football pitches of Europe (Chips “Oi”)

Instead, this post is about polls and the media that promotes them. There has been a lot of anguish on this site of late about this poll or that poll. Furious checking of cross-tabs, analyzing of the composition of the respondents. Incredulity that President Obama can have 50% favorability rating but be behind Romney who has a 37% favorability rating.

Folks, let’s get a grip on ourselves and relax. Both the polls and the media represent what the Bard was referring to in Macbeth. They represent “a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

Let’s talk about polls for a moment. It is not that they don’t have some meaning. They do. And right now they tell us more about the people doing the polling than they do about the public at large. It is largely because polling has turned into a real science over the past few decades that we can, to some degree, ignore them at this point in the campaign. Because polling is very precise, pollsters can get just about any response they want based upon how they set up the poll, based upon the respondents they choose and based upon how questions are phrased.

Polls are accurate representations of the people that are polled, nothing more, nothing less. Change who you poll, you change the results, and this can be done very precisely and accurately by the pollsters. And keep in mind that most of the most publicized polls are being paid for by the media outlets, such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox.

Why is that important? Simply because the media has a vested interest in making sure that the upcoming election is viewed as a close race. It drives revenues and it drives viewership/readership. If you still believe that the media is composed of honest, high integrity, journalists, I am sorry to tell you that you are mistaken. Perhaps that is the way it should be, but that isn’t the way it is. That is the reality we have to deal with.

But, you may ask, why do I say that all this is a bunch of noise that doesn’t mean anything? Don’t polls become self-fulfilling prophecies? Shouldn’t we be worried by these polls?

Well, first of all, today is May 16, not November 5. People don’t really become involved in the politics of all this until after the conventions. And, believe it or not, Romney is still an unknown quantity to the vast portion of the population. Keep in mind, probably the lowest Romney can go come election time is 45%. The more important question is what his ceiling is, and polls today don’t tell us anything about that.

Secondly, studies have shown that polls can affect and influence people. In fact, they may influence maybe ½ of 1% of people. And that is a pretty minute number. But what polls can do is inspire people or depress people. And that is what we need to focus on.

Let ask you a question. If you see, going into late October that President Obama is down 1-2% in the polls (and remember those polls are more important) are you going to be more determined or less determined to get out there and get people to the polls? The answer, I hope, is obvious. We already know that the Democrats this year have the higher enthusiasm level. Being down a couple points is likely to increase that enthusiasm. At the same time, being up a couple points is not likely to dampen the enthusiasm.

For Republicans, the exact opposite is the case. If they see Romney losing by a couple points, they are more likely to write him off and not be as enthused to get out there, specially since he has virtually no ground game. And if he is up by a couple points, they are more likely to few it as a done deal and not push themselves to get to the polls. Of course, this can change depending on local races and if there are special issues on the ballot.

Should we be worried? No, not now. Concerned, perhaps. But let us use these polls to our advantage. Like I said, what polls can tell you is how specific groups of people feel about the race. Find out those groups that are not as strong for the President. Target them, convince them and then get them to the voting booth come November. Some of course are beyond redemption. But not all.

Let us not waste energy or put money into dentists’ wallets by doing too much gnashing of teeth. As I have mentioned before, fear can debilitate if we let it. Let’s step back and use the information these polls give us, not panic or scream in anguish if a poll doesn’t show the results we want to see. Let us work to prove these polls really do, right now, signify nothing and that the media is telling a tale full of sound and fury but little substance.

****

Links to Japa’s other posts here