poll smoking
by Ari Holtz
Published: January 13, 2008
When Hillary Rodham Clinton defeated Barack Obama by 3 points in the New Hampshire primary, the political pundits and the public they inform were shocked. This surprise became conventional wisdom and the political narrative morphed into defining Clinton as Comeback Kid 2.0 and Obama as a wounded former front runner. We’re were told this story and we believe it. Look closer, though, and see how the story lines we impose on the presidential race are absurd and surreal.
Is it truly surprising that the most prominent female politician in American history who has been the national front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination since 2004 beat a first term African American senator by 3 points in the nation’s first primary?
Should our jaws all be slamming the ground because a woman with the highest name recognition in the land surpassed by several thousand votes a man who was not known beyond Chicago until 4 years ago?
Is it so remarkable that the establishment politician with political ties to New Hampshire and a devastating ground organization defeated a novice to national politics?
Of course not. In fact, couldn’t the New Hampshire results be just as easily portrayed as a victory by Obama? Wasn’t his 2nd place finish, within 3 points of the once inevitable nominee, an extremely impressive showing?
Yes. But this is not how the media has interpreted the results and this is not how the American people have absorbed the primary. The culprits behind this phenomenon are quite obvious. It’s the polls, stupid.
Rassmussen and Zogby, Gallup and CNN. The pundits and the public waited with baited breath as new polls arrived day by day leading up to New Hampshire. The prominent polls told us that Obama was ahead, some even showing as much as a 12-point lead for the Illinois senator going into Tuesday’s voting. We had a jones for data, for predictions, and we waited for our fix, soaking up the percentages and the prognostications. But we were misled. The polls were wrong.
Why was this a shock? It shouldn’t have been. Polls are often wrong. Reasons for this are plentiful. Polling formulas are based on assumptions of variables such as level of turnout and the demographic makeup of the election day voters. These often turn out to be mistaken. Social psychological phenomena such as self-report bias - telling a pollster what you think they want to hear rather than what you actually believe - have routinely been shown occur, especially when there is the presence of minority candidates. In addition, those who only use cell phones and do not have land lines are routinely left out of the polling pool. There is simply a great statistical leap taken when attempting to predict the behavior of 200,000 by surveying of 800.
None of this is a secret. But we continue to buy into polls. We do so because we are story line obsessed. We need everything to be a soap opera with a compelling narrative to stay interested. We need the victorious and the vanquished, the devastated and the reborn. We need pain and drama. We need “Election ‘08″ to rival “The Hills ‘07.”
We accept dubious predictions and created narratives. We allow ourselves to be shocked and blown away by electoral “twists.” And why shouldn’t we? It’s a lot more fun than devoting our attention to straight forward, non-sensational events. It’s certainly way more entertaining than considering things like tax policy, health care proposals and foreign policy ideas. Why evaluate Hillary and Barack as civil servants when we can turn them into L.C. and Heidi?
God forbid we get bored.
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