POLLING INSANITY
Alex Granados
Nov 04, 2008

Deep down in that CNN article I mentioned in the previous post is the following quote:

“A CNN poll of polls calculated Tuesday showed Obama leading McCain 52 percent to 44 percent, with 4 percent undecided.“

How surreal is that? A poll of polls. With that statement, we are two steps removed from reality.

This election will be decided by the votes that people actually cast. A poll tries to determine how people are going to cast their votes. And a poll of polls, tries to determine what an aggregate of polls are predicting. This is just a little too far removed from the Democratic process for me.

Can you imagine what an election would be like without polls?

How many people are swayed to vote for the front runner based on what they hear about in polls?

How many people despair and stay home because, based on poll numbers, they think that their candidate can’t possibly win?

And polls are not necessarily even accurate. Polls of voters leading up to elections only indicate who voters claim they will vote for. Who they actually vote for is another story all together.

And yes, polls do help give us some perspective on what is going on in political races, but it also tends to cheapen the actual voting process.

The election this year did not actually occur until today. Today is the day that American citizens cast their votes. But people act as if the election has been ongoing for months. The campaigns have certainly been going non-stop, but today is the reality. Today is when the people actually decide. To listen to some in the media describe it, Nov. 4 is just the epilogue of the 2008 election. Today seems almost anti-climatic.

But don’t buy into that hype. Today is what this has all been about. The campaign up until this point has been an absurdist comedy where people rarely say what they mean and what they say is construed to mean something entirely different than what was meant. 

Today is where empty words are pushed aside and a true voice is heard—the voice of the people.