We've gotten some interesting mail here recently at Federal Review. Not everyone chimes in on the comments, and that's fine. I like email, except the kind that tells me I can get Adobe Photoshop for $50 or Microsoft Office Professional for $25. Still don't know why I'm on the Viagra lists. Mrs. Right Wingnut doesn't know either.
Anyway, some of the mail is thoughtful and serious, and others is just plain silly. Here are some recent receipts. I'm withholding full names just in case they don't want to be known for the intelligent and reasoned correspondents that they are.
From: xxxxxxx@xxxrs.com [mailto:xxxxxxx@xxxrs.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 1:02 PM
To: winston[AT]federalreview.com
Subject: Election analysis
First off, I do agree the race is not over. We do not know what kind of bump
Bush will get, although I anticipate one similar to the one Kerry got.
Major events are more likely to favor Bush as well. However there are some
problems with the comparisons you are trying to draw.
Economic indicators are of less importance now. The parties are no longer
primarily split on economic line. That is why the models missed in 2000.
Cultural issues divide them more. "Who would you rather have teach your
children?" and "How often do you go to church?" are more correlated to vote
than income. The voting patters now look like 1900, with the parties
reversed.
Previous large bumps like in 1988, depended on a lot of people that were
undecided and not paying attention. The number of solid voters is much
higher now. Only the hard-core uninvolved have not made up their minds.
As far as people voting for/against the challenger/incumbent. If only 20%
of the population is hard-core against the incumbent, that statistic would
be a problem for the challenger, but given that hard-core Bush opposition
is at 40%, its not a concern. Finally you put Bush's approval at 51%, which
seems to be only a slight statistical bump in one poll. If you look at RPC,
and all polls in August for far, Bush is around 47.5%. Gallup may be the
methodology you care about, and that's fine, but Gallup can't have a true
up-bump without the others picking of the same bump, and they have not.
Dave
I like it when someone agrees with me. At least partly. I have to look into the 1900 comparison. All I know is it was McKinley versus Bryan. And check out that 1900 election map. Looks familiar, doesn't it. And I used Gallup because of Gallup's history. When you say "No challenger has done x x x when his polling was x at this point," then you are probably talking about Gallup numbers. Sure, I picked the good one for my guy. I think Fox recently had a pretty low number for Bush's approval.
I'm not sure if we can say yet that this race is as fundamentally different from previous years as conventional wisdom says. We'll know better on November 3. I wonder, for instance, the effect of caller ID on pollsters. Could that be the reason Zogby missed so many races in 2002, when he predicted a lot of losing Democrats to win? Maybe. Any studies on this? Or are younger folks being missed by pollsters because a lot have dumped land lines for cell phones? Figure it out. Get back to me.
From: Michael XXXXX[mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXXX@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:07 AM
To: winston[AT]federalreview.com
Subject: your review
Dear Winston
I guess you just really like voting for a killer. Bush has killed nearly 950 Americans with his lies about WMD. Anyone who knows what is going on knows that Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the day he took the oath & used the pain & tragedy of 9/11 to railroad this country into the Iraqi war. See The Project for the New American Century- an imperialistic blueprint for deposing Saddam written by the fascist imperialists he riddled State & Defense with in his Administration.
As for your hopeful; blather in today's FR re comparisons to the past just read the internals in the latest Zogby poll & see if you have the stomach for the crap you put on your front page.
Michael
I think I should forward Michael some of that junk mail I've been getting. We could go over the "Bush lied about WMDs" thing again, I guess, but why? OK, here's the quick version. Everyone thought they had WMDs, from Clinton and his Administration, to Senators like Kerry, Clinton, Levin, etc. Kofi agreed. So did Germany, France, Russia, Jordan, Egypt etc., so saying that Bush "lied" is an assumption that Bush knew something that no one else in the world. Even the 9/11 Commission said Bush was right on the Iraq/African connection and Wilson was, shall we say, challenged. So, I'll file Mike's email under "Thinks Bush is Evil Genius".
As for PNAC, it says here I'm not supposed to talk about it. Orders are orders.
From: Dennis XXXXXXXX [mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXX@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 1:15 AM
To: winston[AT]federalreview.com
Subject: Colors
Let me be the 1 millionth to complain about your color code. What the hell were you thinking? The whole universe has got Bush red - Gore blue, but not you.
Besides being extremely annoying, it calls in to question you methodology. If you can't get the colors right, why other to read the rest?
Not the 1 millionth. My hits are more than I ever expected, but not that big. You'll know I've hit the big time when you see ads warning about 4 hour erections on my site. As for my colors, I'm really not doing a Bush/Gore projection, so I don't know what Dennis is talking about. I was thinking of going with a green / yellow color scheme, but I'll ditch that idea now that I know it would call my numbers into question.
Labels: Microsoft
