20131228
Purple America versus Political Pollsters and Partisan Spin-Masters
Dear Pollsters and Spin-masters of USA:
As you get an extra-early start on assaulting our attention with your incessant measurements of "public opinion" regarding who might vote for whom, we must disclose to YOU what we, the audience have gathered from the past 3 election cycles.
First, the "polling" nearly always has to do with "spinning" public opinion in order to divert media from actual news. You know, like our military engaged in perpetual war or millions of homeless in the winter streets of our cities. The mainstream media seems to have endless capacity for repetitive speculation of questionable percentages of possible candidates, as long as they can sell more corporate ads in between. Addressing crucial issues, not so much.
Second, we have realized that months of corporate polling data, slanted to increase drama and conflict, in retrospect of the day after elections, is almost completely full of shit. In fact, one could argue "let's ask Twitter" is a more practical public opinion gauge than partisan polling competition and "spin."
Third, we know now that the polling companies, like Fox News and its many fasco-corporatist NewsMax type clones, are owned by big business, militarists, pro-petroleum-pharmo-industrialists. So expecting anything less than being assaulted, manipulated and warred upon would be to tune out all American media. And even when our hopes for "change" have been met, Washington DC politics and the White House will still be dominated by the Pentagon, CIA and NSA.
And by the way, everyone with a cell phone or smart device, without a landline, is NOT included in the polling. PPP http://publicpolicypolling.com/ has a request for proposal currently on how to include cell phone users.
This means landline users only, who tend to be older folks and conservative, have been skewing every poll taken in the past 10 years. http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2013/Info/polling-faq.html That explains a lot, but not why mainstream media keeps allowing political party coverage and spin to dominate and subdue real news.
In summary, our bullshit umbrellas are now deployed, even before any candidates have actually been announced, because you, the corporate spin-masters, have already begun your mind-fuck assault the day after Xmas. Plugging in to our minds how we Americans can be relied on to consume conflict at every turn, even if we don't really understand what the hell is going on in the world.
Yers truly, Selfie Liber8 2014
The shamans paved the way for the first politicians, who finally mastered the art of putting the blame for all kind of disasters on neighboring tribes and their vicious gods, justifying potential wars with claims of cultural superiority. Thus blatantly egotistic military campaigns could be disguised as altruistic missions to civilize wild barbarians long before the time of George W Bush.
History is a strange creature. It has the amazing ability to blind us with our own reflection when we peek over its deep mysterious waters. Many of us drown in it just like the mythological Narcissus, whose infatuation with his own beauty was stronger than his survival instincts. Those who don’t know history may be bound to repeat it. But even people who know it may follow the same fate if they interpret it exclusively in their own favor.
Inevitability aside, in the end, all it takes to be less prejudiced is to exercise our brains a little bit more often. If we refuse to accept the prêt-a-penser ideas which are constantly regurgitated in endless PR campaigns and advertising agencies, and take responsibility for our own choices, we will not only minimize our snap judgments but ultimately improve our way of life.
In an interconnected global society, where information flows faster than thoughts, prejudices can turn out to be just a side effect of intellectual laziness.
The phrase Purple America refers to the belief that a more detailed analysis of the voting results of recent United States national elections reveals that the U.S. electorate is not as polarized between "Red" America (Republican) and "Blue" America (Democratic) as is often depicted in news analysis. The term reflects the fact that news organizations generally use the colors red and blue on maps to indicate when a state orcongressional district has been won by a Republican or Democratic candidate, respectively. Because the American political system often awards a state or congressional district entirely to one candidate ("winner take all") without regard to the margin of victory, it results in a map that does not reflect the true distribution of "red" or "blue" votes across the nation. The distortions contained in these maps, the argument goes, contribute to the misperception that the electorate is highly polarized by geography.
Robert Vanderbei at Princeton University made the first Purple America map after the 2000 presidential election. It attempts to reflect the margin of victory in each county by coloring each with a shade between true blue and true red. In light of the general absence of overwhelming victories, this technique results in mostly shades. This map was reprinted in US News & World Report a few months prior to the 2004 election. After the2004 election, Vanderbei and then others made similar maps summarizing the results. Quickly thereafter, the term Purple America permeated the political blogosphere and entered the public lexicon as a way of stating that the United States is not as divided as the political pundits would have the people believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_America
Robert Vanderbei at Princeton University made the first Purple America map after the 2000 presidential election. It attempts to reflect the margin of victory in each county by coloring each with a shade between true blue and true red. In light of the general absence of overwhelming victories, this technique results in mostly shades. This map was reprinted in US News & World Report a few months prior to the 2004 election. After the2004 election, Vanderbei and then others made similar maps summarizing the results. Quickly thereafter, the term Purple America permeated the political blogosphere and entered the public lexicon as a way of stating that the United States is not as divided as the political pundits would have the people believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_America
What good are polls?
Polls seek to measure public opinion and document the experiences of the public on a range of subjects. The results provide information for academics, researchers, and government officials and help to inform the decision-making process for policy makers and others. Much of what the country knows about its media usage, labor and job markets, educational performance, crime victimization, and social conditions is based on data collected through polls.
Do pollsters have a code of ethics? If so, what is in the code?
The major professional organizations of survey researchers have very clear codes of ethics for their members. These codes cover the responsibilities of pollsters with respect to the treatment of respondents, their relationships with clients and their responsibilities to the public when reporting on polls.
Most of the Pew Research Center’s pollsters belong to the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and subscribe to AAPOR’s code.
Some good examples of a pollster’s Code of Ethics include:
American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO)
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