Polls and lotteries: scams for people with poor math skills

A Robert Novak column last year bemoaned the results of a poll which he claimed showed Giuliani favored by the "religious right". What the poll actually showed was a "plurality" (meaning more than any other single candidate, no where near a majority) of Republicans who claimed they attend church weekly (or was that weakly?). I've seen many of those Republicans and Democrats that attend church "weekly", in fact one Liberal Congressman is a member of my former church, a church which had at one time voiced some stern opinions regarding moral legislation until they had to decide between societal prestige and the Bible, and chose the former. As they say attending church makes you no more a Christian than attending a garage makes you a car.

There are a whole lot of reasons for someone to take the effort to get up and attend church (mass, temple, etc.) one day a week, and if they were honest about their reasons, actual devotion to what the Bible teaches would probably not receive a "plurality" of the votes. Polling weekly-attenders to gather info about the religious right would make as much sense as polling the people in the stands during a football game to find out what the players on the field think. So in the end the poll is like the lottery, another scam for the mathematically challenged.

Based on the poll, Novak, as well as many on the Left, assumed James Dobson is "out of touch with rank-and-file churchgoers". Well, we've seen that "rank-and-file churchgoers" are not the religious right, and unlike the myth the Left like to perpetuate, the religious right are not a monolithic group, changing directions like a school of fish at the behest of whoever the Media want to declare their "leader" is. Even among the Religious Right, you'll find some honest and well-thought out disagreement. Some, like me, firmly believe that one's vote should not be based on polls, but on which candidate best represents our ideology. Others think a vote on any candidate other than those the MSM have "ordained" is a waste. Of course that allows a group with the exact opposite mentality than the vast majority of Values Voters, to narrow our choice to only those candidates they fear less. Not a game I'm willing to play.

But notice how fervently the Media work at trying to scatter Values Voters. Bogus polls. Distorted quotes. Stolen emails. Almost every dirty trick in the book. And remember, these are the people that wrote the book.

Notice how Gallup twists their polls. Novak reported...

In an aggregation of 1,690 interviews with Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in four Gallup surveys during August and September...

But wait! Why would we use "Republican-leaning independents" to determine the likely result of a Republican primary?!? Unless, of course, the real goal was to convince Republicans that only the most liberal candidates actually had a chance. Who are these "independents" let alone "Republican-leaning independents"? Typically they are those that think indecision is a virtue and therefore don't join a party. They are the types that don't see a significant difference between George Bush and John Kerry or George Bush and Al Gore. Seriously, do they even come close to representing the way your typical Republican thinks? Why would Gallup be so transparent as to include them? Why would we trust a poll that did?

All this while the MSM continues to claim that Values Voters are a voting block that doesn't really matter.

Really.

They sure don't act that way, do they.

Posted by Danny Carlton at April 23, 2008 7:13 AM