Thursday, October 30, 2008

She hasn't sung yet

Every news broadcaster has some sort of poll they like to flash the viewers. Every poll has a different leader or statistic. Can we really trust these polls? Who are the "likely voters"? Do these news organization really have an unbiased sampling? For example, CNN is seen as the liberal news channel. If they want to show Obama as the leader in the polls, all they have to do is gather a hundred "likely voters" from a traditionally liberal area. The same can be said for Fox, they could gather their statistics from a traditionally republican area. A statistics teacher once told his class "statistics can say anything you want them to." This is so true when it comes to political polls. The so called "key states" have been declared as going to one candidate or the other, then switched, then declared a toss up. No one really knows for sure until the votes are counted next Tuesday. Having a news organization declare a state before the votes have been counted is nothing but rhetoric and spin. We don't need anyone to declare a winner until the people have actually spoken and that will not happen for another 5 days.