I found this on Blogs for Bush yesterday. The antiwar vote in Wisconsin has the right all spinny.
"But have "the people" really spoken? Absolutely not. Wisconsin has 1,266 towns and only 32 voted on the referenda. That amounst to a mere 8 percent of the state's 2004 electorate, of which, only 2 percent cast ballots for the referendum. The 32 towns were also heavily Democratic, and a smaller percentage voted for a pullout (60%) than voted for Kerry in 2004 (69%). So, the referendum actually did not do well at all, considering the circumstances.
"Since Kerry won these towns with 69% of the vote, it cannot be claimed that they accurately represent Wisconsin, which Kerry narrowly won 49% to 48%. If Democrats give any credence to this story, then you know they are really desperate to exaggerate any signs of opposition to the war in Iraq."
Nevermind that all of these claims are unsourced. It's all true because they say it is. That's the way the noise machine works. And as far as the number of the voters goes, multi-million dollar ad campaigns are based almost entirely on opinion polls with much smaller samples, percentage wise. Are they saying that the corporations they admire foolishly throw their money away? (Well, they do - see Enron, et. al. - just not on marketing)
I left a comment pointing all of this out, but I don't expect it to make them face reality. Sometimes it's just fun to poke a rightie with a stick. Nor do I expect this USA TODAY/Gallup poll to get them to join us in the real world either:
"WASHINGTON — Americans, anxious about the costs of the Iraq war and the impact of a global economy, are increasingly wary of engagement in the world.
"In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, nearly half of those surveyed said the United States 'should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own.' Three years ago, just one-third felt that way.
"'There seems to be a turning inward across the American spectrum,' says Charles Kupchan, a former State Department and National Security Council aide who now teaches at Georgetown University. He calls it 'an inevitable consequence of Iraq.'
"The leave-us-alone mood is apparent not only in the proportion of Americans, 64%, who want all or some of the U.S. troops in Iraq to come home now. "
To be fair, Blogs for Bush is right; the vote didn't reflect the opinion of the larger population. 61% of referenda voters voted against the war, not 64%. Of course, the 3% variance probably falls within Gallup's margin of error, which wasn't reported.
Boy howdy, talk about being out of touch. Those crazy cheeseheads...
--Wisco
1 comment:
The figures may be unsourced, but they have their origins in John McAdams's spinning in the days after the votes. I discuss that here.
Post a Comment