It is time to be alarmed. An usual but possibly valid poll taken at Saint Cloud State indicates that Norm Coleman may be quite far ahead of Al Franken in the Senate race here in Minnesota. This is very disturbing for three reasons.
1) This is one of the only poll anywhere, and certainly THE only one for this race, in which a systematic effort was made to contact people who's primary telephone is a cell phone. The theory was that this cell-phone subset of people would be smarter, more liberal, less likely to support a lying treacherous dweeb like Norm Coleman. So, either that theory is wrong, or something else is wrong with the poll.
2) This is disturbing for the simple reason that the wrong guy is winning in what is the most current poll. Unless, of course, there is something wrong with this poll.
3) And, most disturbing of all is that this might reflect a positive response to a recent Republican strategy: To tell people this: "Well, OK, so Obama is going to win. Fine . But don't let the democrats have the Senate!" This strategy plays on the believe by a lot of people who are not very smart and know almost nothing about the system of government in this country that having one party in charge of the white house and the other in charge of at least one house of congress is somehow a good thing.
That this idea could be so widespread ... that there could be so may EXTRA stupid people is very disturbing. And by extra I don't mean high-test stupid, I mean additional stupid. We already knew that 44% of the American population are unmitigated morons (based on the fact that these people are actually not utterly appalled at the McCain Palin ticket). No, these are extra people above and beyond. In Minnesota! Where the women are smart, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average!
Details of the poll come from the Strib:
[The] poll shows that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican opponent John McCain 42 percent to 37 percent in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, .... the SCSU poll shows Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman leading with 36 percent, compared with 27 percent for Franken. Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley trails with 16 percent.
The poll, which surveyed 509 people Oct. 14-22 and has a margin of sampling error of 4.6 percent, might be the first in state history to include cell-phone users, which make up about 15 percent of those polled.
... the SCSU poll showed that younger cell-phone users -- ages 18 to 30 -- tended to favor Obama ..., but in the Senate race divided in roughly the same proportions as the general population.
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the poll itself is
here
they've got Obama over McCain 42 to 37, with 12 percent undecided, which seems a little odd to me--that seems like a huge number of undecideds...
While in general I track along your political side almost step for step, the assumption that people who believe that it's good for Congress to be aligned along a different party than the presidency are "stupid" is not one of mine. I know a bunch of extremely smart Americans who think that the less interfering the federal government does with everyday Americans' lives, the better. These folks believe that having a dichotomy between the presidency and Congress is important, and almost necessary, to preserve the freedom of the people. In addition, they believe that only the very most agreed-upon measures make it past the gridlock when there's that dichotomy. I was raised by two such people, and have many more in my family, and, frankly, the reasoning they use has a lot going for it in my mind.
Onto the cell-phone question: I think that the prevalence of cell-phone usage has made the "cell-phone users are all young, hip, with-it people" meme outdated. My family is considered odd because we *don't* have a cell-phone; in the grocery store hereabouts, cell-phone usage is evenly spread across the age spectrum.
Seems the smart ones are those who avoided taking part. Does the poll detail how many simply hung up or had the fone on silent?
Omege: I think what was thought to be (and this may be true) not spread evenly across the spectrum is the use of cell phones as the ONLY phone. Old people cling to their land lines.
I'm not from MN at all, but bridled at any support for a continuation of the mythology that:
For sure, the same people who push this line tend to support the huge government interference in people's sexual and reproductive lives, not to mention pushing religion everywhere. The same people tend to favor non-competitive intrusions in the free market, to prop up certain businesses and interests, be they domestic car makers or corn farmers. And today, like it or not, the government does and increasingly will absolutely need to intervene in the most widespread and socialist seeming way simply to avoid an economic catastrophe. Failing to pay and "intrude" will convert the United States into an insignificant bit player strategically, economically, and militarily, as well as curtail tax revenues at federal, state, and local levels hugely. y'want "home schooling"? fail to intervene and you won't be able to afford books, let alone much else!
I think you give a party a chance. Vote them out when they screw up. We need a Democratic congress to go along with a Democratic president for a number of years not to undo the damage that has been done. The Republicans have brought this on themselves.
These folks believe that having a dichotomy between the presidency and Congress is important, and almost necessary, to preserve the freedom of the people.
And how does this track with having a continuous erosion of "freedom of the people" every single year the Republican party has control of either both branches of government or the Congress, where they strive to control the courts with their stonewalling of appointments of all but the most conservative judges?
Hey, I'm just reporting what my experience is.
For exkept: The people I'm talking about are civil libertarians who are extremely anti- government interference in personal lives. I think you're allowing your preconceptions to run away with you; I'm not talking right-wing theocratic conservatives here, I'm talking free-wheeling libertarians who think that it's just as deplorable to have a Republican president with a Republican Congress rubber-stamping the president's edicts as to have a Democratic president with a Democratic Congress.
Alice--That's an interesting question, and one I will have to run by my captive audience (mom).
I'm not saying yea or nay to the philosophical outlook; I am saying that dismissing it outright as "stupidity" only followed by morons is...blinkered thinking.
What about the concept of a "loyal opposition"?
@OmegaMom (and it's ekzept, BTW):
Well, the distinction wasn't clear in your original posting. Furthermore, neither group is represented by the Republicans in practice, since they spend handsomely (just on different things than "liberals") and interfere with the markets. Yet both groups continue to support, vote for, and campaign for these Republicans that don't do what they want. But they'll direct their criticisms against Democrats. Did they direct them against the "unified party system" of the "Gingrich revolution" in 1994? I know you wrote that they would, but did they?
Also, I'd say these people are at least unsophisticated if they aren't stupid. First, Palin plays to them, spouting their ideology, and because of that they support her, despite her lack of qualifications. Second, "unified party systems" aren't politically natural, particularly among Democrats. The "ruling" party tends to break up into factions and have fights among themselves. It takes truly strong-arm tactics to suppress that, or threats like holding committee advancement hostage. I know both parties do that. It's just less successful among Democrats because of their fractious nature. So groups that believe a Democratic Congress will "rubber stamp" anything don't know their history are being blinded by their own story.
I do continue to think that the libertarians' ideas of "free markets" nearly trashed the critical decisions regarding Paulson's bailout plan a few weeks back are in fact morons. They are out of touch with economic realities, however these cut their own views. If there were anger to be had at anyone, it should have been directed towards Mr Paulson and The Guy Holding His Leash for coming to Congress with such an incomplete plan and proposal.
But, hey, you've sliced and diced this "opposition" down ... It doesn't include the religious Repubs. It doesn't include moderate Repubs. It doesn't include the "corporatracy" bulls. Are these "libertarians" just the compatriots of Timothy McVeigh? If so, why should I need them?
(Apologies for the minor incoherencies above. Rewrite "the libertarians' ideas of" as "the libertarians who believe in" in the second to last paragraph, and "should I need them" as "should I heed them" in the last sentence.)
I just wanted to add that it's interesting that a clutch of libertarian-leaning folks, namely, the Goldwaters, apparently believe Obama and the Democrats are more likely to represent them than McCain.
Of course, that's Arizona, not Minnesota.
The Republicans picked Palin as the VP nominee because she was the very most agreed-upon.
I'm not seeing anything in the description at
http://media1.stcloudstate.edu/slideshows/SCSUSurveyResultsFall2008.pdf
of this small (509 weighted responses), dated (responses were gathered between October 14 (nearly two weeks ago) and October 22 survey, that indicates that any attempt was made to contact people whose primary telephone is a cell phone.
Of the 509 weighted responses, 379 were contacted by landline and 130 by cellphone. And of the 130 contacted by cellphone, 75 said they had no landline, 35 said they had a landline but mostly used the cellphone for personal calls, 11 said they used both cell and landline frequently for personal calls, and 9 said they use mostly landline for personal calls.
So, of the 130 responders using a cellphone, only 110 said they always or mostly used a cellphone for personal calls. And only 75 of them would be noncontactable by pollsters calling landlines only.
There's also no breakdown on responses with regard to whether contact was made by landline or cellphone. Perhaps that's because not much can be definitely said of voting preferences based on the responses of only 130 cellphone users in a state the size of Minnesota.