CSotD: Calibrating the foresights
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The back-and-forth in the current campaign is, as suggested yesterday, getting to the point where ridiculous things about binders are crowding out more substantive arguments. But, then again, maybe we really are in a world in which facts and logic are not relevant and smart campaigning should ignore them.
"We're not
going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers" horrified the cognoscenti a few months ago, but it appears to be pretty good campaign strategy. And why wouldn't it be?
I mean, people still bring up the Betamax, touting it as far superior to the VHS technology that defined home video. Home video is pretty much a dead parrot these days, but there are those who still won't let go of their anger.
The viability of videocassettes is not the point, and neither is the question of which format delivered a sharper picture. The point is, VHS became the dominant technology in the home by virtue of being the dominant technology on store shelves.
All the carefully reasoned explanations of what is better and what will deliver things you need and what will make you happy ten years down the road are trumped by preferences that are only based on fact because we feel we ought somehow to justify whatever we end up doing. It has to make sense, but so do East German figure skating scores.
We choose the facts that fit our goals. And we choose our goals the same way.
Which is how pizza, for all its fat and sodium, becomes a mix of healthy dairy products, vegetables and protein, if we need to feel that it is nutritious and healthy. Weight gain and hypertension be damned.
And it's how one drink isn't going to hurt you, and then, what the hell, one more won't, either.
And you'll rake the leaves tomorrow. Early. Before it starts raining. And, anyway, it probably won't rain. The weatherman is usually wrong.
And so are the polls, if they show your candidate losing.
Ditto with the Magic Eight Ball.
If it tells you what you want to hear, it's good. If it tells you what you don't want to hear, it's defective.
The question of polling accuracy has been a lively one this time around, but "lively" doesn't mean "subjected to rigorous analysis." It just means they've been quibbling over how to hammer the data into the predetermined shape.
And then there is the English folksong about the maiden whose sea captain father had ordered her, in his absence, to always answer "no" to young men, which worked out fine once her beau rephrased "Will you come and be my wife?" so that the question became "… or dear madam, have you settled to stay single all your life?"
Oh, no, John, no, John, no, John, no!
With that strategy in mind, the question may be "Who is ahead in the polls?" or it may be "Who is ahead in the electoral race?" The challenge lies in picking the one that tells you what you want to hear.
And of shaking the Magic Eight Ball and asking again, or replacing the thing entirely, until you get the answer you wanted.
The only poll that matters, of course, is the one coming in November, but that is as fatuous and ignorant a statement as "they're both corrupt."
They may both be corrupt, but they're not so equally corrupt that an intelligent person can't tell which is likely to do a better, or, at worst, a less toxic, job of governing, "better" and "worse" being elements of what you want:
If you want, for instance, a Supreme Court that will either overturn or uphold civil rights legislation, the choices are crystal clear.
If your priority is that you want war with Iran, or that you want to avoid it, things become more nuanced, but it's not impenetrable.
As for "the only poll that matters," that's certainly true, but it's also true that a good number of people — certainly enough to move the needle this time around — are influenced by a desire to be on the winning side.
For some, that means they genuinely will vote as if they were betting on the outcome.
For a good number of others, it means they will be more likely to vote if they feel their candidate is going to win, because they want to be on the winning side. Or they will stay home if they feel their candidate can't win, because what's the use?
Which makes the constant hyping of polls irresponsible journalism but excellent campaign strategy.
The trick being to find the Magic Eight Ball that isn't defective.
Coincidentally, Vic Lee provides your moment of zen, at Pardon My Planet:
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