Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll has a few words on PUSILLANIMOUS POLL-CATS:

When I was a kid watching Westerns, “pusillanimous polecat” was a mighty insult. A polecat is another name for a skunk. Last week I read that even in my Red State of Arizona, the polls show Trump behind by four points. Heck, why even bother to have the election? I do not believe it. The odor of polecat wafts through the desert. Remember the polls showing “Brexit” going down in flames? Not four long months out, either. The day of the bloody vote. Oopsie.

How well I remember Bill Kristol’s sad visage on Fox in 2004 when the EXIT polls showed George W going down to defeat. We are talking here not about people who were maybe fixin’ to possibly vote in four months, but people who already had! How could THAT go wrong? Bill looked like he had just lost a beloved relative. Guess what? PEOPLE LIED! They just bald-faced lied to the intrusive dimwit interviewers who evidently do not respect the Secret Ballot. That election wasn’t even close and the media had already declared it for the loser.

I can make a poll that will show any damn outcome I am paid to deliver. Reminiscent of a TV hooker who, when asked her name, purrs, “What would you like it to be?”

First, depending on who’s paying the freight, you weight your sample heavily with the demographic that guarantees the desired outcome. Want to find out Obama’s approval rating? Ask 50% black people, and the other half, 55% (other) Democrats.

I have never been polled in my life, even by accident. The Paranoid Texan next door, on the other hand, gets about six calls a day. I do not know how the pollsters count his standard response, which Mr. AG and I have heard him give when the call has interrupted our movie. I’m pretty sure one of the official multiple choice responses is not “Bite me.”

Second, since about half of all Americans don’t even bother to vote, a poll that samples “people” instead of “registered voters,” or better yet, “likely” voters who have ever voted in an election in their lives, automatically skews your poll.

Third, let ME phrase the questions for your paid minions. “Since it’s a proven fact that Hillary deliberately lied, destroyed evidence, and had an obscure film-maker jailed, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being very unlikely, and 5 being dead certain, how likely is it that you think she will lie again?” would be a good starter question.

OR, we could go with “Since YOU don’t hate all women, how excited are you – with 1 being quite excited and 5 being near-orgasmic – that Hillary The Woman will be the first ever historic woman President?” Spot the difference in those two questions?

In 2002, I was a speechwriter for St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman’s successful Senatorial campaign. Late in October, our internal polling showed Norm losing a close race to two-time incumbent Sen. Paul Wellstone. Fate intervened in a shocking and tragic way.

Honoring a previously-booked commitment, I had to fly out on October 25 to a comedy gig in Ocean City, Maryland. While I was walking on the beach, wearing a Minnesota sweatshirt, a couple walking the other way stopped to express condolences on a plane crash that had killed “some Minnesota senator.” They didn’t even know which one. I ran back to my hotel room and turned on the news. Paul was indeed gone, along with family members and staff. I liked Paul as a person, as did Norm, truth to tell.

The Democrats recycled Walter Mondale, and held a televised “memorial” rally so cluelessly tasteless that it hurt Democrats nationally. Coleman won and served one term. He was unseated in 2008 when Al Franken beat him by a few hundred votes in the Obama frenzy. From voting felons and a ballot box accidentally found in the trunk of a car.

I could mention that Senator Coleman had failed to use me as a speechwriter in the campaign which he lost. Coincidence? You be the judge. True, he often said to me “Susan [my given name], that’s really funny, but you do understand that I can’t SAY that?”

But the most significant thing about that late-in-the-day internal poll I mentioned was that it also showed Tim Pawlenty up 9 points in his race for governor. And the media, whose polls also reflected this trend, simply refused to release their polls. Not newsworthy. They did not want to give Pawlenty that boost. It didn’t matter: he won handily.

Yes, yes, I can already see the trolls hunched over their keyboards to say, “Hey, AG, Trump likes polls when they favor him, but discounts them when they show him behind!” Completely true, completely understandable, and changes nothing about what I’ve written here.

Why do polls even matter? Because nobody wants to back a sure loser with money, reputation, or sweat. Polls create momentum. They tell sheeple who all the cool kids support. They are a form of psy-ops, meant to demoralize the enemy: Give up. It’s over. Don’t even bother. We win again. Fight on, my friends. Neither rely on nor be discouraged by polls.

Remember the NBA champs, Golden State Warriors, down 3 games to 1 to Oklahoma City Thunder? Couldn’t come back from that. OKCity is a lock. Uh-oh. How ’bout that? Then, Finals were going well. Warriors over Cleveland, 3 games to 1. In the bag. Cavs can’t come back. Never been done. The Warriors repeated and lived happily ever after. Not that I watched. Because the media said it was over. That is what happened, right? Right?

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