I was actually shocked at the interchange between Keith Olbermann and Craig Crawford last evening. It was as if they were on separate planets. Olbermann asks: "Why were the polls so wrong?" and Crawford babbles on about why people chose Senator Clinton over Senator Obama. That wasn't the question...and Olbermann never reacted. Since then I've watched the same discussion on at least 3 other MSM talk shows. It's impossible to ignore the possibility that there is major collusion in MSM to cover for a real problem.
Polls are technical processes. The size and nature of the random sample are calculated with statistics. The words, the methods supposedly determined by scientific principles. The poll itself is supposed to be unobtrusive, and not interfere with the process. None of these things seemed have happened.
Pollsters have reacted vehemently to the charge that their methods are not only flawed but hopelessly dated. John Zogby must have stayed up all night coming up with reasons why his big-money process totally failed, but why he should still be trusted.
But the facts get in the way. The Pew Trust talks about some of the technical problems. "Polls do not perfectly mirror all of the characteristics of the adult population. They often include too many women and too few minorities and people with low levels of education."
Pew also admits that the problems are skewed across the population. "Privacy managers or call blocking, which electronically stop certain calls from reaching a household, are less common. More women (20%) than men (14%) report using this technology...Compared with people with land-line telephones, those who rely solely on cell phones tend to be younger and more likely to live alone." Older people are more likely to talk (to anyone) on the land line. Cell phone only users have increased from only about 4% in 2003 to almost half during the work day today.
Then the pundits, like Pat Buchanan, keep talking about "secret racism" while they keep using the words..."Please don't throw us in that Briar Patch..."
But none of these reasons make any sense here. The younger crowd would have skewed for Obama, and undercounting them would have made the numbers go the other way.
So here's the problem: There are more insidious reasons why the polls could have been so far off. And no one is asking about them.
People could have lied to the pollsters. That's possible, given the harassment the good voters of New Hampshire had endured. Some "pundits" suggested the pollsters were young and inexperienced. So why pay them?
Or people could have changed their minds based on last minute news. And that's the point of this diary:
The last minute news in New Hampshire was all about the polls. So the polls, in effect, may have made the news and made the election--the ultimate "push poll."
By telling independents that Obama was a "shoe in" the polls, themselves, pushed independents toward McCain. Is that what "corporate" wanted? Seems logical. The big money guys in the back rooms of America certainly don't want Huckabee or Edwards. They don't necessarily want McCain, but "none of the above" isn't an option.
Ultimately, the more aggressive of the cable political pundits have failed us by not examining the process or discussing all the possibilities here.