Wednesday, November 10, 2004

The October Surprise - the final installment

I know this is a little late, but I want to finish with my final thoughts on the election before I move on to other issues.

I have written a fair amount about the Democrats' October surprise here, here and here.

In those posts, I discussed the Osama speech and the "missing" munitions story. What I didn't know then was that the October surprise was the gift that would keep on giving. The Democrats' October surprise continued through election day with the appearance of the phony exit polls. Those exit polls were designed to demoralize Republicans and create the false impression that Kerry had built an insurmountable lead in battleground states and was even leading in normally strong Republican states. Even many conservatives fell for it. Several did not (as related by Peg Noonan):
Oh, another last note. Tuesday I heard three radio talkers who refused to believe it was over when the ludicrous, and who knows but possibly quite mischievous, exit polls virtually declared a Kerry landslide yesterday afternoon. They are Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. The last sent me an e-mail that dismissed the numbers as elitist nonsense and propaganda. She is one tough girl and they are two tough men. Savor them too.

There is no way to know whether exit polls (or any other polls) are accurate - especially in the heat of a seemingly close race. I stopped paying attention to polls going into the final weekend.

My only advice is that we must prepare ourselves for more false polls in the future. We cannot believe ANY polls. The experts on Republican campaigns will have their own polling data and will know how and where to allocate campaign resources. But we, as voters, bloggers, and new media activists, don't need to rely on polls. We deal in issues. We expose the truth beneath the MSM spin.

Looking back now to the final days of the campaign, I cannot point to a single benefit that any of us received by the endless rehashing of polls in the days leading up to the election.

In future elections, remind your readers, friends, etc. of the last minute election day exit polls of November 2, 2004. Tell them to remember these polls when they hear of new polls in the battles ahead. The only defense is advance immunization.

Shortly, I will attempt to post a recap of all of the MSM falsehoods that characterized election-2004 and that should forever destroy the MSM's pretense at objectivity. The destruction of this pretense should also include the destruction of any notion that the MSM polls are designed to achieve any end other than the election of Democratic candidates.

As I wrote earlier, it will not be a surprise if we get the voters to expect it.

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