From: f67700241@violet.ccit.arizona.edu (Greg Franklin)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.elections
Subject: Re: LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE POLLS 6%
Date: 4 Sep 92 08:08:14 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
Nntp-Posting-User: f67700241

In article <4edX6Ee00h5yM1UQJM@andrew.cmu.edu>, Conrad Poelman <conradp+@CMU.EDU> writes:
> Greg Franklin@violet.cci (2271) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug31.193137.12032@genie.slhs.udel.edu>,
>> tom@genie.slhs.udel.edu (tom) writes:
>> >                 LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE POLLS 6%
>> > 
>> >      The Libertarian Party candidate for President, former Alaska State
>> > Representative Andre Marrou (AHN'-dray mah-ROO'), received 6 percent of the
>> > vote in an unscientific poll of users of the CompuServe computer network,
>> > Libertarian Party national vice chair Steve Dasbach (DOZZ'-bok) announced
>> > today.
>> 
>> This is the highlight of the LP's campaign??...
> 
>> I've seen the Libertarians pull this kind of dishonest trick before (who
>> remembers "We won Dixville Notch"?), and it really does damage to their
>> reputation, IMHO.
> 
> You call this a "dishonest trick"?!?  This is only minor "spin control"
> compared to what the major political parties do!  Dixville Notch was not
> a "dishonest trick", they actually won the election there!  Sure, it
> would be dishonest, or at best "wishful thinking", for them to claim
> that those results were indicative of the nation as a whole, but there's
> nothing "dishonest" about saying "we went, we explained our positions,
> and we won".

No, except Andre Marrou spews out "We won Dixville Notch, we won Dixville
Notch" and puts GREAT significance on it when he's asked if the LP is
growing.  He DOES mention it as if it were indicative of the whole!
He refers to it right off the bat when asked if the LP has ever won
anything.  He then goes on to mention that ~20-30 people in the U.S.
have been elected as Libertarians, mostly at low-level state positions.
Big whoop, the undecided voter says.

The Dixville Notch stuff is spin control at its most inept.  Andre
Marrou is JAP (Just Another Politician).  He does have a great radio
voice, and would be more entertaining, IMHO, than Rush Limbaugh.

> With this Compuserve poll, they even went out of their way to insert the
> word "unscientific" into their description of the poll, which is far
> more, I suspect, than Democrats or Republicans would have done.  It's an
> interesting data point, if nothing else.  I don't think many people
> expect from this "unscientific poll" that Marrou will get 6% of the
> national vote in November, nor did the article lead them to expect this.

It is an interesting data point, and nothing else.  BTW, the only polls
I read are the 5 or 6 major media ones.  The Dems and Reps public poll
data is well known to be worthless.  (Their internal polls ARE scien-
tific, though, if only to reduce surprises for the candidate.)  Exit
polls, nominally unscientific, are quite respected as election-day
barometers of p.o.

I don't know; if the VICE-CHAIR of a national party takes time out to
tell this underwhelming story to the media, even headlining it for
emphasis, maybe he DOES think it's significant....

It seems to me that the LP is avoiding looking at "scientific" polls and
seeking solace in unscientific polls, instead of trying to figure out
how to build a party capable of winning more than Dixville Notch!  The
top-level LPs seem to be full of complacency just like Brezhnev was in
the 1970s, ignoring reality and proclaiming the tiny good news they do
get as vastly significant.  Marrou and Dasbach will not last.

(Sorry if I seem a bit combative; it's just that I learned last semester
when Perot and Marrou combined took 65%+ of the Usenet vote that this kind
of computer poll is insipid, NEVER to be taken as anything significant.
Thanks for the response, anyway.)
-- 
Greg "Mockingbird" Franklin      Interviewer: "Sir, how do you spell relief?"
f67700241@ccit.arizona.edu               Dan: "R-O-L-A-I-D-S-E."