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Polling, polling, polling... Now It All Makes Sense!By Rick Horowitz
The ballots are counted -- most of them, anyway -- and the results are in. Election 2006 is history. (And depending on where you sit, either comedy or tragedy.) But what's behind all those numbers? Even more numbers! Yes, friends, it's time once again for the Ten-Foot Poll, America's most valuable survey of people heading for the door. Our analysts have pored over the opinions of these 2,165 randomly invented voters, and we've got results absolutely unmatched by any other exit poll. Let's look first
at changes in the voting process itself, which some voters found particularly
challenging this year. Asked to evaluate the biggest change, our respondents
said that "New electronic voting machines made voting..."
Voters coast
to coast felt themselves bombarded with information this campaign season,
especially from those 30-second TV ads. Asked to estimate how many ads
they saw on an average day, voters reported these results: Meanwhile, voters
said that the content and tone of this year's ads made them feel...
But TV wasn't
the only source of campaign news, especially for younger voters. Respondents
18 to 30 years old reported that they received much of their political
news this year from one or more of the following sources: Regardless of
age, however, voters said they preferred a candidate who... As for specific
issues, the war in Iraq, as expected, was center stage for much of the
campaign, and voters had to sort through competing "story lines" about
the conflict. Asked, for instance, to identify the Republicans' strategy
for Iraq, voters responded as follows: And the Democrats
fared little better: Depending on
their party affiliations, Democrats and Republicans continue to see
the world in very different terms, and this campaign only reinforced
that tendency. Asked to identify "the biggest threat to world peace,"
Republicans ranked them this way... ...while Democrats
chose these: Likewise -- and
not surprisingly -- Democrats and Republicans were sharply divided in
identifying the people who had been most helpful to their own party's
fortunes during the campaign. For Democrats: And for Republicans:
As always, unexpected
or compelling images had significant influence on voters' opinions.
For instance, we got these results when we asked voters, "Which of the
following had the most impact on your vote?" More than in
recent years, voters seemed to be casting "strategic" votes, considering
the impact of individual contests on the overall power structure in
Washington. The next Congress, our respondents felt, would be "more
effective" with: Meanwhile, voters
expected President Bush to see these election results as: Finally, when
our voters were asked to look ahead to the 2008 campaign, they seemed
less than eager to take us up on our invitation. For the moment, at
least, they said they were: Posted 11/7/06. Get award-winning commentary
from syndicated columnist Rick Horowitz twice every week!
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Rick Horowitz
