By Brian Bohl
Political polls are best utilized as tools to gauge public opinion about candidates or campaign tickets. The limitations of the most sophisticated and fair-minded polls have been well-chronicled.
But polls can still be effective in determining public opinion as long as the selection process isn’t biased. Thursday’s debate between vice presidential candidates Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin exemplified the dangers of self-selection in presenting a poll.
Most post-debate polls showed a relatively close margin of victory for the more seasoned Biden. Follow-up questions in these reputable polls also showed the American people were generally pleased with Palin’s performance. A CBS News/Knowledge Networks survey of 500 uncommitted voters taken after the debate found 46 percent thought Biden won compared to 21 percent who thought Palin won. Nearly two-thirds in that same survey found Palin knowledgeable about important issues, 98 percent said the same about Biden.
CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found similar views, with 51 percent saying Biden did better and 36 percent favoring Palin. It also concluded 87 percent thought Biden was qualified to be president. Conversely, 42 percent saw Palin that way.
There is fluctuation in both polls, though the error margins failed to come close to Fox News’ instant poll results presented immediately following the debate. The voters in that poll also selected a clear-cut winner: the self-described hockey mom and Alaska governor. Palin was the winner of the debate by an 87-11 margin. Polls will vary slightly depending on factors such as margin of error and the method in selecting a sample size. Yet it’s obvious in the Fox poll that the actual debate performance matters little when declaring victory.
Self-selection in polls, instead of a more accurate random sample, will reflect the bias of a select group of people who provide the results. It also gives a mindset into these debates, which are intended to sway independent voters.
It’s no surprise that the debates have become exercises in perception manipulation. On Fox News, viewers immediately claimed Palin the victor. People who entered the debate intending to vote for McCain-Palin obviously were ready to scream that Palin clearly won over Biden outside of her running off the stage. That’s why the governor earned almost 90 percent of the vote in a Fox News poll, no doubt helped by the likes of Sean Hannity, Rudolph Giuliani, Karl Rove and other right-learning pundits and politicians screaming that Palin posted the greatest debate performance since Abraham Lincoln over Stephen Douglas.
This isn’t strictly a Republican tactic. Democratic candidates possess their own spin consultants and hire public relations firms to build up images and frame news in a positive light. And broadcast outlets like NPR would no doubt show a Biden victory if their audience was polled directly after the debate.
But in the past two weeks, it seems the GOP has taken it to a new art. First there was the ad on the Wall Street Journal’s Web site proclaiming John McCain the winner over Barack Obama at the first presidential debate. The ad came from McCain’s camp, so its’ statement was obviously partisan. It also would have held more weight if the advertisement was withheld until after the debate instead of going online before the two candidates squared off.
When you look at the more objective polls numbers, the general consensus was that Palin performed well and the results were relatively close. Only Fox News declared the debate a landslide victory, ironic considering the station’s propensity to blame its competitors as out of touch in representing the views of average Americans.
Personally, it seems like a double standard to attribute a candidate using words like “doggone,” “betcha” and “darn right” as a sign of being ready to assume one of the highest offices in the country. If Obama or Biden consistently presented his views in that style of speaking, most people would question the validity of their candidacies. I agree with some proponents of Palin that sexism plays a part in some of her criticism; the same unfortunate role it also played in certain people’s judgments about Hillary Clinton even if conservatives didn’t care about that at the time.
For the sake of equity and consistency, it’s why Palin should be expected to carry out nuanced discussions that rely more on facts than winking into a camera and talking in slang. Palin is capable of this type of oratory. It’s her handlers and even the American people who are to blame for lowering the standards of political discourse. Judging by the past few election cycles, it seems a sizeable portion of the electorate choose the candidate with which they would rather have a beer or attend a social event. The Republicans used that philosophy of highlighting George W. Bush’s folksy ways and are transferring those attributes to Palin.
We’ve already seen the dangers in that with President Bush’s two terms. It should be time for American people to demand informative and substantive policy debates from both Democrats and Republicans. A candidate doesn’t need to be a master of words like Lincoln to proudly represent the party of Lincoln.
Brian Bohl is a master’s candidate for journalism. You may e-mail him at [email protected].