Thursday, January 17, 2008

Anyone else have that age old feeling of disenfranchisement?

I was perusing the Cnn.com, as part of my regular late night masochism session, looking for some clues as to what is going on with the electorate. How come the same pundits who are so horribly wrong about policy are surprisingly correct when it comes to predicting elections? As a vehement Ron Pauloholic I was optimistically expecting well above 10% from Ron Paul in the New Hampshire primary. (By the way, can we strip them of their state motto: Live Free or Die because no one truly free would vote for Hilary Clinton, well maybe as a joke?) The acceptable Jack Cafferty echoed that idea before the primary on CNN, though none of his co-workers agreed. As we all know, as well read (five points to anyone who coins a new term to replace "well read" in regards to getting their news from Youtube and Log Cabin videos) politicos, Ron Paul did not even hit 10% in New Hampshire, and has done similarly or worse since, in Wyoming and Michigan. On CNN.com they have some exit polls from Michigan, and one of them asked the voter, who they think is the candidate that will best bring much needed change. Then they broke down who those people voted for. For example, 28% of Republican voters thought John McCain will best bring about much needed change, and 88% of those people voted for McCain. Well, 12% of Michigan Republican primary voters thought Ron Paul would best bring about much needed change (that figure alone angers me for being low.) However, only 48% of those people voted for him. In summary, 6% of the Michigan Republican primary electorate thought that Ron Paul would be the best person to change this country for the better, but decided not to vote for him. Motherwhat? YOU PEOPLE ARE DRIVING ME INSANE!

At one time in our lives we have all either supported a "fringe" candidate, or knew someone who did. If you are one of the people who supported the "fringe" candidate, then you heard, almost every time you tried to proselytize for your boy, "I'm not gonna throw my vote away." If you are not someone who supported a "fringe" candiddate, then you are that asshole who said, "I'm not gonna throw my vote away." Yet they rarely attack that candidate on the issues, on hizzer policy and cred, street or otherwise. I figure this is either because they agree with the candidate but are afraid to vote for himmer, like our Michigan 6%, or they are uninformed of him, a number likely much higher than 6%.

I was watching a fall 2000 Charlie Rose episode on Youtube that had a number of political experts analyzing the first Gore-Bush debate from that election. A couple times they referenced a poll that asked about people's impressions of the candidates, and seemingly used it as evidence of what the candidate actually is. I thin I only explicitly noticed it because I was able to look at these talking heads with a very 20/20 perspective. However, this is an hourly occurrence on every news network, newspaper front page...and most blogs, for that matter. Just because a poll says most people THINK a candidate is something, does not make him so. And for the media to spin in that way, makes it not only self-fulfilling but that number can increase like a snowball, and then simply becomes fact. It is circular logic that doesn't even have a factual base to turn on itself.

There are hundreds of way the propaganda machine, sorry, "media", distorts and hides the truth. There are many ways in which it, eh...for lack of a better word, BRAINWASHES people into voting a certain way. As bad as it is that there are elections being rigged at the polls, after the polls, and before the polls, by not allowing people to vote, elections are also being stolen through propaganda. Remember, why steal something forcefully or stealthily when you can just trick someone into giving it to you?

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