Senate Candidate Wants to Ban Polling

Masker writes "This is just too funny. Alan Keyes, the Republican candidate for Senate in Illinois, who is running against Democrat Barack Obama, wants to ban political polling for 'a certain period' before the election, since such polls are 'manipulative and degrading and damaging to our political system.' Could his opinion be influenced by a recent poll that shows Keyes trails by 45 percentage points behind Obama?" Could be. But it could also be influenced by the fact that polls are often wrong; they influence how people vote (people are less likely to vote for someone who "doesn't have a chance"), and polls get reported on more than issues, which can't be good for anyone except the pollsters and whoever happens to be leading the polls.

Comments

Re:Barack Osama?

[Keith Russell]

Please, please, somebody tell me that my browser mangled the <sarcasm> tags.

For those who did take that seriosuly, you'll get a good idea of who Barack Obama is by reading the transcript of his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

Re:Other reasons he's behind in the polls?

[Quarters]

A few years back Alan Keyes was quite vocal in his claims that Hillary Clinton shouldn't have been allowed to run in the NY senate race since she had just purchased a house there. Of course she was a strong Democrat going up against a very week Republican, but that probably didn't have anything to do with it...(ha!)

Re:He isn't all their

[DAldredge]

Alan Keyes: "No, the point of the matter is that marriage, as an institution, involves procreation. It is in principle impossible for homosexuals to procreate. Therefore, they cannot marry. It is a simple logical syllogism, and one can wish all one might, but pigs don't fly and we can't change the course of nature."
Mike Signorile: "But one or the other in the couple can procreate. The men can donate their sperm, the women can have babies."

Alan Keyes: "The definition and understanding of marriage is 'the two become one flesh.' In the child, the two transcend their persons and unite together to become a new individual. That can only be done through procreation and conception. It cannot be done by homosexuals."

Mike Signorile: "But what about a heterosexual couple who cannot bear children and then adopt? They are not becoming as one flesh, they are taking someone else's flesh."

Alan Keyes: "And they are adopting the paradigm of family life. But the essence of that family life remains procreation. If we embrace homosexuality as a proper basis for marriage, we are saying that it is possible to have a marriage state that in principle excludes procreation and is based simply on the premise of selfish hedonism. This is unacceptable."

Mike Signorile: "So Mary Cheney is a selfish hedonist, is that it?"

Alan Keyes: "Of course she is. That goes by definition. Of course she is."

Mike Signorile: "I don't think Dick Cheney would like to hear that about his daughter."

Alan Keyes: "He may or may not like to hear the truth, but it can be spoken."

Alan Keyes: "By definition, a homosexual engages in the exchange of mutual pleasure. I actually object to the notion that we call it sexual relations because it's nothing of the kind.

Alan Keyes: "It is the mutual pursuit of pleasure through the stimulation of the organs intended for procreation, but it has nothing to do with sexuality because they are of the same sex. And with respect to them, the sexual difference does not exist. They are therefore not having sexual relations."

Ah...many countries actually do this

[Nice2Cats]

This is just too funny.

Sorry to distrub your editorializing here, but there are in fact quite a number of countries that do this. Other things more modern democracies have found out work pretty well are not announcing any election results until everybody's vote is in (aw, the Californian says, why go vote, Gore is going to win anyway); vote on a Sunday so people don't have to skip work; give everybody the same ballot sheet; give every person one vote instead of some screwy system with a bunch of middlemen who distort the effect of the popular vote.

As with the legal system and electricity, America's electorial system suffers enormously from being one of the first ones implemented and the inability of Congress to pass any serious reforms. Get rid of trial by jury, switch to 220 volts, make it a direct vote, and then you will be ready to enter the 21. Century. Computers that run with 220 volts are twice as fast!

Re:Ah...many countries actually do this

[tetranz]

A bit off the original topic but ...

In New Zealand we have a law which, although I don't know the wording, it basically says 'no politics on election day'. All billboards must be removed by midnight before the day. If nothing else, it avoids them becoming trash blowing around for weeks as I've noticed happening in the US. Exit polling is not allowed and the news media can't say anything political until the polls close except to comment on turnout etc. Volunteers working for parties helping old people etc get to a polling place can have coloured ribbons on their cars but that's all, no party or candidate names. No votes are counted until all polls are closed. Admittedly that's easier with only one timezone.

I think its all good. The last minute begging for votes from american candidates moving west seems somewhat uncivilised. Surely election day is finally a time for the candidates to shutup and let the people have their say.

And ...

It doesn't matter what crime you've committed in the past, you never lose the right to vote. I heard a report on NPR recently about ex-felons not being allowed to vote in the US. Its a controversal subject but quite significant in some geographic and demographic groups.

Proportional representation means that third parties really do count and spoilers don't.

Permanent resident non-citizens can vote.

Polls are all BS anyway.

[Temporal]

As I have learned since I started paying attention to electoral-vote.com, most polls are BS. For example, two different polls recently conducted in Wisconsin show Kerry getting 50% and 38% of the vote. The polls don't even have overlapping margins of error. Therefore, at least one of them is simply dead wrong. Similar polls have been popping up all over the map, even from "trusted" sources like Gallup. If it's so easy for polls to be so wrong, why should we trust any of them?

Re:Polls are all BS anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked Gallup if they really excluded cell phones in their sampling - this was the reply I got back :
The research we have done and learned about at professional meetings
suggest that the vast majority of people who use a cell phone also have a
land line phone. The estimates of cell phone only households is in the
2-3% range. So 96-97% of Americans have land line phones (some small
percentage does not have a cell phone or a land line phone), and thus
are included in our samples.

The research also indicates that people with only a cell phone have
generally similar attitudes to those with a land line phone. That small
percentage of cell phone only people would have to be dramatically
different from land line phone people to even move our numbers a fraction of
a point.

Nevertheless, we continue to monitor the growing trend toward
cell-phone only usage, and as the practice becomes more widespread (and we see
differences in attitudes between cell-phone only and landline), it may
become necessary to adjust our sampling procedures to account for that.

Re:Other reasons he's behind in the polls?

[mzs]

I am from IL and I here is an example of what Alan Keyes is about:

Separation of Church and State? What is that?

Stances like this are why he will lose the election here. I am sure that Republicans like Jim Thompson are very much beside themselves about it actually. They can look at this as illustrating how Illinoisans want more moderate Republicans and Keyes' royal trouncing will help shift the Republican agenda in IL back to where it can be palatable to the majority again. Too bad for the RNC which was so dead set on a candidate like Keyes that they forgot to actually rally behind one that the majority would accept...

Re:Other reasons he's behind in the polls?

[Atzanteol]

*sigh* This is a huge pet peeve of mine...

Separation of church and state:

• Is not in the constitution (as most people think)
• Does not mean nobody can have religion
• Even if their in public office
• Is *not* about removing religious symbols from public property

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" not "Congress shall tear down religious symbols wherever it may annoy citizens."

Allowing a court house to have the 10 commandments in front of it is hardly passing a law respecting or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. This is called "Freedom of Religion" people. The right to actually have a religion.

Re:Other reasons he's behind in the polls?

[stinerman]

The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate.... When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some.

-- Harry Blackmun, former Supreme Court Justice

Keyes has always called the polls phoney

[Anonymous Coward]

This position is consistent with Alan Keyes.
Back in the 2000 election whenever he was presented a poll, he stated that he never listens to the "phoney polls".

Re:He isn't all their

[DAldredge]

Those quotes are all from the same interview.