Dewey Defeats Truman
So, we’ve got a real front-runner in one party and a bunch of people trying to slug it out in the other party. But my theory is that the front-runner will be the person who gets the most votes, and you’re not going to know that until late in the evening of election day.
Example: That famous photo of Harry Truman holding the early edition of the Chicago Tribune.
“Things aren’t the same anymore,” people tell me. “Polling methods are so much better now.” Lots of things are better now, but they still mess up.
We had the first Surgeon General’s “cigarettes = cancer” report in 1953, followed by the next, and more famous, one in 1964, followed by warnings on packs and in advertisements. Try telling anyone who lights up, especially the younger crowd. No matter how much we try to extinguish it, the cigarette companies come up with new ways of introducing it to teens. If we can’t stop a thousand people per day from smoking themselves to death, we aren’t going to get them to be honest on an election poll.
Do the right people get asked? Voting increases with age; those of us who qualify for the Senior discounts also determine who gets into office, because we somehow manage to make our way to the polls, with cane, walker or wheelchair. Maybe the pollsters don’t care to ask the geezers what they think of the candidates; we’ll let them know next year on November 9, same as they found out the day after Dewey Defeats Truman.
Example: That famous photo of Harry Truman holding the early edition of the Chicago Tribune.
“Things aren’t the same anymore,” people tell me. “Polling methods are so much better now.” Lots of things are better now, but they still mess up.
We had the first Surgeon General’s “cigarettes = cancer” report in 1953, followed by the next, and more famous, one in 1964, followed by warnings on packs and in advertisements. Try telling anyone who lights up, especially the younger crowd. No matter how much we try to extinguish it, the cigarette companies come up with new ways of introducing it to teens. If we can’t stop a thousand people per day from smoking themselves to death, we aren’t going to get them to be honest on an election poll.
Do the right people get asked? Voting increases with age; those of us who qualify for the Senior discounts also determine who gets into office, because we somehow manage to make our way to the polls, with cane, walker or wheelchair. Maybe the pollsters don’t care to ask the geezers what they think of the candidates; we’ll let them know next year on November 9, same as they found out the day after Dewey Defeats Truman.
posted by Tom Carten at 11:24 PM
1 Comments:
Come to a senior center the week before the election- you would be suprised on how much "senior discounters" opinion means.
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