hopefully readers
find this tolerable trying
better figuring

It was after the election in 2000 that then President, Bill Clinton said something along the lines of “America has spoken. Now we have to figure out what America said.”

I found it hard to read the New York Times article, A Change in Our Poll: We’re Keeping Respondents Who Drop Off the Call by Nat Cohn (March 1, 2024)

The article was slugged. “Why the latest NYT/Siena College survey on Saturday will include those who started the survey but didn’t finish it.” and Mr. Cohn tried herd to explain how the New York Times was working to present the best polling information possible.

What he meant was he was trying to explain how asking 1,000 different people to take 15 minute telephone quiz could be expanded in a definitive way that explained how 300+ Million Americans were thinking.

I have professionally designing websites since 1995.

I am often asked for a statistical analysis of web traffic.

Folks want to know “What the number show.”

It did not take me long to learn to immediately ask, “What do you want the numbers to show?”

Because of the way web analytics are created I can prove almost any point you want to make, pro or con, about any website all using the same data.

When I read Mr. Cohn’s paragraph:

You may notice the most obvious change:

There are 157 fewer respondents to the second half of the survey than the first half. But there’s more to it:

The demographic makeup of the 823 respondents will be ever so slightly different from the full sample, since even weighting doesn’t force a perfect alignment between the characteristics of a poll and the intended population.

Hopefully readers find this tolerable; if not, there may be other options we can adopt in the future.

This is, after all, the first time we’re trying this.

I expect we’ll gradually get better at figuring out how to present these results, especially once we see what other people notice.

I had to take my hat off again to these folks.

Noting adds authority more to explanatory statements better than colons and semicolons except maybe a split infintiive.

As I read this Mr. Cohn has admitted that “weighting doesn’t force a perfect alignment between the characteristics of a poll and the intended population.”

And, Hopefully readers find this tolerable …

if not, there may be other options we can adopt in the future.

Mr. Cohn expects they will get better at figuring how to present these results.

Especially once they see what other people notice!!!!

Now was any of this even of this mentioned when other news Media around the world presented the information in the latest NTY Sienna College polls?

Nope not that I heard.

But that is the trick isn’t.

It isn’t what the poll said, but what you heard it say isn’t it??

Polling, oh well.

The only thing Mr. Cohn didn’t say is that in the future they will ask folks what they want the polls to say.

I could use that old Abraham Lincoln never conducted a poll to find out what he should do, he just did the right thing as he saw it.

On the other hand, maybe Mr. Lincoln was wrong.

Maybe you CAN fool all of the people all of the time.

party championed
free people, speech, trade, markets …
once de-zombified

Discussing what Former South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley should do next, after losing the Republican Primary election, columnist Bret Stephens wrote:

The honorable advice is for her to come to terms with the fact that she may never be president,

but she can become a leader of a principled conservative movement that rejects demagoguery, supports the rule of law,

champions free people,

free speech,

free trade

and free markets —

and bides its time until the Republican Party is de-zombified and wants to return to its former self.

That means campaigning for a while longer, maybe even to the convention.

This was in the opinion piece, The Conversation: Trump Is in His Element , a weekly column in the New York Times by Gail Collins and Bret Stephens where these two writers exchange views on the world scene.

I am, truly, really, trying to stay out of political commentary but the use of language, specifically de-zombified was too much fun to pass up.

The discussion made me think for two reasons, well more than two but these two stand out for the purpose of this essay.

The first reason was the end of that sentence, return to its former self.

It seems to me that this was the first time I had read that someone felt the Republican Party might return one day.

A party of that would once again be a principled conservative movement that rejects demagoguery, supports the rule of law, champions free people, free speech, free trade and free markets.

Maybe.

I think that Pandora’s Box has been opened and all the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men aren’t going to get that Box closed but, well, maybe.

The second reason was that word, de-zombified .

Trying to come up with a word that explains what has happened to the Republican Party, you would hard put to come up with a better word than Zombified along with The Walking Dead.

Kind of sad really.

I remember back in the day listening to a radio broadcast of the Chicago White Sox with Harry Carey and Jimmy Piersall.

The White Sox were down late in the game but the bases were loaded with two outs.

Harry called out his famous, “OH OH OH for a LONG ONE.”

Jimmy responded with, “I’d settle for triple.”

“I’d settle for double.”

“I’d settle for a single.”

“I’d … settle for a hit batsman.”

OH OH OH for an Abraham Lincoln right now.

I’d settle for Jerry Ford.

rage of decadent
period of nullity
at our past titans

If there is a common theme in the current news cycle about the upcoming Presidential election it is that, seemingly, a majority of voters agree that two leading candidates are not what or who the voters really want.

Then why are they the leading candidates?

Reading the article, Threatening to dissolve masterpieces in acid is a pathetically banal stunt for our shallow times by Jonathan Jones (The Guardian, Feb. 14, 2014), I feel like I have an answer to that question.

Mr. Jones comments on the report that Russian artist Andrei Molodkin will destroy works by Picasso, Rembrandt and Warhol if Julian Assange dies in prison.

Mr. Jones wonders why Mr. Molodkin would do this and asks, “Why is violence against great art such a trope of our time? And why is it seen by some as fair enough, or at least not anything to get worked up about?”

Mr. Jones answer is, “The truth is staring us in the face. The reason the 21st century seems so interested and perversely attracted to destroying the masterpieces of the past, is that we know deep down we are incapable of rivalling those achievements. No artist is now making anything that comes close to the revolutionary genius of Picasso, so we try to “cancel” him over factoids culled from biographies we have never read. And now Molodkin proposes or pretends to destroy one of his works with acid.

It is the rage of a decadent period of artistic nullity against the titans of a past whose energy and originality we can’t bear. We will be happier when all the masterpieces are destroyed and the museums no longer shove our decline in our faces.“

Ask again, Then why are the leading candidates the leading candidates when few people want them?

And I will answer:

The truth is staring us in the face.

The reason the 21st century seems so interested and perversely attracted to destroying the democracy of the past, is that we know deep down we are incapable of rivalling that achievement.

No President is now making anything that comes close to the revolutionary genius of Thomas Jefferson, so we try to “cancel” him over factoids culled from biographies we have never read.

It is the rage of a decadent period of political nullity against the titans of a past whose energy and originality we can’t bear.

We will be happier when the democracy is destroyed and the history books no longer shove our decline in our faces.

As Ben Franklin answered the lady after the Constitutional Convention on what kind of country we had, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

The lady continued, “And why not keep it?”

Franklin responded, “Because the people, on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.”

lift toward greatness
the visionary, without
narrow jealousy

He had in him all the lift toward greatness of the visionary, without any of the visionary’s fanaticism or egotism, without any of the visionary’s narrow jealousy of the practical man and inability to strive in practical fashion for the realization of an ideal.

No more practical man ever lived than this homely backwoods idealist

but he had nothing in common with those practical men

whose consciences are warped until they fail to distinguish between good and evil,

fail to understand that strength, ability, shrewdness,

whether in the world of business or of politics,

only serve to make their possessor a more noxious, a more evil member of the community,

if they are not guided and controlled by a fine and high moral sense.

President Theodore Roosevelt on President Abraham Lincoln from remarks made at the cornerstone laying of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial, February 12, 1909.

deracinated
version of old lie, which she
carefully crafted

Starting off with a story I have already commented on but Sidney Blumenthal’s article, Nikki Haley’s comment on the US civil war was no gaffe, used the word ‘deracinated’ and I couldn’t let that go by.

Mr. Blumenthal writes: Though it was a stumble, it was not a mistake, but a message she has delivered for years and that has served her well until now. Her carefully crafted and closely memorized garble was a deracinated version of an old lie, which she had used before to attempt to mollify hostile camps in order to skid by.

Deracinated, by the way, is defined, “uprooted from one’s natural geographical, social, or cultural environment.”

When I read, “Her carefully crafted and closely memorized garble was a deracinated version of an old lie” I immediately called to mind Mr. Twain and his short story, The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg.

Mr. Twain writes, “There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.”

Ms. Haley isn’t in South Carolina any more.

Reading Mr. Blumenthal’s article helped me understand, all over again, what politics is all about in the south.

In a goofy way, I appreciate Mr. Trump because I had bought into the notion of a New South but what I took for new growth was really just band-aids and scabs.

It took Mr. Trump, for different reasons, to tear off the band-aid and rip away the scabs and so the old ways are still there.