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Although such moves have long since been well-documented by election monitors, both individual and institutional, our press remains convinced that all of that is only so much "theory" ("conspiracy theory"). Thus they can't report what's right in front of them-- any more than they can see, or say, what also really happened in this decade's prior elections:
Chances are, Obama's landslide won't last forever. Retroactive vote reporting tends to be a proxy for popularity. Just ask George W. Bush. In a 2006 NYT poll, more people said they voted for John Kerry in 2004 than voted for Bush.
For Beam, it's just not possible--a flood of studies notwithstanding--that all those people who, in 2006, "said they voted for John Kerry" actually did vote for him. No, those people were all simply wrong--just "lying," or "forgetful," or somehow embarrassed that they hadn't voted for Bush/Cheney, and so "would rather not admit it to a pollster."
And so, as far as Slate's concerned (and Slate, remember, is a liberal site), what people say about their votes is just as unimportant as those votes themselves.
The "liberal media," in short, does not much care about, or for, democracy; and neither do the Democrats (or Pres. Obama). And so it's up to all the rest of us to face the facts about what really happened in the last election (and the ones before), or we will never, ever, get the change we voted for, and must keep fighting for.
MCM
Lies, Damn Lies, and Votes for Obama
Why do so many people say they voted for the president when they didn't?
By Christopher Beam
http://www.slate.com/id/2220803/?from=rss
Even as Americans grow skeptical of various Democratic policies, President Obama's approval rating hovers at a robust 63 percent. People like him so much, in fact, that many say they voted for him-even when they didn't.
In the 2008 election, Obama won 53 percent of the votes; John McCain got 46 percent. But two new polls, conducted by the Wall Street Journal/NBC and the New York Times/CBS, show Obama winning by a much wider margin.
When respondents were asked by the WSJ whom they voted for in the 2008 presidential elections, 41 percent said they voted for Obama, compared with 32 percent for McCain. Factor out the 18 percent who said they didn't vote, and you've got Obama beating McCain by 11 points, 50 percent to 39 percent.
The gap in the New York Times poll is even wider. In it, 48 percent of respondents said they voted for Obama, compared with 25 percent for McCain. Again, subtract the 19 percent who say they didn't vote, and you've got Obama winning by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, with 60 percent to McCain's 32 percent.
What gives? Are people really lying about having voted for Obama?
Yes, they are.
The takeaway lesson, though, is that asking someone whom they voted for may not be the best predictor of future behavior. Polls tend to ask for voting history in order to provide cross-tabs: How many McCain voters support Obama's health plan? How many Obama voters think he's doing a bad job? But if the numbers of Obama and McCain voters are themselves hazy, then maybe they're a poor barometer for other opinions. A better metric could be party affiliation or whether someone currently supports or opposes Obama. At least that's easier to remember.
Christopher Beam is a Slate political reporter.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2220803/
Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
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