If you believe some polls and the news media, Donald Trump's
campaign is on a downslide in Iowa, the first state to hold a Republican caucus
where a convoluted process begins to select a grand total of up to 30
delegates, just over one percent of the total.
The impact of the Iowa caucus is negligible for a number of
reasons, but, because it is the first such vote in the nation, the media
believes it should set the agenda for all the rest of the states. That obviously
is not the case, yet, two polls, neither of which can actually claim to know
for sure exactly who they allegedly interviewed, have concluded that Dr. Ben
Carson, whom I respect, has leaped ahead of Trump.
The genesis of this astounding turnaround in the current
race for the GOP presidential nomination is in a poll from Quinnipiac
University and another from the "highly respected" Des Moines
Register newspaper. Actually, the polling method is so shallow in each instance
that the number quoted by the media, that is salivating to drive a stake
through Trump's heart, could actually be the reverse of what is reported.
In the Register's own words, "The Iowa Poll, conducted
October 16-19 … is based on telephone interviews with 401 registered Iowa
voters who say they definitely or probably will attend the 2016 Republican
caucuses … .
"Questions based on the subsamples of 401 likely Republican caucus
attendees each have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage
points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions
and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from
the percentages shown here by more than plus or minus 4.9 percentage points." [1]
In other words, besides the fact that the sampling is
pitifully small, these polls were conducted over the phone with people who may
or may not have been who they say they are. Similarly, the poll from
Quinnipiac University poll has some questionable conclusions.
Quinnipiac says that Carson leads Trump 28 - 20 percent
among Iowa likely Republican Caucus participants. A news release on the poll
also says, "This compares to the results of a September 11 survey showing
Trump at 27 percent with Carson at 21 percent."
But again, check out the methodology. "This RDD telephone survey
was conducted from October 14 - 20, 2015 throughout the state of Iowa.
Responses are reported for 574 likely Iowa Republican Caucus participants …. This
subset of likely Republican caucus -goers has a margin of sampling error of +/
- 4.1 percentage points."[2]
But here is the part I like best. The poll is done on phones and when someone answers a landline, "Interviewers ask to
speak with the adult member of the household having the next birthday."
Well that is a foolproof method of determining voter identifications
if I ever saw one. Suppose that an interviewer calls my house and asks to speak
to the adult who has the next birthday. That would be my wife, but hell will
freeze over before she ever answers a poll, so I would just say, "Oh,
that's me. Fire away." See how that works?
Meanwhile, Dr. Carson did some Sunday media work, basking in
the glow of "front-runner" status, and on Fox News Sunday had an
extraordinarily difficult time explaining his proposed changes to Obamacare and
Medicare. Carson has said he will repeal Obamacare, as have most Republicans,
but adds that he will give wage earners a choice of having their own health
insurance account as opposed to letting government bureaucrats determine their
future health care.
FOX moderator Chris Wallace seemed unable to get his head
around that concept and repeatedly asked Carson to explain how this proposal
would work and how it is different from earlier incarnations of Carson's health
plans. Carson tried very patiently to explain his plan but Wallace simply was
having none of it.
I don't know whether Carson has suddenly lost his
communication skills or if Wallace was just have a rough Sunday morning, but
the interview went badly for Carson who seemed to be struggling through most of
it. Remember when I wrote in my last column, that Carson is next to feel the
full weight of negative media? Looks like it started Sunday.
Oddly, the Iowa caucuses are virtually irrelevant. The
results of the caucus are reported to the media which then deserts Iowa usually
without explaining that there then will be county, district and state
conventions that actually select the Iowa delegates, and they aren't bound in
the least to the results of the original caucuses!
Last time around Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucus, for
instance, but the media declared Mitt Romney to be the winner, regardless of
what the votes showed, and by the time the record was corrected, any momentum
Santorum may have garnered dissipated.
As noted previously, the Register poll notes that if the
same questions were asked of the same people 20 times, the answers would change
by plus or minus 4.9 percent in 19 of those times. The 20th round
of questioning apparently is a wild card.
So, does that mean that one time out of 20, people who may
or may not plan on attending an Iowa GOP caucus, and may or may not be eligible
to vote in said caucus, and may or may not actually vote, could declare by a
wide margin, say 85 percent, that they are forever bound to Alfred E. Neuman?
Plus or minus 4.9 percent of course. But their votes aren't binding.
