Don's Tuesday Column

                     THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   10/15/2019

                              Polling hijinks, kangaroo court

Commentary and analysis of “polling” begs some attention. I see a predictable pattern, especially given the never-fully-explained massive failure of 2016 presidential polls.

One of the most accurate pollsters, Trafalgar I think, found that the “shy Trump” voter was reluctant to tell even an anonymous caller that they supported candidate Donald Trump. The pollster found the level of Trump support by asking who the person thought their neighbor was going to vote for. Sure enough, their awareness of their neighbor’s voting preference was a proxy for their own support.

The first thing I look for in the data is whether the polling sample of 1,000 to 1,500 adults/voters/likely voters accurately “predicts” the last election. That means do they ask poll respondents who they voted for in November, 2016.

The pollster would want to know and to show the “demographic” categories of male/female, income levels, racial breakdown, marital status, location and so on. One persistent reporter, interviewing a polling executive, was given the “science” used to reduce the many thousands of respondents, and make the poll’s results represent an entire nation’s electorate. Pretty amazing, if the results were born out in elections.

The reporter noticed that the polling sample resulted in a higher portion of Democrats than you would find in the average voter registration. Asked about it, the pollster dismissed that—if all other demographic categories were accurate—the over-weighting of Democrats would influence or distort the poll.

Let that sink in: It wasn’t thought to be significant if their polling “sample” had more Democrats than Republicans; it also doesn’t seem to matter whether their polling sample of people voted similarly to 137 million voters in the last election. How could you reliably say that your poll is predictive if you can’t say your sample started out reflecting the last election?

What I found lacking in any poll this year was that simple question of who the person voted for nearly 3 years ago. The next glaring thing that stood out was how a polled group would be heavily weighted for Democrats. As soon as the most recent Fox News poll came out, showing 51 percent favoring impeachment and removal of President Trump, my suspicions rose.

Sure enough, I could discern the subtle over-weighting of Democrats by looking at the party breakdown of pro- and anti-Trump sentiment. The Democrat/Republican divide was predictable: almost 90 percent of Democrats were anti; the same percent of Republicans were pro-Trump. The Independents, surprisingly, were about evenly divided on impeachment, meaning you couldn’t get 51 percent out of that whole sample.

A New York Post columnist, Mary Kay Linge, also found the over-weighting of Democrats; when the party affiliation was balanced to actual registration, the end result was 44 percent for/44 percent against impeachment. Braun Research, which conducted the poll, had no published response; Fox News was rightly called out by Trump: “Whoever [Fox News] Pollster is, they suck.” I see slanted, inaccurate “push” polling.

We had the foresight, decades ago, to equip our motorhomes with “power out” connections for generator power, together with electrician-installed-to-code bypass switches to allow all 110-volt circuits in our house to function with only the inconvenience of resetting clocks. That came after running extension cords to power refrigerators, etc. when towers were blown down in the foothills.

Hence, my medical device, a CPAP breathing machine, ran every night without interruption. We had no medications requiring refrigeration, and the “gennie” got some time off in the morning so my wife could get a sleeping break from the not-so-dull roar. Bottom line: we were very fortunate, as were several neighbors whose generators, when they stopped on Friday, also told us power was restored.

However, many apartment dwellers and those with fixed income and limited mobility, would have been at serious health risk; one elderly man died when his oxygen/breathing device failed to work. Now we have some “air quality” advocates bemoaning the power outage because of the generators spewing exhaust.

I just heard on local radio news that some 15 incidents of equipment damage were discovered; will someone whose veracity is reputable tell us if fires were prevented by power outages. An editorial in the Chico paper rightly decried the random, overkilling and widespread cutoffs for areas with no logical risk of fires. Perhaps we will be enlightened with testimony and avoid a repeat performance.

Each week brings more evidence-in-plain-sight of a true “kangaroo court” and political soap opera of an “impeachment inquiry.” Until the full House votes, there is no legal, constitutional “impeachment” process; there are no valid, legal subpoenas requiring executive compliance; there is no open process, given that Democrats have rigged the rules.

Just an example: Whereas the first witnesses appeared in open session with recorded testimony, Democrats have now shifted to closed hearings, under oath with no permission for Republicans to share what they hear and see, lest some leftwing outside group files an ethics complaint. That was how Democrats got Devin Nunes to step down from chairing his committee, even though the investigation found no wrongdoing. Will the news media still get “leaks” from “sources” with anti-Trump agendas?.

The bottom line is that there is nothing that Democrats accuse Trump et al of doing that they are not already doing. Just substitute Dem for Rep in the news report; the national news media has ceased even a veneer of impartiality in the cause of making sure that President Trump’s first term is his last. I see not only an Electoral College rout, but a solid majority of the popular vote, and a retaking of the House.

If the weeks-ago climate admonishments of a 16-year-old still resonate, do look up “A line by line response to Greta Thunberg’s UN speech—A climate skeptic answers the fiery rhetoric of the Left’s star climate alarmist,” by Jacques Voorhees (wattsupwiththat.com).