US Elections

I just want this election to be over.

It seems like it is impossible to read any news source without seeing some sort of poll projecting the results. In many of the news sources that I frequently read, links to articles about the latest poll results are listed ahead of "real" news like the War in Bajaur (Pakistan) [google.com], OPEC cutting output [nytimes.com], the global response to the credit crisis [deutsche welle], etc.

One of the things that is so irritating about polls is that not only are they ubiquitous, but they are also meaningless. They're meaningless because they're wrong, and the polls from this year's primaries prove so. Let's take the New Hampshire Democratic primary. 4 days before the primary, a USA/Gallup poll showed that Barak Obama had a massive 13 point lead [wikipedia.org] over Hillary Clinton. And according to this article [nytimes.com], in all of the polls leading up to the primary, including polls taken the day before, Barak Obama had an average lead of 8 percent.

He would eventually lose this primary by 3% [wikipedia.org].

Now, how does that happen? Is it that people lie to the pollsters? Is it that racist people (or even people who are subtly racist) refuse to participate in polls in larger numbers? I don't know if we're going to know the answer to that question for a long time. But what is clear is that this polls suck.

America is in for a giant racist wakeup call.

If there were any year for a Democrat to win the presidency, it would be this one. The main reason being that the economy is doing so badly, which somehow translates into the current administration being blamed (which has happened in several election years before, but never ceases to amaze me). People seem to be under the impression that racism is now confined to a very small segment of the population.

But I think what we're about to see is racist and xenophobic people coming out in droves (many of whom would not normally vote) to vote against a black candidate. Given the margins in the last two US presidential elections, it wouldn't take much to swing the vote one way or another. And if you don't think that racism plays a large role in our society, why do you think there are predominantly white neighborhoods and predominantly black neighborhoods? It is very unusual to find integrated areas. This isn't a coincidence.