Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Polls...What Polls?

If you find comedic relief a relaxing respite from the rigors of the day then you should Google the Republican talking points over the past two weeks.
First you will find the head of the party, Mitt Romney, expressing his radical “severely conservative” core beliefs; writing off 47% of the population and threatening to rain Armageddon down upon Iran.  Then, in a blink of an eye, you will see him morph into a reasonable moderate; embracing 100% of all Americans while supporting sanctions and diplomacy in the Iranian conflict; essentially disavowing everything he said over the past two years.
The national polls reacted to Romney’s abrupt change in style and substance, and with them the whims and whimsies of the Republican Party.
When the polls showed Romney trailing the president by big numbers in swing states, Republicans said they were biased in favor of the Democratic incumbent.  When polls showed the Romney trailing the president by 18 points among women, Republicans claimed there was a gender bias among the pollsters.
But when the same polls showed that the race had tightened in the wake of the first debate, Republicans portrayed the results as gospel.  And when those same polls showed that Romney’s debate performance closed the gender gap to within a statistical tie; Republicans popped open the champagne.
The same holds true with the jobs numbers.
When the Bureau of Labor and Statistics said the unemployment rate was at 8.1%, Republicans quoted the data at every turn.  But when the BLS said the unemployment figures had dropped to 7.8% in September, suddenly the books were cooked.  Jack Welch, Donald Trump and a host of other prominent Republicans recklessly tossed out conspiracy theories and called into question the legitimacy of the bureau’s figures.  Surely the White House had somehow placed its thumb on the scales.
All of this flip flopping would be hysterically funny if it were not so dangerous. 
We have a candidate running for the most powerful job in the world who finds it acceptable to play mind games with the American people.
We have a major political party who considers it fair play to demonize heretofore respected institutions of authority whenever they find it politically expedient.  Whether it’s the Supreme Court, the Federal Reserve or the Bureau of Labor and Statistics; none are spared the ire of a party scorned.
We have become immune to snarky repartee between our candidates.  Trashing an opponent’s record is just a common component of the political dialogue.  But Republicans have taken the conversation to a new low.  For now we have wealthy, powerful individuals demonizing not only the facts but the historically credible institutions that produce them.       
      

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