Politics and the News

I am sitting in a hotel in the South, traveling on business, and have been following the news of the election coverage. Basically, a few days ago every news channel had this list of polls telling us exactly who will win the various state primaries.

So as I am listening to all this garbage, I am thinking "plus or minus 5% margin of error?" Who in the world comes up with this trash? How could they possibly know that? More importantly, if you know it, and the margin is that close, then why vote? I mean really, if you got it then save the money from running the actual voting polls, spare me the endless TV commercials telling why each one of the candidates is best, get rid of all the cardboard litter signs at every major intersection, and give us the answer. Then we can move on.

The problem is the news folks come on with all this statistical crap, that is so bogus, and totally incorrect, you would think one of them would be ashamed! ABC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX and others act like they have all the answers, never get it even close, and then get up the next day like we forgot how screwed up they were!

Nevada is a great example. All the networks came out with all these "political experts" some of which don't look old enough to vote, and they give their spiel like they actually know something, which they don't, and then wrap it up with Obama taking Nevada because he is the Union choice and the Union rules in Nevada, and all the hospitality folks run the state, and Obama is the man.

Then he loses to Hillary! Every state it's the same story. They come out with a list of cheesy loudmouths predicting one thing, they poll numbers that are totally wrong, and then "oh well" it in the end. Then for the next few days, they analyze what happened that they were all screwed up!

Actually I have a pretty good solution. It's sort of complicated so if you work for the major news networks you will really have to pay close attention. Here goes--don't predict anything.