Trying to make sense of politics isn't really my job, but it's not all falling off ladders and trying to understand my dogs around here, and I've got to think about something while I ignore my family.
Still, the best I can come up with is the large bowl of Halloween candy on my counter. Yep, if life is like a box of chocolates, elections are like a big ol' bowl of tiny boxes of Milk Duds.
I'm not talking about outcomes. No, I'm talking about polling. Specifically, how do experts who get paid a lot of money to figure out what people will do before they actually do it get it so wrong? And if you can be that wrong and still get paid, where do I sign up? I mean, my new career choices could be pollster or weatherman, two jobs in which accuracy is not necessarily required.
After this last election, if you surveyed members of the American polling industry, you would (a) apparently be under no obligation to interpret the results correctly and (b) find, well, they got nothin'.
Not that I'm casting stones here. Most of my life has been a series of well-reasoned bad decisions about future outcomes, salvaged by dumb luck and the competence of others. So the idea I can take a set of obvious facts and draw any worthwhile conclusions of out of them is as unreliable as Wisconsin polling results at 3 p.m. Tuesday before last.
Still, I couldn't quite figure this out until I saw that big bowl. And now I know. Because I can't decide what my favorite candy is. Could be the mini Snickers. I've always liked peanuts and chocolate. Wait, look, M&M's. Nothing but peanuts and chocolate. But it's pretty warm so, chocolate, maybe not so much. How about the Hot Tamales, but hey, who likes spicy candy?
So if you were to call me at that moment and ask me what my favorite candy was, as a pollster might, well, frankly there's just no telling what I might say. And, odds are it would be wrong. I mean, Hot Tamales? Really? I didn't even know they made those anymore.
I hate to say it, but under the right circumstances, this could extend to other critical decisions. Like, who in my voting opinion should be the most powerful person in the world. And I'm afraid I'm not alone in this.
Now I know what you're saying. You're saying, "Certainly you're not suggesting voters put as little thought into elections as they do picking junk food!" To which I say, "Just how long have you been in the United States, and have you ever met 'people?'"
In fact, I would submit that, instead of being the exception, I am the rule. Not only am I easily swayed by the events of the moment into making snap decisions with no basis in fact, I resent your insinuation that I make snap decisions because I'm easily swayed by the events of the moment, which means I'm liable to stick to a decision which could be determined to be demonstrably bad, just to prove ... something, I'm sure.
I'm also easily swayed by the last thing I saw and liable to believe only what I want to. During an election, this translates to me hearing a candidate say, "I'm going to get the entire interstate finished in three months. And I practice Santeria and on my first day in office will be sacrificing live chickens," and responding, "Wow, the interstate done in three months! I'm voting for him!"
In most elections, the distinctions between the two candidates are so pronounced it's pretty easy to pick one, lock in and just wait it out. But with candidates possessed of such exceptionally high "unfavorables," can you really be surprised if a lot of folks bounced back and forth between the Lemon Heads and the Dots? And how is a pollster supposed to figure that out?
The answer is the pollster probably can't, and unless clearer distinctions can be drawn between candidates, this sort of thing is bound to continue. At least until people like me start paying closer attention.
If there is any silver lining to the cloud of my decision-making, consider this: While I knew I wanted to marry her for some time, my proposal to the Lovely Mrs. Smith was very much spur of the moment, carried out in the press box of an American Legion baseball field in Fort Smith. More than 30 years and exactly four children later, it appears to have worked out.
So maybe I'm not always wrong.
Commentary on 11/18/2016