[107601] in Cypherpunks
Gallup says go back to sleep
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Burnes - Denver)
Tue Jan 19 11:45:09 1999
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 09:28:46 -0700 (MST)
From: Jim Burnes - Denver <jim.burnes@ssds.com>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Jim Burnes - Denver <jim.burnes@ssds.com>
Right off the bat I'm going to say this has little directly to do with
crypto. But since this is a political group that is interested in how the
"machine" works, this little bit may interest those who would like to see
how the polls are abused. At least I thought it should be logged.
I picked this up from USAToday....
WASHINGTON - President Clinton, backed by record-high job approval
marks, delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday night before
lawmakers debating whether to remove him from office. Clinton's agenda
will include increased spending in education and defense, a new tobacco
tax and Social Security reform. The speech takes place as Clinton rides a
wave of support - with 81% of respondents in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll
saying his presidency has been a success. But only 24%, a record low for
Clinton, view him as honest and trustworthy.
---
Interesting. I thought that job approval ratings means "Is he doing a
good job", which would presumably include "Is he lying through his teeth
to you?" and "Do you trust this man?". Apparently job approval ratings
now mean "has his presidency been a success?". I have no idea what that
means. What would be the conditions of failure? How many Jews would view
Hitler's campaign of eradicating the Jewish population in Germany and
Poland a "success". Does that translate to "job approval"? Ask the wrong
question, get the wrong answer.
But of course only 24% view him as trustworthy. That can't be very
significant. We'll put that at the end of the article. Not that I ever
expect any bit of reality to seep through that cesspool of journalism that
is CNN/USAToday/Gallup (might as well throw in AP for good measure ;-).
Of course this stuff doesn't really matter since eCash and strong crypto
enabled geodesic e-commerce will eventually nullify the nation states
(either that or Y2K). At that point the presidential elections will
garner as much interest as the annual US Bass Fishing Competition.
(phew, i knew i could obcrypto that somehow)
jim
