Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

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US Representative Lee Terry (R-NE, 2nd District) just e-mailed the results of a poll of his constituents revealing their attitudes towards certain pressing issues of the day. Included was everything from whether we should continue offshore drilling in the wake of the BP disaster to whether we should repeal the recently passed health care reform bill.

In results that should shock no one [for reasons I am about to explain--Ed.], Terry reported results reflecting that an average of over 77% of his constituents think about these issues the same way he does--which, for those of you out there [you ARE out there, aren't you?--Ed.] who read my postings, are diametrically opposed to my views on the same issues. Terry also reported that while a minority of around 20% of his constituents held views similar to mine, as many as 6% of his constituents were undecided on specific issues.

That's what gave me pause. For, you see, this poll's results were not the result of random, door-to-door canvassing of Nebraska 2nd Congressional District voters. These results came from 2nd District constituents ANSWERING an e-mail Terry himself had sent out to "ascertain" the public feeling. This "poll" was designed to elicit the answers it got, as you can be certain that at least 70% of the people who received it were Terry supporters because those voters make up the majority of his e-mail list.

Doubtless several people like me, who've contacted Terry regularly to express our opposition to his stands on particular issues, also got the e-mails, but we are in a preselected minority for several reasons which have nothing to do with the actual makeup and mindset of 2nd District voters in general. It's axiomatic that people tend to respond to and be more involved in things they support than things they oppose. So not only are those of us who oppose Terry's politics a predetermined minority of his potential polling population, we are less likely than Terry supporters to respond to Terry's e-mail poll invitation than are those who agree with him. People want validation, not rejection. That was Terry's motive in creating and distributing his "poll," and that was the motivation of most of the people who responded to it by agreeing with him.

The real problem with the numbers Terry reported, however, comes in the guise of the alleged "undecided" answers. In a "poll" such as this, where people participated by invitation, who is going to respond "undecided"? More likely, such folks just wouldn't respond at all. Terry said he got over 1,100 answers to his invitation to participate, but I do not recall seeing anywhere the total number of invitations he sent in the first place. Given that there are probably close to a million people living in the 2nd District as a whole, and that as many as half of them are not in the uber-urbanized metropolitan Omaha area, and given that many of them probably don't have computers or the time to respond to such e-mailed invitations as Terry's to begin with, it's impossible for Terry to claim that the 1,100 responses he received were any kind of valid scientific sampling.

This "poll" was much less an effort to find out what his 2nd District constituents think than it was a self-congratulatory exercise whereby he and his supporters could pat themselves on the back in mutual admiration. Mark Twain, as usual, was right. There are 3 kinds of data: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Guess which Twain held in the deepest contempt.

Cough, Choke, Wheeze, HACK!

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The US Representative for the 2nd District of Nebraska, Lee Terry (R), announced last week that he's running for re-election--again. This will be his seventh campaign, so he's held the seat for 12 years and wants to keep it for at least two more. I make special note of the length of time he's been in Congress for two reasons:

(1) When he ran the first time, and in his first two (or so) re-election bids, he flat-out promised that he would "serve" no longer than he'd be able to under a term-limits law, which he said at the time was a maximum of three or four terms at the most. He said he'd not keep running even if no term-limits law were ever actually passed. No term-limits law ever was passed . . . but he's still there. You do the math.

(2) The article in the Omaha World-Herald announcing the opening of Terry's most recent re-election bid headlined the puff piece by saying Terry was going to continue to work to accomplish "core issues." Well, if he hasn't gotten anything accomplished toward implementing his core issues in the last 12 years, why in the world should he be given another two?

My problem with him is that he's a total party hack. He spouts the GOP line chapter and verse, and just ignores facts that contradict the lies he's spreading. I can live with "my" Representative in the House being of a different political party--hell, I have lived with it, for far too long, frankly. But whomever "my" Representative is, I wish fervently that he or she would have a brain and USE it instead of being a corporate ventriloquist's dummy.

Palpable Relief . . . Sort Of

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Not-so-random thoughts on yesterday's historic events: Sen. John McCain's concession speech was both gracious and graceful--where was that John McCain during most of the campaign? He'd have been a much tougher opponent to beat than the petty, petulant, snide, and snarky man we saw.

Yet the right-wing apologists are already out in force. Pat Buchanan, for one, claims that McCain would have won except for the "unexpected" and "unpredictable" economic meltdown that started in September. Right. The meltdown did not come out of nowhere, however. Eight years of Dubya Administration pro-deregulation policies and the fundamental greed of certain actors on our national stage produced it. It wasn't just some unfortunate random thing that swept over McCain like a tsunami. It was the direct result of policies McCain has supported for over 26 years. You reap what you sow.

Elizabeth Dole rightly got her butt kicked in North Carolina. Yet she showed absolutely no understanding of or remorse for her vile tactics (especially running an ad claiming her opponent Kay Hagen was an atheist). Indeed, in her "concession" speech, she acted like she was the victim, and that all she'd done was to respond to attacks that had been unleashed against her. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Dole is yet another example of what the lust for power will do to some people. It ain't pretty. You reap what you sow.

I have great hopes for Sen. Barack Obama's administration. He is clearly a student of history. He knows his Lincoln, his Roosevelts (both Teddy and Franklin Delano), his Kennedy, and his Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Nuggets from all those luminaries' speeches shimmered within Obama's victory speech last night. Even more importantly, he was honest. He said things were not going to be easy or simple or quick to fix. But they can be fixed. He also reached out to the people who are still intractably opposed to him, saying he would listen to them and be their president, too.

He's a better man than I am, Gunga Din. He doesn't just know that politics is "the art of the possible," he acts in accord with it. Some of the voter comments on the local ABC TV news web site against Obama (and the Democrats in general) were not only ignorant, but hateful. Scary, even. Obama has demonstrated that he can rise above such screed and will work for sound, plausible, sensible solutions to America's problems. I, no matter how smart I am, no matter how much I know Obama is right, have the gut reaction of responding to such hate with disgust. That's one of the major reasons I have no intention of ever running for any kind of political office. I know Obama's is the better way; I'm not sure I can rise to it. Kudos to him. I hope he reaps what he's sown.

Where do people get the idea that every single last Democrat is not only corrupt, but evil, and has the sole wish to do our country harm? Yes, that was a rhetorical question. I know whence it comes. The people who believe such inanity and who take every opportunity to spew it never got their emotional and intellectual development past second grade. It's an elementary school playground mentality. Strip away all its high-falutin' vocabulary, and it reveals itself to be name-calling of the lowest order . . . devolving quickly into "are too!"/ "am not!" mode.

Grow up, people! There's more than one way to solve our problems. Our diversity is America's real strength. Don't excoriate it--revel in it! You will reap what you sow.

I will be thrilled beyond measure if Nebraska's Second District Electoral College vote goes to Obama, even though it will not affect the outcome of the election. To see a tangible positive effect of one's vote is the best affirmation there is. But I'm not going to hold my breath. It's still "too close to call." This is, after all, just about the reddest of the red states. Our college football rallying cry is "Go Big Red!" for heaven's sake!

Unfortunately, even if the one-out-of-Nebraska's-five Electoral College votes goes to Obama, Obama's coattails weren't long enough to help other Nebraska Democrats. Perhaps the most toadying of all the Republican House of Representatives members, Lee Terry, has won another re-election to the House seat he's occupied for 10 years now . . . after assuring us when he first ran that no matter what, he'd serve no more than three terms. He ran some of the dirtiest ads of this election season--and his GOP "527" buddies ran ones that were even worse. To anyone who claims that Obama's win sounds the death knell for slimy negative advertising, I must say "WRONG!"

Even though the GOP also kept the US Senate seat from Nebraska that was up for grabs this year (with the bowing out of GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel), at least Mike Johanns ran a clean campaign, focusing his ads on what he was going to do for Nebraska, not lying about what his opponent had done and would try to do to Nebraska. Though Johanns has close ties to the Dubya Administration (he was Dubya's Secretary of Agriculture for a while), Johanns gets it. I've followed his career ever since he was the Mayor of Lincoln, NE, and I think he has the kind of political sensibility that bodes well for all of us. [Unlike Lee Terry, who's sole goal in life seems to be convincing Nebraskans that he single-handedly runs the House and is responsible for everything good it's done since he's been in office. His mailings are less informative than they are puff pieces for exaggerating his "accomplishments." In my not-so-humble opinion, he abuses his franking privileges more than any other politician I've ever seen.--Ed]

Overall, however, I think that what happened yesterday is going to be good for America in the long run. We lived up to our better ideals, and didn't fall for the lies of those hawking fear and divisiveness. We are on the way back to restoring America's moral standing in the world. And yes, I am a bit ashamed of myself for my paranoia in worrying that even if the GOP lost, it would refuse to leave, even to the degree of taking up arms. Thank God that the uniquely American tradition of the peaceful transition of power still holds. Let us all hope that America will reap what we collectively have sown here last night.