It is now only two months until the 2016 Presidential election, and things are heating up to a fever pitch… but not exactly as one might expect. Those of us familiar with the policies of Governor Gary Johnson and Governor Bill Weld know all too well that these policies are the runaway favorites of the majority of Americans. We also know that the Republicans and the Democrats are doing all they can in a desperate manner to stop the American public from knowing about the Libertarian Presidential ticket.
There should be no question that Republicans and Democrats have been working together toward the same goal for decades, all while trying to fool the American public into believing they are actually different via their rhetoric. They are very good at brewing hatred of the opposing party, and that is what keeps them in control. This control is starting to slip from their fingers, and as always, desperate people do desperate things.
The absolute worst thing for the Republican and Democratic establishment would be the entry of another viable option. A mature, experienced, honest, and likable team of former successful Governors who believe in reducing government, promoting individual liberty, reigning in unnecessary wars, and allowing the people to live their chosen lives in peace, with minimal interference from government. Even worse, if this experienced team had an organized political party behind them, and has them on the ballot in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia.
The existence of such an option that has the ability to break the stranglehold on our nation that is held by the Democratic and Republican Parties would cause the establishment many sleepless nights.
As previously mentioned… desperate people do desperate things.
Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, the Libertarian Ticket for President and Vice President are within range of being included in the Presidential debates… the “Super Bowl of American Politics” and Trump and Clinton must be in panic mode. With the current situation, if Johnson and Weld were in the debates, there is a reasonable chance that Johnson and Weld will win the election, and with that victory, the duopoly comes crashing down and the nation can be returned to the people. Certainly neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party wants their power diluted, and they clearly do not want the people to once again gain control of the country.
So, how can the ground swell of the people be stopped? Concealing information no longer seems to work, as social media is now breaking through the blockade. The people are learning about Johnson and Weld, and they are excited at the possibility of their inclusion in the debates and a chance at a victory.
It all comes down to the debates. The rules of the Commission for Presidential Debates have made it clear that in order to be included in the debates, a candidate must be polling at least 15% in 5 polls of their choice. In the past, this was not a problem because pollsters did not include third party candidates at all. Now in 2016, Johnson is being included as an afterthought, and not in the first question which only includes Trump and Clinton. Even then, Johnson and Weld are polling in double digits. It is obvious that if the pollsters were to include them in the first question, they would be exceeding 20%.
Now, with the demand of the people, they had to find another way to conceal the success of Johnson/Weld. Enter the CNN Labor day poll. Recent polls have Johnson/Weld leading the demographic of ages 18-34 in most areas. CNN released their most recent poll showing a decrease to 7% support for the Libertarian ticket. That didn’t look good for Johnson/Weld… until a rather obvious omission came to light.
The CNN poll included the following results for the 18-34 demographic: N/A. Yes, they excluded the millennials. A group of 65 Million people who are knowledgeable and open to something new. 65 million people who favor Johnson/Weld in large numbers. 65 million people who would catapult Johnson/Weld into the Presidential debates.
The reason for this exclusion was vaguely outlined by the methodology, which stated “Interviews were conducted among these subgroups, but results for groups with a sampling error larger than +/-8.5 percentage points are not displayed and instead are denoted with ‘NA.’” The poll was apparently just large enough that the sample of 35-49 year-olds hit an 8.5% margin of error, skirting the methodological rules set by the poll by being just low enough to be included. The margins of error within this poll were already too high, but the fact that the poll excluded nearly a third of the voter base from its calculation renders the results a mathematical dishonesty.
Since I am not privy to who made this rather despicable choice, I can only speculate as to the reasons why. I will not accuse anyone specifically, but will pose the following points.
- With the public support of the other parties elected representatives at historic lows, the existence of a viable third party would threaten the control of the old political parties.
- The only way to delay this radical change in our political system would be to limit exposure of this option.
- If Johnson and Weld were in the debates, our political system would be forever changed.
- If Johnson and Weld are excluded from the debates, it may put off this change for many years to come. It would be hard to believe that the old parties would come up with nominees that are this bad again in the near future.
- If the polls exclude them from the debates. Everything remains the same.
I will not accuse anyone of anything; just present these facts to you for you to arrive at your own conclusions. I will say, without a doubt, I smell a rat. And you should too.
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I recently came across this terribly incorrect blog article. I examined the actual poll. It is most certainly false that “millennials”, or, more accurately, survey respondents that self-identified as belonging to the 18-34 age bracket, were not counted. There were absolutely counted. However, there are always limitations to survey research data. One of these is that while you may have a large enough sample to make inferences from the sample as a whole to the population as a whole, or from a sub-sample to the corresponding sub-population, there is the potential that as you cross-tabulate, as in the table pasted above, that the resulting subsets of individuals, (e.g. 18-34 year olds that support Stein/Baraka) are too small to achieve the desired sampling error. Could they have reported a percentage in that column? Yes, but it would have been misleading due to the large sampling error. However, for many other survey results, that age bracket is most assuredly included. For example, when 33% of registered voters reported at the time of the survey that they had never heard of Gary Johnson, that most assuredly includes 18-34 year old respondents.
To someone with at least basic training in survey research methods, the explanation was not especially “vague”. It is straightforward and the choice sensible (although the question of why 8.5% was used as the error threshold is unclear). They might have been more conservative and avoided crosstabs at all where individual columns resulted in large sampling errors.
Nonetheless, the author is wrong about the survey excluding “nearly a third of the voter base from its calculation”. There are many tables of summary statistics and many other crosstabs, and all age groups are included in those figures. The point is that the author is therefore very wrong in implying a conspiracy to derail particular candidates. I might point out that the cross-tabulated responses to survey item P5a, includes a N/A column for respondents indicating they “might change mind”. Does the author also propose a conspiracy to conceal the opinions of the fickle?
Actually, the survey sample size DID include that age group in the overall results that are important for the debate eligibility. The 18-34 year old responses WERE included in the overall results, and the sampling was good enough to be confident that it represents the overall nationwide population. They just didn’t get enough 18-34 year-old responses to predict the nationwide set of 18-34 year-olds’ opinions. That’s why there’s an NA in that one cross-tab. To explain how that works, you need a statistics class. But don’t believe me, send my comment to a statistics professor and ask him whether your accusation of dishonesty or my interpretation is correct. Hopefully this will be a learning experience for you, Mr. Kerbel.
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