> From: Erik Reuter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > The data is really too close to call. People can analyze all > they want, it doesn't change the fact that the polls are > within the margin of error. >
Our recent election turned out to be a mini-landslide for the incumbent conservative Liberal party. Newspaper headlines on the morning of the poll were still calling it a 50/50 race, based on some professional polls. The election campaign had turned into one very large pork-barrel, with both parties throwing money at any group who they thought might be swayed by a few dollars. This included cheques for hundreds of dollars from the government turning up in peoples bank accounts just weeks before the election, which I found a little disturbing. And billions being promised during speeches (at one stage our PM was reckoned to be promising $100 million dollars per minute during his campaign launch speech). I was wondering if the public may have been clever enough to have been a bit mischievous during the polling, by making it appear closer, they may well have squeezed another billion or two out of our formerly stingy PM, particularly in regard to Medicare and Education, two issues the Labour party had used as the basis for its campaign. Given this sort of possible behaviour, and that polls cost nothing, and mean nothing for the pollees, how much credence should we place in them? Andrew PS. For what its worth, and noting we have had no Australian casualties in Iraq as yet, the Iraq war seemed to have almost zero impact on the election result. It was the economy, stupid. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
