WingRight

On the night before the election, I’m predicting that McCain will win by 5-10 electoral votes.

How can this be with Obama ahead in all major polls? The answer is the Spiral of Silence.

The Spiral of Silence was first propounded by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann and, in short version, means that “a person is less likely to voice an opinion on a topic if one feels that one is in the minority for fear of reprisal or isolation from the majority.”

In more detail via Wikipedia:

The spiral of silence begins with fear of reprisal or isolation, and escalates from there. Individuals use what is described as “an innate ability” or quasi-statistical sense to gauge public opinion. Mass media plays a large part in determining what the dominant opinion is, since our direct observation is limited to a small percentage of the population. Mass media has such an enormous impact on how public opinion is portrayed, and can dramatically impact an individual’s perception about where public opinion lies, whether or not that portrayal is factual. Noelle-Neumann describes the spiral of silence as dynamic process, in which predictions about public opinion become fact as mass media’s coverage of the majority opinion becomes the status quo, and the minority becomes less likely to speak out. (Citations Omitted)

This is the downside of the MSM’s descent into acting as the propaganda wing of the Obama campaign. Those voters who dislike Obama or prefer McCaiin are either not talking to pollsters (some polls have a refusal rate of 80% or more recently) or they’re saying they support Obama while not doing so.

Obama’s injunction to his followers to “argue with your neighbors” and “get in their face” if they’re not voiting for Obama further accentuates the Spiral of Silence.

In Britain, the 1992 victory of John Major and the Conservative party in the face of unanimous polling that predicted a Labor win commenced a standard practice of UK pollsters to factor in the Spiral of Silence. US pollsters don’t do so. I predict that they will in 2012.

See more here and here.

UPDATE: See the Times of London

Tags: Elections, Liberal Media, Political Correctness by Publius
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I am a big fan of Victor Davis Hanson and always enjoy his work, but sometimes he hits a home run.

He’s done it today with America Is Not a Post-Anything on Real Clear Politics.

Experts proclaimed that the United States had evolved into an “information society” of “high-tech jobs.” The traditional sources of American strength — manufacturing, the production of food and fuel, and the assembling of cars and trucks — were apparently passé. Instead, others less fortunate abroad were to do those more grubby tasks, while Americans, with their BlackBerrys and laptops, funded, organized, lectured and critiqued them.

Illegal aliens might cook our meals or change our children’s diapers to free us up for far more important tasks of litigation, finance and environmental review. The Chinese would make everything from our shoes to our phones. The Japanese would supply us with quality high-end goods like cars and cameras. The Africans, Arabs, Iranians, Russians and Venezuelans would drill oil in nasty, dirty places so we wouldn’t have to.

and

Refined Americans became more concerned over questions of gender, race and class justice in our universities and courtrooms, as if the chief problem were only dividing the American pie equitably, rather than expanding it.

The real source of American wealth apparently was the mere fact that we were Americans. Therefore, the rest of the world should naturally loan us money to sustain our envied lifestyle. Our homes got bigger, and we bought and sold them more as investments than as places to raise our families.

Our top graduates opted for Wall Street, insurance, law, journalism and academia. Why not, when laws made it more conducive to invest and trade, but harder and less lucrative to build, drill, farm and manufacture?

and finally

A new, hungrier generation of Americans will have to want to reclaim our pre-eminence and change the national attitude. It must be ready to pay off generations of debt rather than borrow, build rather than sue, and drill rather than whine.

It’s time to honor rather than avoid and outsource physical labor. Our children are healthy enough to cut our own lawns and pick our fruit. Let’s also hope they want to hear a lot more about Gen. David Petraeus’ success, and a lot less of Madonna’s latest psychodramas.

But just as importantly, what Americans need now is leadership to get moving again — rather than more platitudes about hope, squabbling about race and gender, and endless rhetoric about who is really a maverick or a true conservative or the most liberal. What we need to know from our two presidential candidates are specifics about how to jumpstart America.

I’m not a big McCain fan, but he appears to have the exact personality to be able to deliver this kind of message. I do worry that he has spent too many years running as an incumbent senator and has lost his campaign chops. He needs to dial up the intensity and speak these kinds of truth to Americans.

Tags: Economy, Energy, Political Correctness, Victor Davis Hanson by Publius
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