shetline
11-02-2004, 06:31 AM
From this Jimmy Breslin column (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/nyc-breslin1101,0,7396742.column?coll=ny-ny-columnists):
Finally, one thing kept clawing at you. Cell phones. Long I have wondered how many there were. Everybody I know, smart people, politicians, news directors, thought that there were, oh, 40 million or so. I call the cell phone institute in Washington last Sept. 12. They told me that there were 165 million cell phones in use in the United States, That is 165,000,000. One month later, I asked again. It was up to 170 million -- 170,000,000. Yes, a great number also had land lines. But of this 170 million cell phone users there were 40 million between the ages of 18 and 29, and these people usually have no other phones.
That had to be Kerry.
Not one cell phone in the United States had been reached by a political poll. These old-line poll takers don't know who cell phone users were or where they lived.
So you were getting CBS/New York Times polls proclaimed as most important and real. One hundred seventy million cell phones and you don't poll one of them. The polls they are pushing at you in the news magazines, on the networks, in the big papers, are such cheap, meaningless blatant lies, that some of these television stations should have their licenses challenged.
They have a poll number for every one of the "battleground states." I'm awaiting the casualty list from Gettysburg.
Then a night or so ago, somebody finally tried a poll of cell phone users between the ages of 18 and 29. John Zogby conducted the survey in conjunction with Rock the Vote and the results showed Kerry at 55 percent and Bush at 40.
Then the Kerry people ran their own poll, which took a lot of work. It was the first time they had reached any cell phone users. The result was Kerry 59 and Bush 39.
(Emphasis mine)
I think it's a little more than just wishful thinking to believe that support for Kerry is going to be significantly stronger than all the major polls we've been seeing would have you believe.
Finally, one thing kept clawing at you. Cell phones. Long I have wondered how many there were. Everybody I know, smart people, politicians, news directors, thought that there were, oh, 40 million or so. I call the cell phone institute in Washington last Sept. 12. They told me that there were 165 million cell phones in use in the United States, That is 165,000,000. One month later, I asked again. It was up to 170 million -- 170,000,000. Yes, a great number also had land lines. But of this 170 million cell phone users there were 40 million between the ages of 18 and 29, and these people usually have no other phones.
That had to be Kerry.
Not one cell phone in the United States had been reached by a political poll. These old-line poll takers don't know who cell phone users were or where they lived.
So you were getting CBS/New York Times polls proclaimed as most important and real. One hundred seventy million cell phones and you don't poll one of them. The polls they are pushing at you in the news magazines, on the networks, in the big papers, are such cheap, meaningless blatant lies, that some of these television stations should have their licenses challenged.
They have a poll number for every one of the "battleground states." I'm awaiting the casualty list from Gettysburg.
Then a night or so ago, somebody finally tried a poll of cell phone users between the ages of 18 and 29. John Zogby conducted the survey in conjunction with Rock the Vote and the results showed Kerry at 55 percent and Bush at 40.
Then the Kerry people ran their own poll, which took a lot of work. It was the first time they had reached any cell phone users. The result was Kerry 59 and Bush 39.
(Emphasis mine)
I think it's a little more than just wishful thinking to believe that support for Kerry is going to be significantly stronger than all the major polls we've been seeing would have you believe.