Commentary

Whoís getting skewed?

Do polls account for voters who have cell phones but not land lines? What about the Amish who have no phones at all? In such a tight election, could methodological faults skew polls one way or the other? Don’t spend too much time worrying about, suggests Jeff Taylor: Most important is what the underpolling claims reveal about how Kerry supporters and Bush supporters view the world. The secret Kerry vanguard is made up of hip, young urbanites energized into political action by a corrupt and incompetent war machine. And the rising Bush army is comprised of simple, honest country folk, disdainful and distrustful of modernity, finally compelled into political action by mendacious, alien threats at home and abroad. This an electorate polarized right down to competing creation myths.