10.20.2008

It Ain't Over til its Over

This is an interesting article about the psychology of the voter and how just because the polls say otherwise, that this election may be closer then we all think and by no means does Obama have it in the bag. It is actually an interesting read and has a lot of information about group think and what could be affecting people's thoughts as November 4th draws near, thought I would post to it.

The real-world campaign involves speeches and proposals and facts and scandals and political positions and news events. These details, however, are becoming increasingly irrelevant, and have become subsumed by the meta-campaign, which consists of perceptions, polls, reactions, analyses and summations. Until very recently, elections were decided by real-world facts -- but not anymore. Facts and events in and of themselves are no longer important; what's important is how everyone reacts to them. And how do we find out the public's mood concerning this or that incident? Why, the media tells us, that's how.

Its a long read, but very interesting, talking about conformity, the Bradley Affect and polling. It is also interesting for the psychology experiments it discusses like the Asch Experiments, which for some reason I found particularly interesting. Good essay.

The guy who wrote it blogs, and I've been in a blog surfing binge for the last two months. He has some interesting thoughts, so I bookmarked him. Of course, his blog is nothing new, in fact I may have ran into it before.

I like what he has to say though, and it is a little reassuring to read.

Yep, Don't Panic. Yet.

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