My peeve with analysis on the news? 1st time since 88' to win pop vote?

[BubbaStrangelove]

I keep hearing two statistics that are starting to just become annoyng to me.

1) REPORTED: Bush had more votes than any other President.

This on is pretty easy. There's more people than before. I don't know why they keep on about this like he's set some sort of record.


2) REPORTED: Bush is the first President to win a majority since his dad

Well, this one is a bit more complex. The thing is -- anytime there's a strong 3rd party candidate, no one seems to win the majority vote (51%)

In 2000, Nader got 2.9 million votes (2.7%) - So no one won a majority
1996, Perot got 8 million votes (8.5%) - no one won a majority
1992, Perot got 19.7 million votes! No one won a majority
1988 - Guess what? No strong 3rd party candidate. Bush wins a majority!
1984 - No strong 3rd party - Reagan wins a majority!
1980 - John B Anderson wins 5.7 million votes, and Reagan doesn't win by the majority.

So this just ticks me off that they keep spewing this statistic around. It's shabby analysis, and really just not looking at a whole picture.

Anyway, just goes to show that anyone of us on this site could get a job a CNN, because we can all look at things and say things about what we see. This isn't sports, and don't listen to the statistics.

[jeo4]

Here's a better statistic for you:

Reported: 120 million Americans voted. This is a record turnout.

Now add this fact:

The population of the United States is roughly 277 million. Assuming that 1/3 of those people are under voting age and/or not qualified to vote, that leaves nearly 65 million Americans of voting age who DIDN'T vote.

And then of course, there's my favorite statistic:

A little more than one in ten Americans (or about 17%, which is over 1.7 in ten) between the ages of 18 and 24 voted, same number as the last election.

How different would this election have been if EVERYONE voted?

It's this kind of shit that peeves me. Yeah, news corporations are all about painting a pretty picture for us (when they want to)...but what about some more hard facts and less bullshit?? Is that even possible in the media today? It sure would be nice to know more critical details and less fluff.

[BubbaStrangelove]

I sometimes get the feeling that most these people doing this shit secretley want to be working for Guiness World Records.

:rolleyes:

[jeo4]

Originally posted by BubbaStrangelove
I sometimes get the feeling that most these people doing this shit secretley want to be working for Guiness World Records.

:rolleyes:

Is this in reference to the news or my last post? I though I was supporting the topic.

:confused:

[BubbaStrangelove]

"These people" being the ones I initially bitched about - reporters and what not. It's like they make up accomplishments out of nothing, which is what the Guiness Book essentially does.

Like Al Franken pointed out - Oh wow! Bush had the most votes of any presidential candidate in history! Well, guess who got the second most: John Kerry!

:D

[jeo4]

:D

Sometimes I think Al is cool.

[bob]

Well, it does raise even more questions of how Ralph Nader not playing a major role benefited the...Republicans.

[JohnTheHenchman]

I don't see that.

I would say that most of Nader's support from 2000 fled to Kerry this time in the "anyone but Bush" vote. I don't get it...Nader gets a few million votes in 2000, and he caused Bush to win....he got about half a million votes this time...and it still benefited Bush? How exactly?

Sure, a lot of Nader's support switched over to Kerry....but lots of people came out of the woodwork to vote for Bush.