Political polling and the media unwittingly helps tilt the playing field.
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Loading ...People love a level playing field. In baseball, they lowered the pitchers mound, to give batters a better chance of hitting the ball, and creating higher scoring games. In football, the worse you did, the better you picks you get in the draft next season. We have laws against monopolies, many other laws in the hopes of creating level playing fields.
Level Playing Fields
It’s obvious level playing fields are something we value and work for. The more level the playing field, the more productive competition is, the better it is for everyone. Everyone has to work hard to earn their keep, no free rides. Competition breeds excellence, and there can only be true competition with a level playing field.
Now apply this same powerful logic to politics, and elections. Say you have a presidential primary where there are 8 people competeting for their parties nomination. Let’s say half poll better than the other half.
The Media’s Role
Single question. Which of the following 3 things does the media do?
1. Give more airtime to the current 2nd tier than the first, to make it an exciting race.
2. Give equal coverage and light to all cantidates regardless of current polling, so as to remain neutral and not bias the election.
3. Completely swamp to death the airwaves with a continual bombardment of the front runners, names, positions, frontrunner vs frontrunner comparisons, and constant mention of “has no chance, long shot, [insert negative descriptor here]” in regards to anyone they don’t consider a front runner.
You already know the answer. Level playing fields have served mankind well in so many areas of our lives, that you have to regret seeing them so hastily thrown to the wind for a little ratings bump for a tv network. I wonder how many great ideas have never caught on because their life was choked out of them by not getting attention fast enough to compete in the viscious “spend 90% of our time pushing whatever bumps the ratings.” If you’re not noticed first, the games already rigged against you. How important should be the order you’re noticed? Shouldn’t your posiitons, and what you’ve achieved in the past greatly outweigh the chronology of when you’re “noticed”?
“Your Role!”
Sadly, the media is not only to blame, as they are only doing what best serves their business interests, and emotionally what’s most exciting for them as it is for their viewers. We’re also to blame. Even if there were no media consensus on “who has no chance”, or who the “front runner” is, we’d come to that consensus on our own, individually. A great number of us prefer to vote for someone “that can win” because we feel if we vote for someone who can’t we’ve wasted our vote. Not only is a level playing field harmed at the top where the news comes from, but at the very bottom where the news lands!!! So few people try to vote for the underdog, or make an effort to see who’s being ignored by the media. The media wants to push front runners, and the public wants to vote for front runners, because everyone wants to win, and it’s easier to feel like you’ve “won” even if you vote for the lesser of two evils, because at least your pick still makes office.
Here are the problems with believing “winning” is having the guy you picked in office, instead of the guy you wanted in office:
1. If you never vote your heart, your heart never wins.
2. The opinion of America as a whole changes over time, often, a long time. If people that best represent your beliefs are not rewarded with good percentages of the vote, fewer and fewer people will adopt those beliefs. Few politicians campaign on things they believe which are unpopular, for to do so is likely to result in the same outcome for their election as not campaigngin at all. If you want more politicians and better politicians to represent your views, you must vote for those that best represent them NOW, whether the media thinks they can win or not.
Don’t fall for it!
If you met a homeless man on the street, and you asked him, what’s your position on the foreign policy of the USA? Would you value his opinion? What if you polled 1 million homeless people? Then? What if you instead polled 1 million fast food preparers? 1 million econmists? How does the opinion of a group of peopel of any demographic or size affect the rightness or wrongness of a thing? Right and wrong, better and worse
If the majority of Americans get their political news from for profit corporations who make money based on viewers and advertisers, they have every reason to self fulfil the election prophecy of grabbing whoever starts most popular, finding whoever the other most popular person is right behind them, and setting them vs each other. This creates the maximum viewership as each cantidates fans continue to watch the channel/show for the blow by blow contest between the two favorites.
If there were a concern for a level playing field where coverage of cantidates were concerend, the American people would learn a much wider gamut of solutions to the problems that our nation faces today, and be less polarized, as we found more common ground between each other, and less polarization. We might see shows called “the agreeement zone” instead of “cross-fire” and “profiteering by highlighting and creating difference.” Shows that focused on agreement and progress instead of disagreement and dissent, would serve to educate, unite, and make our nation much stronger. If only we were wired to enjoy unity and cooperation on tv more than violence.
Polls are what other people think, what the masses thing has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of a thing. LESS POLLS! More real talk about the real issues which affect us. You have to make up for the medias tilting of the field by educating yourself, the internet has everything you’d ever want to know these days.
Focus on our common beliefs, what we all want for our grandchildren, and if you give the media better ratings for giving you better actually “fair and balanced” news, they will respond and give you what you want! Level playing fields benefit us all. Vote your heart! If you don’t vote your heart, your heart will never win.
When we take responsibility for being fair and balanced ourselves, and educating ourselves, only then can we execute our civic duty to the best of our ability, and cast our vote for the cantidate we feel best represents our beliefs, and attract in the future even better cantidates to do the same.
