I'm a Little Disappointed in Dr. Jill Stein
Yesterday I received an email from her campaign that started out with some truth that was mixed with a few lies. She referred to a poll in PA that had her at 44%. That poll is located at http://fox43.com/2016/07/29/poll-who-would-you-vote-for-in-the-2016-gene... (as of this writing it has Jill Stein at over 76% of the poll responses).
This poll was discussed here at C99 in the following essay http://caucus99percent.com/content/sphinxmoth-just-found-little-poll
It was obvious that this poll was freeped (participants voted multiple times). I voted in the poll 3 times:
1) because I think Dr. Stein deserves it
2) to make up for the vote stolen from me in the CA Primary
3) just because it's best to do things in threes (3rd times the charm...three on a match...3rd party candidate)
But then the email stated:
Not that we're conspiracy theorists or anything, but we do raise an eyebrow at national polls that put Jill anywhere between 3% and 6% when we see local results like this one from Fox43 in Pennsylvania.
We think national polls with (sic) catch up with local sentiment in 3 or 4 weeks and you'll see a big jump in Jill's numbers.
I responded thusly:
To the members of the Stein campaign who crafted this email:
I was dismayed to receive your recent email touting a Pennsylvania poll from Fox43.
You referred to it as a local poll. In fact this poll was available for anyone with an internet connection. Not only was it national, but Canadians, Japanese, Australian, and who knows maybe even Putin voted (he seems rather involved in American politics these days).
Also this poll allowed participants to vote multiple times. I voted three times (you're welcome). This poll was obviously 'freeped' as the internet savvy would say. This in a way is a good thing. It does indicate that people are noticing Dr. Stein.
But, and this is a big butt for me, using this poll as evidence that you are winning in Pennsylvania was a misstep in your campaign. It leaves Dr. Stein open to criticism that she distorted facts in her favor. And, you can bet you're sweet bippie that the other presidential candidates won't hesitate to do so. You are already getting slimed in the media. That means they are on the alert. That means they want to see you nipped in the bud.
Honestly, I still think you are an excellent candidate choice. However, when I see these tactics being used by any politician it causes me to question their authenticity.
I applaud your efforts to run a clean money campaign. I'm certain I'm not alone in seeing the attractiveness of such a quality. Please continue to run an honest campaign as well. I think honesty is what we all were attracted to in politicians like Senator Sanders and yourself.
The poll is an indicator of something very important. The American people are ready to support someone from a 3rd party if they show more integrity than the candidates in the major parties. I urge Dr. Stein and all her political staff to continue their integrity and always check and double check your sources.
Definitely make people aware of polls like this. But, don't pull a media bias style sucker punch and attempt to make it anything more than an indicator of the surging and enthusiastic support for Dr. Stein. Treating it as a local and valid poll when it is easily proved to be a completely unscientific only offers Dr. Stein as a target for mudslinging.
Don't get swept under the by the rip tide of bilge water the "frontrunner" candidates are are playing water polo in.
Comments
Jill running mate
I've missed several threads. Maybe this is old news. ?
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Wavey, I wonder if the people responsible for the email at her campaign just don't know how these things work. Do you think they are intentionally trying to mislead? They should send out another email to clarify.
I posted it in a comment, OLinda.
It has no recs, though, so I don't think anyone noticed.
Thanks for posting this.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
If they don't, they need to learn.
That's why I tried to keep the tone of my response as a warning with a lot of positive mixed in. I'm hoping they will send out another email. The poll is uplifting definitely, but also, it is what it is and nothing more.
The people, united, will never be defeated.
What happened to Nina Turner
who seemed to be at least thinking about the Green VP slot? She would have brought some name recognition to the Stein campaign and as a surrogate for Bernie might have been able to bring quite a few Bernie supporters over. Did she decide not to be considered as a Green VP candidate? I haven't heard of Baraka so I doubt that he has much name recognition.
Nina
Nina retweeted this:
I don't like the VP choice
not that I have anything against him, but this is a golden opportunity for the Greens to be perceived as a real alternative, a real choice. Baraka is so unknown that the pick comes across as a politically correct statement and does nothing to draw attention from those who don't ALREADY know about Jill and the Green Party.
Ajamu and the Green's
You can read Ajamu Baraka's articles at the Black Agenda Report here: http://www.blackagendareport.com/blog/1773 The most recent is: We Must Resist Attempts to Silence Our Voices on Police Violence. Submitted by Ajamu Baraka on Tue, 07/12/2016 - 19:27
And you can read about an opinion of why the street is our strongest political avenue and why Green is no "savior" here:
There Are No Democratic or Green Saviors: Get in the Streets!
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/02/there-are-no-democratic-or-green-...
Nina decided to continue trying to work inside the Democratic Party. Personally I'd rather work them over with continuous street protests, and support Monica Moorehead for the Worker's World Party. Their platform, worth supporting IMO, can be found here: http://www.workers.org/wwp/program/
As I have said elsewhere, I have been a card carrying socialist in Bolivia for decades having supported the Trotskyite Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR), the Partido Socialista Uno (PS1), the Izquierda Unido (IU) and Movimiento A Socialismo (MAS) when the parties were receiving 1% of the vote. MAS, with Evo Morales as President, finally won the elections in 2005 with over 60% of the vote. This was after he, as the only socialist in Bolivia's Congress, was expelled in 2002 for encouraging protesters. It was the street protests that won the revolution, followed by the fair, free, paper ballot, publicly counted elections.
So, don't tell me that a non-violent protest based socialist revolution can't occur... because we in Bolivia know that it can.
From the Light House.
I assume it's official now
I assume it's official now that it has been announced nationally. I was worried that it might invalidate the petition signatures I've garnered trying to get Jill on the ballot in my home state, because those petition sheets which I downloaded from Jill's website have Howie Hawkins listed as the vp candidate. I called my district coordinator and he told me to soldier on, that they'd correct it when I send the petitions sheets in.
Nature is my religion; the earth is my temple.
Polls are as fake as elections.
Fact: 76% of all numbers are pulled out of someone's rectal region. (with an error margin of -4 to +38)
"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison
LOL! exactly!!! eom
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Not all polls are fake
Seriously, just because it is popular to diss polling, it is not necessarily true and it can be very misleading.
Unadjusted exit polling has been proven to be highly reliable. In fact exit polling is one way we are sure that many of the elections were rigged in favor of Clinton. Exit polling is used by the UN as a check to ensure elections are valid. In their recently issued report on potential election fraud in the Democratic primaries, Election Justice USA cited discrepancies in exit polling as one the principal red flags.
The way a poll is structured and how the questions are asked is a key in the reliability. Good polls are not random in their sampling, but instead use a sample that is representative of the population.
People tend to think only in terms of political polls, but we used polling in local government to gauge public support on local programs relative to one another since funding could be an issue. That does not mean the commissioners always heeded them, but polls were very valuable to us in presenting our issues to the commissions. Often only the squeaky wheels would show up at commission hearings, but polls allowed us to give communities (poorer and often minority) that normally did not participate a voice in establishing their priorities.
The main keys in reputable polling are not the size of the sample, but how the sample represents the community being polled and the way questions are worded, including cross check questions. A poll that provides cross tab information is usually an indicator of the validity of the poll.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Media HAS lied about her, and continues to do so.
As a result, I'm prepared to cut her a little slack.
Truth remains that the Media completely manufactured the Trump and Clinton candidacy out of whole cloth. (Although with the Clinton candidacy, they REALLY had to work at it and collaborate)
Which is something that nobody bothers talking about.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I'm prepared to cut some slack as well. She's going to have
to be tough to get her message out. I tried to keep my response positive and supportive while pointing out what could happen with these kinds of messages. I wouldn't be surprised if other sites that are supportive of Clinton or Trump use this email in a negative way.
The people, united, will never be defeated.
Polls exist to suck money from campaign finance
They have never been absolutely reliable because they poll 1,000 people at a time to represent all the voters? I don't put much faith in them
Don't trust the polls: the systemic issues that make voter surveys unreliable
To thine own self be true.
One has to wonder
How many multiple votes the other candidates received. It is a nonsensical poll. Hey, but it's FOX news! Oh yeah of little faith.
The emails are a bit of a spin perhaps but good grace. Nothing like the out-of-control monsters she is up against.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Public polls are manufactured news
News organizations need content to fill those terrifying moments between important commercial annoucements from their sponsors.
CBS pays for a poll, CBS and everyone else reports it and comments on it.
The next week NBC pays for a poll, NBC and everyone else reports it and comments on it.
Etc.
For very little money it keeps the horse race narrative alive and provides content. Notice that most polling is done for the presidential race, which is nationwide, with very little done on other races which don't provide content for national news shows.
Campaigns rely on private polling for a reason, it gives them the information they need to manage their campaign. The down side is that the pollsters have a motivation to provide the rosiest picture possible to their clients.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
Nice communication to the campaign.
I would stray from the topic to point out, as far as this diary is concerned, that three on a match is not a good thing.
As I've heard it, the expression dates from the First World War. When a soldier doing lookout duty at night, with his head craning over the trench parapet for an unobstructed view of the enemy's lines, would light up a cigarette, a soldier on the other side would notice and raise his rifle. If our sentry lit another soldier's cigarette, too, the opposing soldier would take aim. If a third was so unlucky as to light his cigarette on that match, his enemy would pull the trigger. End of our third soldier.
The Green messaging problem
As everyone realizes, a problem the Greens have is that people who might agree with them on many issues will not vote for them because they think the Greens have no chance to win the Presidency. This pushes her campaign to come up with scenarios by which they might win and these scenarios can be misleading bordering on dishonest. Having said that, the Trump campaign, the Clinton campaign, the corporate media and NPR are all saturated with dishonesty this election. Bernie was strikingly honest and realistic, much to his enduring credit (except for saying that HRC will be a great President, which I am sure he does not believe). Jill Stein does not want to say, at this point, that people in non-battleground states, in particular, should vote for her to try to get her share of the vote to 10-15%, which would be a significant step forward. She wants people to think she can win so she grasps onto things like the poll cited. Her best, and at least slightly realistic, chance this election is for the Clinton and Trump campaigns to self destruct. I support Jill Stein, by the way, and am closer to her than any other candidate on most issues.
Same problem Bernie had.
No one really thought he could win. He could though, if the primaries were not rigged. Don't know about the other Third Parties, but I, for one, will not vote establishment for any office ever again. They are too corrupt.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
And just like Bernie...
... I wish Stein would simply tell her story and communicate her platform which is, after all, a very good match for a Berrnie Supporter. She also needs to start educating people that they need to stop thinking in terms of one election and rather start planning for the long-term. That viewpoint is not only correct, but it provides different and attainable goals. The Greens CAN win in the long-term. They just can't win today.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
So who is this VP guy?
Why oh why would the Greens at a time when they have a huge opening in national politics choose someone who is so obscure that people on the left including me go who is this person? Good god it's like the Green's really do not want to be a viable contenders.
So maybe people need to regroup call this election a wash and figure out how to use what we have all gathered to actually take them on. I have no loyalty to persona eg: Jill, Bernie, Obama, Hillary. I do not know how but the growing left needs to learn how to coalesce and organize horizontally. 'Don't follow leaders watch the parking meters.'
I haven't the fainest idea how to organize all the people who are not buying this shit but I do know we are legion. Even the Greens are a dead end. Well were going to get either Trump or Hillary and why can't we the people get it together and take them on. We do have 4 years unless they manage to demolish the world and even then we got time. The Greens are proving to be what they always do, being a fringe party not really interested in building a viable party willing to do the work to make a difference.
I figure at the best we have 4 years and at the worst 8. Please everyone stop looking to the established order including the lame Greens to stop these fuckers. If they where interested they would get it together and enter the fray. The Greens can't even seem to get some good geeks to live steam their speeches. While watching the Democratic Hillary Show I could not get their videos to work. Either they need to get real about being a valid contender or shut their gobs.
It's always amateur hour in
It's always amateur hour in the Green Party.
I mean, look, Nader was 16 years ago. They've been at this for decades and they still struggle to do anything right. I am frankly fucking astonished they have as much ballot access as they do.
And this much is clear from their rhetoric: they have no interest in being a mainstream party. If you want them as an alternative, you have to walk out to the fringe where they live, because they won't come to you.
That means they're also not a populist party, which is really what's needed to ride popular sentiment - we'll need a new party for that. And I don't think progressives can build it; they're too busy writing off everyone they don't agree with as racist, sexist nutjobs.
Stein may make a fine protest vote now that there's only a few months left and we have to work with what we've got, but I have these doubts about the Green Party being the next big thing.
Let's do it
Let's get this new party / coalition started. I think all we need is a first step as a seed and the rest can grow in its own way. As far as this election goes, I'm voting for Stein / Baraka over Trump / Pence and Clinton / Kaine, because corruption, greed and inhumanity should not be allowed to rule.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Why do you want to do this the hard way?
I mean, I read a lot of critiques of the Greens like this, about how they're not doing this / doing this thing that I think is bad, but there are two things that I think should be generally acknowledged about them.
One: -they already HAVE done a lot of work. They are actually on the ballot in the majority of states, something that plenty of small Parties have failed to do. They have been proceeding with their own plans for the election. They held the door open for Bernie to jump off the Donkey ride, but he didn't, and the Greens had to get on with it, without him.
Two: IF the majority, or even a healthy minority, of Bernie voters jump to the Greens, we will instantly outnumber the existing Greens. Maybe not in this election cycle, but certainly in subsequent ones, the Green Party will become us. Let me repeat that for emphasis. If we jump to the Greens, the Green Party WILL BECOME US. -And it sounds to me from everything I hear, that the Greens want us, and realize that our numbers and experience and energy are a plus for them. Their policy positions may not be a perfect match for ours, but they are a damned sight closer to us than the policies of a corrupt oligarchy.
Seriously, how much time can WE waste? This is like stumbling on somebody that has already built a car chassis, put in an at least working drivetrain, and then asked us if we would like to help them turn it into a hot-rod, and they're open to suggestions about how to customize it, and what the finished product should look like. How likely is it that we will get an offer like that again? Do we SERIOUSLY want to start from the ground up? Really?
Now, maybe there's a good reason not to jump to the Greens. Maybe somebody can make a good argument for why we can only have a good political Party if we get to design every last detail ourselves, from the beginning, from scratch.
I worked for 15 years on very high-end automobiles, and I've seen a few projects like that, where every last detail had to be perfect, perfect, perfect. They hardly ever get completed.
But some old beater hot-rod, where friends and acquaintances jump in and kluge things together, and get it running? Even if the paint job is crap, or the chrome's not right, or the motor's not optimally tuned, at least everybody who helped gets a ride in that car!
I know I'm waxing all gear-head on y'all, but these truisms relate to making a complex system at least nominally functional, on a practical timetable, and I think they are applicable to this "starting a Party" thing.
-Because I've also seen the real-life political version of this, back in the 60s and 70s, with tiny Leftist or Left-ish Parties ineffectually flailing around, beating themselves to death, trying to get it perfect, perfect, perfect.
Me, I'd rather pitch in, and get to cruise in that Green car. It has potential to be a killer ride. -Lots more potential than the Donkey Cart. -And forgive my skepticism, but unlike the Party on the Drawing Board, I may actually get to ride in the Green car within my lifetime.
"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes
That's cool, but if you want
That's cool, but if you want that car to be a hotrod, we're gonna have to rip the drivetrain out, and do you really think the existing Greens - who like their perpetually-losing left fringe party the way it is and don't need any populism that doesn't serve their pre-existing platform and culture, thankyouverymuch - are just going to stand back with a beer while we do it?