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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Opinion Polls and Voter Programming

Guest post by Tom M.

Hi Chris,

I read your interesting take on the Steadman polls (creative arithmetic) and decided to offer a another perspective. I hope you publish it.

Have a nice day
Tom

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Opinion Polls and Voter Programming

The latest SM opinion poll showing convergence in the popularity of the two leading presidential hopefuls represents voter programming at its hilarious worst. It is voter programming equivalent of scraping the barrel.

It's a long story, walk with me to Tena Hq and learn. PNU's original strategy was to use SM to malleate Kenyans into a Kibaki-win mindset by having them buy into the "credibility" of SM polls. The strategy was simple, set Raila up with good initial ratings then whittle them away by gradually cranking up Kibaki's "popularity". It was a no brainer; I mean everyone knew Raila's electability was inversely proportional to the square of the distance from his Nyanza homeland? I mean seriously, this was grown up stuff, not the referendum!

Unfortunately for the PNU brainiacs, Raila turned out to be electable after all. So much so the tide poured across six provincial borders and threatened a seventh! And just when they thought it couldn't get any worse, rogue pollsters firmly buried any notion that Raila was unelectable. Caught between questionable statistics and damaging press, SM opted for "science." They blamed their drastically different poll ratings on a new data collection method "it made the opinion poll "more รข€˜reflective."

Finally out of ideas, and with panic dancing a frenzied jig at Tena Hq, PNU strategists called in the butchers. It was brutal. Screams could be heard all the way to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics as the butchers got down to work. When it was over, the numbers and computations lay in a gruesome mangled mess, spluttered across tens of pages. Early the next morning cleaners from Normalization Ltd. came and hosed-down and fumigated the pages.

They did their job well, but not well enough, for when the "latest" opinion poll was presented to Kenyans an amazing thing happened; from deep within the muddled recesses of the poll, plaintive cries for help could be heard. For in the midst of the violence and the number-spluttered mayhem that was the SM poll, some original statistics had survived! Their brave story of survival reflects our tenacious spirit and absolute determination to make a break with the past.

7 comments:

  1. No, I think we should forget about the opinion polls. Let us wait for the real poll. However, I have one plea to make: Let us not start questioning the integrity of samuel kivuitu when results dont fancy us. Some people are so predictable; If we dont win, Kivuitu, the man we cried all over the place for, will become the punching bag. U will hear some little whinners saying he has been given a room at state house and promised 100 billion shillings. This is all unwarranted, people.

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  2. pliz urself Vikii!!!!

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  3. How I wish I had the capabilities to MIND READ and even keyboard read. Kenyans are an amazing lot, they KNOW virtualy everything. Makes me think the brodas from WA are not that loud-mouthed after all or if they are then this is typically an African thing or they have no monopoly. Make no mistake this is no bigotry by any shade.

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  4. But you dont have the capabilities. U need to resign to that fact. There are also so many things the BRITONS amaze me with especially their seemingly out-of-this-world language.

    When it comes to loud mouth, I am second to someone at least. Just count my comments in the blog and you will find them fewer than my dearest FRIEND'S. I am willing to go on, WA style

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  5. To Taabu,

    What do u really mean that Kenyans know everything? My take is that Kenyans have opinions on issues that affect them. Thats not strange, for I have travelled in many countries and it is the same. Otherwise, what you are expecting is that Kenyans should not have an opinion. As long as one has a brain, he or she must have an opionion, but that does not mean they know everything.

    Secondly, Kenyans like any other human beings, have different experiences and knowledge and therefore when u bring them together as in this blog, they will look as if they know everything.

    Your truly

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  6. MOUs


    MOUs, the In-thing in Kenya today
    November 28 2007 at 5:16 PM Mou



    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Memorundum of understanding!
    Muslims, youth ,Kelenjins etc asking for it.
    It is ok, for we have different interest groups of Kenyans.
    But what about those in the diaspora? Dont we need an MOU. At least for Dual citizenship.

    If there is one amongst the presidential candidates who knows how to use this, it is Tinga.
    The MOU with Muslim turned out to be a strong campaign tool for him.Whether doctored or not, Tinga pulled this one strong!

    who can draft one for Kenyans in the diaspora? Chris?

    The Narc team that met Bishop Deya in 2002 ( Wamalwa, Muhoho etc) got an MOU. But today, Deya is a pariach! a friend of Odinga. Am sure photos will start flying about this meeting of 2002. Odinga will , like for Muslim MOU remind us that what he is doing was done in 2002. Kibaki signed one with Muslims in 2002. He also got support from Deya in 2002. £2000 and a television coverage in his Sky channel.Raila was not there. Photos dont lie

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  7. With the clock ticking to the mother of all violent elections, we cannot confidently dispute that Steadman has not been slapped silly and therefore compromised by the real power behind the throne. Folks, these are indeed desperate times in need of desperate measures. If one presidential candidate can happily indulge in a sumptuous luncheon alongside a suspicious Western province purveyor of mayhem and doom, then lets face it; decency and the value of life itself has been subjected to the throws of hell.
    That said, manipulating poll results is not rocket science, however, causing them to loose credibility is genius. Chaps, if the results are indeed true and we in ODM choose to ignore them, who wins the fight?

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