viz.

(Image credit: Star Tribune)

Hard to know what to write about here. The regular 9 AM postings of this blog necessitate that I write a full day in advance, and I have nothing to say about the election returns, about which I’m sure is only what you wish to be reading on the morning after a general election. Sorry. But it seems like some discussion of Bob Dylan’s election predictions are worth your while, however. Two nights ago in Madison, Wisconsin, Dylan was wrapping up yet another gig on his current tour with Mark Knopfler. He’d just taken an encore break and was coming back on stage for the night’s final number. Before continuing on with the music he said, “We tried to play good tonight since the president was here today.” (Obama had earlier wrapped up a rally in Madison.) Not only this, but Dylan went on to say, “Don’t believe the media. I think it’s going to be a landslide.” Now, the obvious response is: “What does Bob Dylan know about election polls, much less the Electoral College? How could he possibly be calling this thing so early? There’s no way.” Well, I wonder if he might indeed be on to something.

(Image credit: The Guardian)

Except for the voter exit polls, which are currently taking place as voters leave the polls and thus haven’t been concluded as of writing, most of the general election’s polling has dealt with landline phone numbers. Now, when I think of the people I know with landline phones, they’re disproportionately older than 50. Asking my peers today, out of maybe 20 friends I polled on the issue, only 1 of them has a landline. So, if anything, all the polling reports in which Mitt Romney’s down by 1% or maybe even tied with Barack, well, they’re probably a bit generous to the governor. The polling companies have likely asked groups of voters naturally more predisposed to vote Republican what they’re thinking of the election, and on average Obama’s up by 1 or 2 percentage points nationally. The margin of error on these things is usually about 3%, and if the polling process is a little bit biased towards Romney, it’s not really that much of a stretch to see many (if not all) of the close states breaking Obama’s way tonight. And the major media outlets haven’t mentioned any of this in the endless quest for readership and profits. A “tight race” is good for the media outlets profit-wise, and I wonder if this economic certainty has been influencing what we’re being told to think about the election. All this, I suspect, is what Bob Dylan was getting at in his Madison comments two nights ago.