Guns, Lies and Opinion Polls (11/1/02)

by Dean Hartwell

Over the years, the United States has criticized certain elections in other nations as fraudulent. For example, the U.S. in 1986 made it clear that it would not recognize Ferdinand Marcos as the president of the Philippines after such an election.

Now, because of controversies in the last two Florida elections, we have our own share of critics. Several nations, including Albania and Russia (who have had controversies of their own), have sent monitors to watch the polls in Florida on Tuesday.

What kind of an election will they watch?

They could not have chosen a more important election. With President Bush’s brother, Jeb, running for re-election against Bill McBride, the winner will claim the results as either an endorsement or a rejection of the President and his policies.

Much has occurred recently to distract the voters’ attention. After investigating a series of shootings in the Washington, D.C. area for several days, the police have apparently caught the two men responsible. The people in that area now live with greater safety, but we all now live with the fear the next sniper could take aim at us.

North Korea announced not long ago that it has nuclear weapons, catching the United States by surprise. Why didn’t we know about the weapons earlier? How did North Korea get the capability? And why does the Bush Administration, which justifies its plan to attack Iraq because they “may” get nuclear weapons, ignore this real threat? The Administration lacks credibility as to why war against Iraq is so important.

Every day the public sees new opinion polls about the president, candidates in contested races and other matters. The results show a snapshot of we want but not what we need. With the recent sniper attacks and the revelation of nuclear weapons in North Korea, pollsters ought to be asking us for ideas on how to resolve these and other problems.

Right now, the voters in Florida have a significant problem confronting them. Will they vote for a governor who has presided over two embarrassing elections or will they give another candidate a chance to fix the election system? We now know that the whole world will be watching.