Wednesday, October 26, 2016

The Polls and My Shooting: Don't Count on a Bullseye

Finally made it to the range. Thought the Diplowife would join me, but she saw a Ross store and decided to go there while I went to do manly-man things.

Took my new .44 Mag plus my two .357 Mags. On this range run, I included my old reliable .357 from Guyana days, a wonderful piece of iron which I shamefully had neglected for some years. Cleaned it up. It shot wonderfully. That gun is over 55 years old and still works -- unlike its owner.

I did very well with the two .357s, and pretty well with the .44 when using .44 Special "Cowboy Action Rounds." Not so great when I went full .44 Magnum. OK, but nothing to brag about. Let's just say it's a good thing those splatter targets don't shoot back . . . I, however, did like the sound. Quite impressive even with a headset on.

My Washington-based son, a political junkie of the first degree, gave me a lesson yesterday and today on why the election polls are not to be believed. He says most polls have way over-sampled Democrats and make the invalid assumption that over 95% of Democrats will actually vote for The Hillary. He seems very confident of a Donald victory on November 8. I, however, am more cautious having gone through this in 2012, when I was pretty sure Romney would win. The electoral college remains a challenge for Trump, but . . . we'll see.

Now, of course, adding fuel to the fire of skepticism about the polls are some Wikileaks which apparently show senior Democratic activists discussing getting friendly pollsters to oversample Democrats in their polling data bases. I also find it suspicious how all the press are joining in a chorus of "It's All Over!" I can see this as a strategy trying to discourage Trump voters from going to the polls, but wonder if it might not have the opposite effect, and discourage Hillary voters who are markedly unenthusiastic about their candidate to begin with. I guess we will know the answers soon enough . . . assuming the illegal alien vote doesn't throw all calculations into the dust bin.

Best to disconnect from the media for a bit . . . allow sanity to return.

Love the smell of Hoppe's 9.

19 comments:

  1. I heard the other day that most polls do not ask party affiliation until after the body questions. Then, I suppose, the polling organization can make any "adjustments" they want to arrive at the kind of results your son suggests. One solution might be to weigh polling results based on past successes ... if we can find an honest broker to do this!

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  2. Try some .44 Special , a good solid round and your .44 mag might surprise you.

    ,41 Magnum is a fun shoot and 0,38 Super Colt is a tack driving dream .

    I think your son is onto something .

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    1. Yes, the 44 Special was very pleasant to shoot and quite accurate.

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  3. What's that 55yr old 357?

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  4. First on the .44 mag. I don't own one, I have shot the S&W Dirty Harry model, and to tell the truth it hurts my hand to shoot it more than a couple of rounds. Emptying 6 was a turn off for me. Nothing bad to say about it, it's just too much gun for me.

    On the Trump, I am in the same camp as your son. I see a lot of undercurrent support for Trump even here in Portland Oregon. Well, not so much in downtown, and the hipster neighborhoods, but in the suburbs. I see Trump signs fairly often now, and Trump stickers on cars. Which up here is asking for vandalism. The Trump signs closer in to the Blue enclave are placed high on phone polls put up by someone with a 12 foot ladder. Which is out of reach for the Blue vandals, much like a cookie jar on the top of the kitchen cabinet is to a toddler. I saw no such support for Mittens up here. While there was no where near the number of Obama signs as in 2008, 2012 it was rare to see Romney support unless I went fairly rural Oregon. I feel there is a huge undercurrent wave of support for Trump. People who have been disgusted for years with what has been going on, and are more than willing to vote for a less than perfect candidate as long as he delivers a boot in the ass to those despised by this group, myself included. Hollywood, Washington, New York, nothing would please us more than to see that which they fear most running the show.

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    1. Based on my very limited experience, I would say Portland is a blue island in a red sea. My stepson lives about 40 miles south and guns are everywhere. His brother-in-law who lives in a compound with them, has a gun safe that a gun store would envy.

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    2. You are correct. Portland, Salem, Eugene and Bend are are solid blue, but outside those those areas are conservative. We pretty much consider the Willamette valley the blue of Oregon, and the rest is red. However, the majority of population resides in the Willamette valley.

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    3. On Tuesday, my sister was driving from Michigan to Florida & texted me: "Can't believe all of the Trump signs on lawns as we crossed rural Ohio. Awesome.

      That's part of the problem: the major urban areas are solid blue, while the more rural are red. Here in Colorado, the red counties are not populous enough (notwithstanding Colo. Spgs.) to outvote Denver, Boulder, Pueblo, and the ski-country counties' locales of Telluride, Aspen, Vail, etc.

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  5. Heh.. my folks said they're voting Trump because they think Hillary is going to probably win and don't want her to win by too large a margin. They think a large margin would make her believe people support her.
    I think they overestimate the value Hillary places on the support of the people by a long shot.
    Honestly, I'm still leaning Trump because he will not be a boring President. Yeah, I think he's got a better attitude and concept for where the country should go, but he'll be hamstrung by congress anyways, whether it's run by the GOP or dems. They've got their entrenched interests to protect and will make sure he doesn't get much sanity into the leadership of our country.

    - reader #1482

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  6. The flip side of the "It's All Over" chorus is as cover for massive voter fraud. See the polls were right after all. (Wink wink).
    "The key to strategy, little Vor," she explained kindly, "is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to victory." - Lois McMaster Bujold The Vor Game 1990
    "They imagine they're the wave of the future, but it's only sewage flowing downhill." - Bujold Shards of Honor 1986 (omnibus Cordelia's Honor)

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  7. Hoppe's 9? Crack open a window at least.

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  8. The media is actually helping Trump by calling it as over and HC the winner. The DNC turnout has been very low so far, and Trumps very high. If the DNC voters think it is in the bag, some may stay home, and particularly the Sanders voters who don’t like HC. And Trump voters will be motivated to turn out, because they think they must to give him a shot. Short point; the media may well depress HC’s turnout and vote and increase Trumps.

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    1. or the opposite could happen... this is why sociology, and the 'political science' built upon its flabby, degenerate shoulders are all terrible.... because people aren't electrons... now electrons, I can study.... have studied... they're great... and predictable with calculable certainties.

      - reader #1482

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  9. Romney had no enthusiasm for him (outside of the Donor party), in particular with lower middle income white men. Different story for Trump this year in regards to the latter.

    If Trump loses it will because of fraud and the female vote.

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