on Tony Snow calling the CT primary result a "50-50 split, more or less"

[acroyear]

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Partisan Parsing of Election Results:

Isn't that funny how a 52-48 victory this week was "a 50-50 split, more or less", but a 51-49 victory in the 2004 election was a "mandate"? To all the world, spin, spin, spin.

Comments

[johnbroadfoot.livejournal.com]

No funnier than 43% being called a "majority" or "landslide" in '92.

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

Dang! You beat me to it. :-)

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

Went back and read the actual quote. Have to say I disagree with the bloggers spin. Snow's quote wasn't about lust the actual election results, but about the how the poll results compared to the actual results, especially in light of how a week ago the polls had Lieberman's opponent with a 13 point lead. The actual results were about 4 points apart -- an amount that is not unusual in a poll as a margin of error (though the most common MOE is 3 points). Any spread whose difference falls within the MOE is considered to be a statistical dead heat, or "too close to call." How I understood Snow's comment was that taking the election as an indication of the war issue (which every article I read and news report I heard conceded was the sole defining point of the CT senatorial election), the results were within a typical margin of error, or as he put it "a 50-50 split more or less." I didn't read it to be a claim by Snow that the actual results were 50-50.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, i would also say that calling the 2004 election a "mandate" wasn't Snow either.

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

Pretty sure Snow also didn't call the '92 election a "landslide." :-)