The blues seemed awfully upset that they lost the election. They were so sure they were going to win.
Aside from people whose votes they thought they’d bought surprising them with a show of free will, what was the evidence that they were ahead anyway?
I heard many polls quoted, but never picked up on the names of polling organisations etc.
Anyone know anything about them, or how professional they are? There have been calls for better regulation in the UK recently, given how they never seem to accurately predict results.
Have a look here for a summary of polls before the election. You will be amazed, stunned and shocked to see that the evidence bears no relationship to KMT claims. As far as I can make out, claims that the KMT were ahead 5-10% in the poll are based on an informal straw poll inside the KMT offices (“how much did you think we were going to win by?”).
The amazing thing for me about the polls was how accurate they were - they were all predicting that it was “too close to call”, and surprisingly they were right.
The biggest mystery about the March 19th assassination attempt was why it DIDN’T cause a huge swing to the DPP. Had Taiwanese voters all already decided how to vote? Are they too rational to let their decisions be dictated by chance injuries? Or are they too callous to care? Did a lot believe (the evil) Sisy Chen’s claims it was staged?
Errrm… I trust you’re being ironic! [/quote]
I quite like the KMT’s new slogan “No Truth, No President”. It sums them up perfectly - they don’t tell the truth, and they don’t have the presidency.
Now that they’ve admitted both of these things, it clears things up no end!
With the polls I usually take the KMT’s highest showing and subtract 15%, that seems to get me right on. I guessed the Taipei Mayorship within a point and the 2000 election within 3.
BTW, has anybody noticed the strange absence of any polls on pan-blue support and how it has changed in the last two months. How did people vote on March 20 and how would they vote now is surely one of the most intriguing of questions. How else can the impact of the pan-blues’ antics be measured. And why has nobody done this? Have those of you who pay more attention to the Chinese press than I do seen any polls (and I discount dumb KMT “polls” saying 67% of people think the election should be re-run, and their ilk)?
The two-month-long protest and resistance against the legitimacy of President Chen Shui-bian’s re-election by the pan-blue alliance has resulted in the loss of public support, which would lead to a marked defeat of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan by Chen should the presidential election be held now, a public opinion survey released by Taiwan Advocates said yesterday.
The think tank yesterday held a press conference to release the results of a public opinion poll investigating the public’s attitudes toward the two-month long protest by the KMT and People First Party (PFP).
Its findings showed that the disapproval rate of the pan-blues’ protests has increased to 67.8 percent from 53 percent.
The poll also found that if the election were held today, 60 percent of the public would vote for the Democratic Progressive Party-backed presidential ticket of Chen and Vice President Annette Lu, while 40 percent of the voters would support the KMT-PFP alliance’s Lien-James Soong ticket.
How could the number be different from the same poll and how could one set of numbers be more reliable?
Sounds like shithouse reporting to me by one of the papers, or both if they both are incorrect.
The Taiwan News story says " if the authorities should set the stage for a new presidential vote tomorrow, according to the poll, a Chen-Lu ticket would lead KMT Chairman Lien Chan and his running-mate PFP Chairman James Soong by 14.3 percentage points, with 40.7 percent of respondents voting for the former and 26.4 percent voting the latter. "
The 60:40 figure in the Times comes form taking the comparative percentages among those who expressed a preference (only 67% of those asked). It’s the gloss CNA also put on the story BTW, Wolfie.
The story in the News is certainly more detailed and some of this detail is interesting: “61.1 percent of respondents in June did not believe that President Chen won reelection through vote-rigging, up from 46.3 percent in March.”
Huh? Less than 50% thought the election was clean? Makes you wonder what happened to common sense. And/or shows the truth of the Big Lie theory.
Also the News points out that the poll was commissioned by Taiwan Advocates but was carried out by Focus Survey Research, which might make it a little more believable. Reading the story in the Times you think “Taiwan Advocates? Lee Teng-hui’s pals? Why should we believe this?” The News makes it more plausible.
(To those of you who would ask “why lead with a story you have so little faith in” my answer is what other story was there yesterday to lead with?)
CNA’s motto: We may be a day late, but our facts are wrong.
This is the part of the TT story I loved:
[quote]The poll also found that if the election were held today, 60 percent of the public would vote for the Democratic Progressive Party-backed presidential ticket of Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), while 40 percent of the voters would support the KMT-PFP alliance’s Lien-James Soong (宋楚瑜) ticket…
Political commentator Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒) yesterday analyzed the results of poll, (sic) saying the poll revealed a major shift to the support base of the greens and the blues, from a 50-50 percent distribution at the time of the election to 60-40 percent.[/quote]
NO SHIT SHERLOCK!
