[Newspoetry] Buchanan Defeats Gore, Bush, Nader in Landslide Victory

[Joe Futrelle]

Nov 8., 2000

Buchanan Defeats Gore, Bush, Nader in Landslide Victory

The US (Associated Poets):

Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate for president, enjoyed an
eleventh-hour surge in popularity to claim a decisive victory over Al
Gore, George Bush, and Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.  In a
wide-ranging acceptance speech, Buchanan credited what he called his
"secret" constituency for the win, along with his apparently
appealingly rabid conservatism.

Asked about the alarming discrepancy between the result and daily
polls conducted for almost three months by all the major news
organizations, Buchanan said "you've been polling the wrong people."
There was little to contradict this assessment, as exit polls taken
Tuesday showed Buchanan trailing by double digits, sharply diverging
from the official tally, which awarded him almost 78% of the popular
vote, to Gore's 1%, Bush's %2, and Nader's 6%.

"Clearly, our polling methodology is flawed," said Chester Gallup of
Gallup polls.  Gallup adjusted its "margin of error" estimate to +/-
80% for future polls.  Asked about the ramifications of this sea
change, Gallup speculated "I guess the Republicans were right about
statistical sampling being the wrong way to conduct the census,"
adding that statisticians and actuaries have a lot of explaining to
do.

--
Joe Futrelle
Editor-within-chief,
Newspoetry dot com