Dear Editor,
I refer to exchanges between letter writers in your daily newspaper concerning Vishnu Bisram’s projection that the US presidential elections would have been close.
First of all Mr Bisram, who frequently presents himself as speaking with some authority in view of his reputation as a pollster, should be aware that whenever he speaks the public will be led to believe that he is speaking with some degree of knowledge or information; in my opinion therefore I think that he is being legitimately criticized by the letter writers Messrs Urling (‘A polling instrument is not the only method of conducting scientific research,’ KN 13.11.08) and Williams (‘Clinton Urling versus Vishnu Bisram: prediction in the US elections,’ KN 11.11.08).
There was nothing close about the US elections so he was completely wrong!
I have serious problems with Mr Bisram’s polling methods and motivations, especially in Guyana and in Trinidad where there is racial rather than issues voting. In Guyana both in 2001 and in 2006 he started the PPP popularity low at around 42% and over an eight-week period running up to the actual election he increased their support to over 51 %; this may have had the effect of galvanising support for the PPP by motivating their supporters when the polls were showing the possibility of losing at the beginning of the eight-week polling cycle.
Additionally 24 hours before the election, a Bisram poll declared that the PPP would win by a landslide. For many this became a self fulfilling prophecy; after all, why go out to vote when you know that you have already lost the election. This could have happened to the opposition supporters in 2006.
To his credit Mr David de Caires saw it as I did and even though he did not pay for this poll (he did pay for the others) on the day before the Guyana elections it was faxed to him by Mr Bisram. Mr de Caires nevertheless, decent man that he was, refused to publish it since he considered it to be highly prejudicial to the opposition parties, but the Kaieteur News did publish it [Editor’s note: The poll was not published because it was too close to the election].
I therefore view all of Mr Bisram’s writings on Guyana as no more impartial than those of Dr Prem Misir or Mr John Da Silva.
As far as Mr Obama is concerned, it was more of a surprise to me that he won the Democratic Party’s nomination than that he won the presidential election. I say this because the major concern of the US people at this time is their economy, so the Democrats must have known that they were going to have an excellent shot at the presidency in 2008 in view of Mr Bush’s failures and unpopularity; but in the Democratic primary, as in the actual presidential campaign the Obama team’s performance was inspirational. Mr Obama himself proved to be a formidable campaigner; nevertheless the Democrats took a huge risk in what was otherwise a sure thing by making Mr Obama their candidate. They showed great faith in the democratic system and the maturity of the American people.
In December 2005 the Thomas Brook poll done for the AFC (this was not a Dick Morris poll) the top 4 issues in Guyana were as follows: cost of living issues 23%, unemployment issues 22%, economic issues16% and crime 15%. All the other areas, housing 6%, education 2%, health 4% etc, were not big issues with the general public in Guyana at that time.
So Mr Editor, 76% of our population were preoccupied with these four main issues, all occasioned by poor governance but they still went out and voted the PPP back into office.
I have no doubt that in 2011 these 4 issues will again surface as the major ones. The big question now is, have we learned anything from the American experience?
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Vieira, MS MP
“The big question now is, have we learned anything from the American experience?” I honestly hope we did, Mr. Vieira!
Nonetheless, I too have my doubts about Mr. Bisram, especially when he opined that the majority of Guyanese in NY were not in Bam’s corner. I thought that was preposterous. Who was this guy polling? Beside being rudderless, he seemed bias to some degree.
I have seen the squabble between Mr. Urling and the other guy in KN and now Mr. Vieira has joined. I think that given the strength of Mr. Vieira’s analysis on the Guysuco issues, I expected to read a more substantial commentary since I think both Urling and the other guy were clearly out of their depths on the subject they were commenting on.
Firstly, I thing that Urling was wrong on many fronts and comes across as dogmatic….a little bit of knowledge is sometimes not enough to make a valid argument.
His summations on whether America was ready for a Barak Obama victory were purely unscientific and based on ‘gut feeling’. The dribble about what constitute qualitative investigation is also uninformed.
Polls are tools use to explain how social agents would react to a stimulus by way of opinions representative of a population. It stands to reason that a sample constitutes a representative group and we extrapolate the results from that sample to represent the population position within a confidence interval or alternatively within a margin of error. We talk about 96% of the time the result would be replicated in the said population or that 4% of the time we are likely to get different results.
Unlike the physical sciences, social science methods are not exact and experiments cannot be controlled with precision because of bias, sampling errors and over generalization. What is important then, is the adherence to professional standards which have been developed to reflect a consistent approach to the activity of polling. Because polling and other forms of survey methods are used to collect qualitative data about matters in a population, in the said case, about voting for Obama, statistical techniques are used to provide and validate information from the gathered data. The process of extracting information from data is highly specialized and requires a very good understanding and being technically equip to deal with such complex issues; you have to know what you are about and importantly adhere to extablished professional standards. This is Bisram’s failure as a pollster; he introduces significant bias, sample error and he over-generalises. I have never seen him publish his statistical indicators to ensure validity, reliability and the significance of his conclusions.
This brings me back to Urling. Your suppositions on your hypothesis was basically not tested statistically and therefore you cannot claim that it is an acceptable outcome; your arguements are as weak as the ones you criticise. I guess this was why the other guy mentioned the fact about being educated in university mathematics, he was pointing that your exploration of history, culture and the mood of Afro-americans did not justify your hypothesis whether or not America was ready for a President Obama.
While polls represent an efficient way of collecting information from a large sample, extrapulating to the whole is problematic and we use statictical methods to explain reliability and validity at a level of signifance….. we sometimes ‘massage’ the data.
Unfortunately, the intrepretation of the results to the public as information depends on the motivation of the interesting party and the respondents, mainly their honesty. For intrepretation by pollster, check out Bisram, Dick Morris, you may want to question their honesty and certain bias in the questions they ask. And from a technical point of view, while the samples are random, non-responsiveness and vague responses introduces bias errors. Non-responses would surely dislocate the representativeness of the sample. Vague responses lead to abstractions which allows for over-generalization…..remember the CNN commontators were worried whether the respondents were honest and referring to ‘the Bradley effect’. And remember they were worried about how much of the undecided McCain or Obama would get in the voting booth…their abstractions which invariably would lead them down the road of over-generalizing.
Gentlemen, I think if you educate yourself on the principles on which to argue then you would have helped the debate with you analysis. Hope I have done so.
Tomo, these guys would have to study basics stats and applied stats to grasp what you’ve written. I don’t think they’re up to it.
I get the impression a majority of Guyanese are not so concerned about polls as they are concerned about making sure the PNC does not get back into power, based on justifiable reasons. Mr. Obama is like a beacon of hope not just for Americans but it seems for the whole world, based not only on his intelligence, but rather his positive approach whether dealing with his friends or opponents. The American leader has inspired the whole world. Which party leader in Guyana can do this except for Mr. Jagdeo?
I agree with everything you have said about Obama but please do not compare Jagdeo to him. Jagdeo does not possess Obama’s intelligence nor does he inspire the whole world. Jagdeo will come close to achieving what Obama has achieved when he and the PPP can bridge the racial divide in Guyana and inspire citizens to vote on issues rather than on race.
You guys are amazing. First it was Jagan, Mandela and Obama. Now it’s Jagdeo and Obama. I would say more like Jagdeo and Bush, both have practices the politics of divide and rule and outright lies and have tarnished their country’s reputation in the international arena.
A. Persaud:
Mr. Jagdeo ascension to the Presidency is based on a basic fact of Guyana’s elections, namely, race. Jagdeo is heading an Indo-ethnic party and Indians are in the majority. And, every last man there votes race.
So, what is this thing about Jagdeo being an inspirational leader?
If President Jagdeo wants to change Guyana for the better and create a legacy for himself, he should move quickly to help his party evolve into a genuine multiracial party – and doing so would also help Guyana to evolve into a genuine multiracial democracy.
I have said a hundred times the PPP is an ethnic party. It has an unwritten rule that says only an Indian can be leader of the party. (Except for a brief interlude when it was led by Janet Jagan). Almost the whole Central Committee are Indians. Also 95% of its electoral mandate come from Indians.
A Persaud….please, please do NOT compare President Jagdeo to President -elect Barrack Obama. They are NOT alike. Jagdeo does NOT possess the intelligence, eloquence, oratory, philosophies and management style of Obama.
A.Persaud,I agree with what most of the respondents to your comment have posted”Jagdeo is anything but like Obama”.Otherwise I agree with your accessment of Obama.As for politics in Guyana,good point of guyanese not wanting the ”PNC to get back into power” but good excuse for the PPP to keep fear-mongering and race baiting to stay in power,good exuse for indians to keep voting their fears and race while the rest of us(like myself)who’d had enough of both the PNC and PPP have to be stuck with them because of those with 20 century mindset!!!Why not reject them both and chose a third party the AFC for example!!!As it’s said the dumest thing one can do is “doing the same old thing over and over and somehow expecting a different result” .
James ask “what intelligence”?If you think otherwise I suppose you need to study his political history then you’ll see what intelligence they’re taking about.
You can find a host of answers to your questions about “Obama has not prove anything yet” .Try being a black guy running for POTUS against bunch of white people like the Clintons and their Democratic party political machine then John Macain and the Rebublican(Bush,Rove)political slime machine under any circumstances financial crises,desire for change or whatever,win them both then tell me that you haven’t prove any thing!!!
For your information,here’s a few policy that he put forward during the campaign,Universial Health Care coverage,Withdrawal from Iraq Plan,Alternative Energy Plan,Education Plan there’s a whole lot more go to barackobama.com and click on the issues you’ll see a whole lot more!!!
As for bridging the racial devide,I won’t go as far as to say that he’s done that but being the first black man being elected POTUS is a great historic step forward in race relations in the US.I have to give it up to the americans for that one!!!
And finally the percentage of whites who didn’t vote for him isn’t unusual,for the majority of whites always voted for the republicans in past elections,what is historic and remarkable though is that he got more votes from whites that any other democratic candidate has ever gotten in past elections(Clinton or JFK) icluded!!
guys, please before you comment lets wait and see. everybody behaving like if obama is a savior or jesus christ. lets see his performance first before we give praise.
That’s exactly my point quibian. He has to deal with the problems then we will see what he is made of. Everybody going on as if this is the wisest man the world ever produce.
Are they capable of learning is the real question. Guyanese and the Caribbean Fourth World (no longer Third World) have not demonstrated that talent as yet.
What intellengence? Obama has not prove anything yet. The only thing that cause Obama to win that election is the financial crises, and americans want change because of the crises, if the economy was normal noting like Obama could have win that election. What Policy did Obama put forward in the campaign that makes you think he is superior than anybody else.
Change NAFTA? in his entire term he will not even think about reviwing NAFTA.
As per racial devide he did not bridge on racila divide 55% of the whites did not vote for him. That goes to show that the balcks were not voting in previous elections.
I would not even bother to answer Persaud. He must be joking, seriously!
I agree with you. Obama is definitely not the wisest man, but people need change and voted for him. His task ahead is uphill, so with time, we will see exactly what he is made of. Given the economy in its present state, four years may not be enough to clean it up. I am waiting for the reaction of many.
Obama won the elections on racial issues more than economic issues 95%blacks voted for the Democratic party and 85%whites voted for the Republicans, Americans are still voting race whereas in Guyana Guyanese are voting issues, 35% indians voted PPP/C and 20%other races making the PPP/C a multi racial party, Obama is still to prove himself where as BHARRAT JAGDEO have already passed the test
Hi COOLIMAN,where’re you getting your stats from”85% whites voted for Republicans” “Guyana Guyanese are voting issues”???
If Obama got over 40% of the whites votes the remaining white votes doesn’t add up to 85% so your maths is totally wrong!
I was involved in the last election in Guyana and the party with the best programs and issues came in third,the AFC.Having said that it’s an undisputable fact that both the PNC and PPP supporters votes race in Guyana but the PPP like playing the fear and race card because they benifit more from the out come since indians are in the majority in Guyana!!!