Bisram did not predict US election

Nov 15, 2008 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I am replying to Robin Williams “Clinton Urling versus Vishnu Bisram’s predictions in the US elections” in Kaieteur News (Nov. 11).

I have not been able to access Kaieteur News from various computers in NY and Trinidad for nearly three weeks. William’s letter, which was passed on to me by a friend, is replete with inaccuracies and distortions, the third time he has distorted my writings.

I hope he will not make it a habit and will see his errors and make appropriate amends. Firstly, I am baffled why Williams chose to rate or compare/contrast my analysis with Urling’s. Urling and Bisram were never in any competition.

To do so is like comparing dongs with apples. For the record, I never made a prediction for the US elections and I did not conduct polls except for informal polling of Guyanese and other Caribbean people and a small number of others in some states. Urling made predictions (in SN Nov. 3, he wrote: “I predict a landslide for Obama”).

I made analyses of the polls and of voting patterns, etc., not predictions, and formed a conclusion, not predictions.

Williams calls me “a self-described pollster”. Why the hostility in using this description of me? I am not and never was hostile to Williams or to Urling. I have conducted polls for almost 20 years, including one over the weekend in Trinidad. I was commissioned by newspapers, businessmen and non-profit organisations to conduct polls in several countries.

I concede I do not make a living or earn income from conducting polls. But I do it professionally with the best of my ability and for little and at times no financial reward.

Williams claims I was a torch bearer for Hillary Clinton. A torch bearer, in political science lingua, is someone who stands steadfastly cheering a candidate even when opinion polls show the individual can’t win.

Several times during the primaries as well as during the general election campaign, polls showed Obama losing but people continued to cheer “Obama would win”.

That is cheerleading and carrying a torch for a candidate. That is defying the “law of politics or polls” unless one can show the polls poorly done.

Whatever the polls found is what I penned – sometimes Obama in the lead, sometimes Clinton in the lead and sometimes McCain in the lead.

In my analysis of the contests for the Democratic nomination, I penned Clinton would win because that is what the early polls found (prior to January 2008 and at time even up to April) and my analysis concluded.

In January, Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses and polls showed a battle. In the New Hampshire primary that Williams made reference to, polls showed Obama would win by double digits.

I questioned the polls, arguing that they used the wrong demographics in their sampling and that Clinton would win.

That is not carrying a torch. That is good political analysis and critiquing of the polls. I was right. Hillary won NH. That was not the only time I was right in questioning the polls. I was right with regards to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, etc.

And in some of the cases, I questioned the polls when I felt they underestimated Obama’s numbers by not including the right amount of African Americans or rural voters in the sample. Contrary to what Williams penned, I did not have a position in the Democratic contests.

I simply paraphrased what the polls said. At no time did I distort the poll findings to take a position and I challenge Williams to present any evidence to the contrary.

Sometime around April, I penned that it would be a Herculean task for Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. After the Pennsylvania primary, I penned that Clinton cannot win the nomination.

In May, when Clinton even won some primaries, I said the contest was over. So my position was not that of cheering a candidate but to present an honest analysis of the contests, contrary to a few others who stood by one candidate regardless of outcome or what polls said.

Williams is right to have penned that “Obama was not African-American candidate but an exceptional and remarkable candidate who happens to be Black” and I did urge Black voters to vote Obama, not because he is Black but because he is competent for the job.

I, and my teaching colleagues, fail to see what is wrong with my statement and am baffled why Williams chastises me for making it.

Williams also correctly penned that right after the Democratic convention when Obama took a lead in the polls, I penned McCain would come back after the Republican convention to overtake him and that the race would go down to the wire (not a nail biter as he incorrectly paraphrases me).

McCain did take a 6% lead in the polls and had a huge lead in all of the 12 swing states except two where Obama led narrowly. So I was right.

Williams neglects to inform readers that I penned in mid-September that Obama would make a comeback and overtake McCain. And I was right in that conclusion also.

When others, including an Afro-Caribbean Professor in NY, were writing that the election was over and began to attack Whites for being racist and making references to The Bradley effect, I took a different line. My writings would reveal that I said Obama would rise again if the economy continues to decline.

I concluded since mid-September that if the economy collapsed, Obama would win handily because in my view, economy trumps “race”. I did not subscribe to the Bradley effect in this election.

The economy tanked and Obama moved up in the polls and remained so for seven weeks. So I was right contrary to what Williams penned.

My analysis of the election was not static but changed with my interpretations and critique of the polls. And again I did not cheer any candidate.

I simply did a job as any professional would do – analyse the campaign and the polls and made a determination.

Williams is dishonest when he uses my analysis from January (and not the later ones from May or June) to compare my prognosis of the Democratic contest for the nomination with someone else’s.

Williams is also dishonest when he uses my analysis from August (of a tight race) and not the ones from various times in October and the ones just before the election (including the one published on Election Day, stating that Obama would win by a landslide of 349 EVs.

Williams should know that poll numbers change regularly and did so daily as hundreds of polls found. When the polls had Obama winning by 14%, I said they would be wrong.

When the polls had Obama winning all the marginal states by huge margins, I said they would be wrong and that the contests would be closer. I also penned that my projection showed McCain getting 46% of the votes and Obama about 52%.

That was the actual outcome. But with regards to the battleground states, I was wrong in Pennsylvania and Ohio because they were not close.

I also expected McCain to win North Carolina and Indiana by a squeaker. But for the contests being close, I was right on the money. I also said there would be a lot of split ticket voting and I was right.

Urling consistently said that Obama would win the nomination and the presidency even when polls said otherwise, citing at first a changed electorate and later the bad economy.

I said Obama would win because of the tanking economy but saw a closer contest in the swing states than what polls projected.

Readers would decide which was a better analysis. Urling said he “predicted” the election and Williams accepted that conclusion as a “prediction”. I did not predict the outcome but presented a rational analysis of a projected outcome.
Vishnu Bisram

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