OPINION:
God bless the Poles! They are truly a great and honorable and beautiful people.
The polls, however, should go someplace to die. The polls are oppressive and dishonest. They are the root of all evil in politics.
Also, they are entirely racist. Who else calls you at dinnertime, asks you a bunch of political questions and then says, “What color are you?”
Wait! You say. I never get these calls from political pollsters. I get these calls during dinner only from telemarketers (the evil criminal cousins of the polls), and they never ask me what color I am.
Exactly! It’s all made up. They don’t even pretend to call real voters anymore.
As any pollster can tell you, you can make a poll say anything you want. A poll is only as accurate as the pollster wants it to be. Do you trust The New York Times to tell you anything true?
Anyway, here ends your annual public service announcement about the evils, dishonesty and racism of polls and the dirty pollsters who conduct them. (And yes, I am talking to you guys. I know we are friends, but you are still dirty, lying pollsters. And racist, too.)
That said, every now and then a poll — even one conducted by the New York Slimes — lurches uncontrollably into some vicinity of the truth.
The 2024 presidential race began Tuesday last week, the day after Labor Day — pretty much as it always does. The New York Slimes, which has been shamelessly boosting Vice President Kamala Harris for the past six weeks and lying about former President Donald Trump for the past eight years, conducted a poll and found the race essentially tied.
The Harris honeymoon is over. The vibes are dead. Time to find some new batteries.
Six months of free propaganda propping up the most unpopular vice president in the history of political polling. All that free false advertising during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago where party bosses coronated someone that 14 million Democratic voters did not choose to be their presidential nominee.
And the race is essentially tied, according to the polls. The race is essentially where it was before President Biden got sacked from the Democratic ticket and replaced by Ms. Harris.
Of the set of voters the New York Slimes surveyed for its poll, nearly 30% said they need to know more about Ms. Harris before they can make up their minds.
Love Mr. Trump or hate him, nobody is unsure of where he stands.
The good news for Mr. Trump and the bad news for Ms. Harris is that the best she can hope for is that 30% never gets to know her better. Because the more voters know about Ms. Harris, the more they tend to dislike her.
This is why the Harris campaign strategy of hiding from voters will not ultimately work. If she refuses to answer questions and engage with real voters, the Trump campaign can just run endless footage of her saying the craziest things through her political career.
Free health care for illegals? Check. Defund the police? Sure! Abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement? You bet!
The sad thing for Ms. Harris is that she probably isn’t even as dangerously liberal as her record and statements suggest. The truth is she is willing to say absolutely anything to anybody to win the next election.
And that is exactly the problem. She is not just dangerously liberal. She is willing to be as dangerously liberal as she needs to be just so that she can be as dangerously self-serving as she has always been.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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