Please ignore the national polls

[Silent3]

12. No, I won't ignore national polls

All we have at this stage is rough indicators anyway. As rough indicators go, national polls are as good as any. They're definitely a good indicator of the direction of public sentiment.

And despite the obvious flaws of the stupid electoral system we've inherited, the electoral vote has only ever broken with the popular vote in close races. That makes wide margins in national polls a good sign.

Oooooohhh nooooesssss!!11!!1! I said (oh, the horror!) GOOD SIGN <shudder!>.

I'm sick and tired of this often repeated, but totally unproven notion that it's a terrible, vote-destroying, complacency-inducing thing to ever think that anything is <gasp!> a good sign, as if only desperate people feeling doomed work hard to win an election, and hopeful feeling people stay home, giving up all responsibility and desire to GOTV.

It's bullshit. We have plenty of real things to worry about, but seeing hope in national polls isn't one of them.