Saturday, September 6th, 2008
So, what do the ratings mean?
Posted September 6, 2008 at 12:09 am by basilNothing.
That’s what the TV ratings for Democrat and Republican Conventions mean.
Unless you believe in trends. More about that in a minute.
If you look at the Nielsen ratings for the Democrat Convention, 1960-2004, and compare them to the Republican Convention ratings, 1960-2004, you’ll see that, for those 12 conventions, half the time, the party with the higher ratings won the White House. Of course, that means, half the time, they didn’t.
In those 12 election years, the Republicans won the ratings just 3 times: 1972,1976, and 2004. They won two of those elections: 1972 and 2004.
The Democrats won the ratings 9 times: 1960, 1964, 1968, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000. They won 4 of those elections: 1960, 1964, 1992, 1996.
Which means that half the time, the party with the higher convention was the party that took the White House that November.
So, ratings mean nothing.
Except recently.
The party that won the ratings won the popular vote the last 4 elections. But not the electoral votes. Remember 2000?
Anyway, what brought all this up?
There seemed to be lots of news about Obama getting such high ratings. Until Palin and then McCain got even higher ratings.
But TV ratings don’t always translate to an election victory.
We’re going to have to get out and work for victory this year. Work hard.
The country … the world … needs a McCain victory.
September 6th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Well done, Basil. And, Amen. Onward.