Zogby poll statement: Hugo Chavez is runnning scared
By Michael Rowan
31.10.06 | The Chavez campaign advertisement touting the results of an early October Zogby poll of 800 voters in the Venezuelan presidential election reveals how weak the Chavez campaign really is.
The Zogby poll of 800 voters shows a Venezuela that few Venezuelans living today would recognize. Huge majorities are voting for Chavez and say he’s doing a great job, he’s a great guy. Huge majorities say the country is on the right track – it couldn’t be better. Huge majorities of Venezuelans say they have no problems with security, crime, foreign giveaways, poverty, income, housing, and corruption – we live in a perfect world with a perfect revolution ruled by a perfect leader. Zogby’s only ‘error’ that we can see from the perspective of the hidden client Chavez is that only 6 million will vote for Chavez, not the 10 million he said were in the bag in August.
Technically, the poll is fatally flawed. Zogby admits that the poll was conducted with “face to face interviews in home” where, of course, Venezuelans know they are identified by name and can be punished if they say the wrong thing about Chavez, who is handing out about Bs 1 million per person per month as the election nears. This explains why Zogby’s poll found only 8% who voted against Chavez in the 2002 election, when in fact 38% did – a 30% error. If that error were balanced against the presidential vote question, the Zogby poll would show Rosales defeating Chavez -- but Zogby conveniently decided to ignore it.
Zogby’s client list for polls includes a lot of Islamic fanatics and terrorists who are strategic partners of Chavez – Yassir Arafat, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, etc. Zogby missed the recent Brazil presidential vote by 25% in favor of his client, Lula da Silva. Zogby would do better taking the Chavez money, never conducting a poll, and just reporting to Chavez what he wants to hear. Zogby should take its cue from the CNE, which knows how to please Chavez royally.
The fact that Chavez would tout false poll numbers in campaign ads, while claiming the opposition is doing the same thing, is typical behavior for him. Chavez traditionally projects the evil he commits to the enemy who does not commit it – that is his signature and character. Look at the Chavez numbers and the real numbers for PDVSA production, foreign giveaways of oil wealth, murders, housing, poverty, unemployment and registered voters, and the same pattern crops up. The Chavez numbers always show a perfect world, while the real numbers show a terrible world.
The Rosales campaign believes that Venezuelans, especially barrio residents and ostensible Chavistas, live in the real world and not the one that Chavez imagines. Chavez has no idea how Venezuelans really live – he’s too busy traveling the world in his Michael Jackson jet plane handing out money to ever notice that 90% of Venezuelans really want, and need, Mi Negra.
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