Aoun Polls High. Where’s The Catch?

Why the presidential polls that consistently rank Michel Aoun as #1 are inherently flawed and misleading.

Today, Albalad revealed yet another presidential ( yet admitingly unscientific) poll with a strong showing by Mr. Aoun. He got 53% of the votes, with Mr. Geagea being a distant second with only 12% of the votes. The rest of the voices are scattered among 10 other candidates.

Is this the end of the story? Should we subscribe to the theory that Aoun is the most popular choice for the presidency?

While Aoun is indeed very popular, and could be the most popular presidential candidate, the poll is misleading for two reasons. The first is that a big bulk of that 53% of voters is made of Hezbollah supporters, who still don’t know who Hezbollah’s “secret candidate” is. But the second reason is the more important one.

Imagine a poll taking place in an American newspaper, with the American people having to pick one of the following names for the presidency: Rudy Guiliani, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Christopher Dodd. What would the results look like?

For those of you unfamiliar with American politics, Guiliani is the only Republican while all the others are Democrats. The results could probably look something like this: Guiliani: 49% , Clinton: 22%, Obama 14%, Edwards 9%, Biden 3%…etc. You get the picture. Could we conclude then that Guiliani is the most popular Presidential candidate with Clinton a distant second?

The truth of the matter is this: If March 14 decide on their candidate and March 8 decide on theirs and we had a poll, it will be a neck to neck with leads slimmer than the error margin. But that doesn’t stop the spinners who love to publicize Aoun’s results.

Previous Beirut Spring posts:

• In September of last year, I wrote calling on western journalists to stop saying that “Lebanese Christians are allied with Hezbollah” • The following December, I brought up two polls that tried to probe the elusive Christian public opinion • Last August, I wrote a post that condemns March 14’s spinning of the Metn elections’ results as a loss for Michel Aoun