The Obama-Romney odds according to the various surveys and forecasts on the day right before the US elections show Obama leading by a very slight margin of 1 to 2 percentage points over Romney, 51 to 49 or 50 to 48 in terms of the respective shares in votes cast, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
This means that it is too close to call with any degree of certainty.
By this time of publication, we will already know the winner. In any event, the numbers will either be precisely accurate, or correct within the degree of error or even totally off, based on the actual behavior during voting or any intervening event/s which influenced the final outcome.
There will be all those post-mortem analyses trying to explain or justify what happened. It all merely indicates that statistical forecasting is at best an educated guess, probably scientific and rational, but a guess nevertheless.
The Philippine elections are just around the corner, May, 2013. This early we have already been bombarded with all sorts of surveys predicting the leaders and even ranking the potential winners.
A candidate, depending on his performance in the surveys, may consider these as already a blessing from Divine Providence or a poor and incompetent survey result bought by his opponents.
There are the usual surveys initiated in order to show one as a winner and these are part of the strategy of campaigning to create a bandwagon effect and popularity and acceptability position.
Campaigning is marketing. The target market segment has to be identified with its demographic and psychographic characteristics.
Then the candidate has to position himself and assume a branding, whether real or a falsified image, into the minds and hearts of the voters.
This is the basic platform for all the campaigning activities. It is like selling soap or sanitary napkins. Probably not, because at least these products have economic value and product utility.
The nature of marketing plans and campaigns, even for politicians, need to depend on data or information in order to be efficient and effective. One must understand the market.
This is usually done through market research, the major instrument being surveys.
There are many kinds of surveys: a survey of attitudes, beliefs and values; a survey of voting choices and behavior; a survey of determinants of voting choices; a survey of media and lifestyle exposure and influences; and the like.
And all of these can be segmentized or broken down among ages, educational attainment, religion, geographic locations, employment, income and even lifestyles, among others.
The surveys may be useful tools to conduct an election campaign. However, the event is a single outcome result. It may depend on the right survey instrument, the correct conduct and reliability of the survey and its results and the efficient and effective use of the survey information in conducting the campaign.
On these bases, one either wins or loses. Unlike a marketing campaign for a consumer good, one can adjust the tenor or orientation of the strategy and tactics in accordance with the feedback and openended period.
In an election, with a limited campaign period and a specific decision moment in time, the survey as one useful source of intelligence will either result in winning or losing as a final result.
Surveys are integral instruments of academic research. With all the theses and dissertations utilizing surveys as well as both business and political endeavors basing decisions on survey results, the conduct of surveys has developed into a fine and lucrative art.
Much more important, the art of surveying has significantly improved in terms of theory, concepts and methodology in order to enhance its accuracy, reliability, validity and utility.
The developments in data access due to technology and the democratization of information have contributed to, among others, the speed of verification and the results.
However, there are still the amateurs and charlatans who misuse the survey instruments as another tool of their incompetence and the marketing of defective products, ideas and politicians.
The snakeoil salesmen will always be with us. Playing the odds requires a lot of common sense.
