Moving on...
This episode is all sorts of all over the place. Here are some of the plates we're spinning:
- Joey Lucas and Josh are fighting over English as the National Language, Roosevelt and Alexis de Tocqueville. Joey's response?
Isn't love grand? - We're trying to get two more reformers onto the FEC, and not afraid to use the trappings of the White House to do it.
- The President has a finely honed sense about these things. "These things" seems pretty all-inclusive, but in this case it's when Charlie isn't telling the truth.
- Sam is photographed with Lori, who has graduated from Law School by the London Daily Mirror, but it's all good, because as President Bartlet says: "It’s nice when we can do something for prostitutes once in a while, isn’t it?"
- There's polling being done during the entire episode, and it serves as somewhat of a referendum on the Bartlet Administration's new, energized, "Let Bartlet be Bartlet" mode.
- Also, there's a phone in Gail's fishbowl, so she's helping out with the polling.
And so, in honor of President Bartlet revealing his rather ludicrous knowledge of briefcases at the end of this episode, I would like to share some information with you regarding polling.
First of all, the field is actually called Psephology- using the Greek root word Psephos, which means pebble. This is so named because the pebble was used to cast votes in ancient Greece. Probably the most noted Psephologist in the US is Nate Silver, who rose to prominence during the 2008 election, where he correctly predicted 49 of 50 states in the Presidential Election (Indiana eluded him, somehow) and all of the Senate races. During this episode, Sam cites a response rate of 25% as lucky. Unfortunately, in today's world, that response rate is usually below 10%. What's more interesting is that fewer and fewer polling companies are using live phone polls (a conversation with a pollster) in favor of recorded voices or online polling. This can cause disparities that we haven't even begun to understand- as in the case of Donald Trump, who performs much worse in live phone calls than he does in the other formats. The leading theory is that "some Trump supporters are reluctant to acknowledge their preferred candidate to another person."
Which leads us to the title of this episode: "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics." Usually, this is referred to as a list of the three types of lies, which displays a cynical understanding of the incorrect use of statistics- something that happens in every election cycle. Don't believe me? Trump's claim of 42% unemployment (official rate is 4.9% and the U-6 rate is 10.3%, which accounts for the unemployed, those who are working part time for economic reasons and those who want to work but haven't looked for work recently) is fact checked here, but the impact can already be made by using such an inflammatory number.
However, in this episode, I think we have a less cynical interpretation of the quote.
- LIES- There are more than a few lies told in order to get that extra seat on the FEC open, not the least of which is finding a reason to get rid of the Bulgarian Ambassador that isn't him cheating on his wife.
- DAMN LIES- Clearly, the purpose of getting photos of Sam and Lori together is to represent their relationship as inappropriate at best, and illegal at worst.
- STATISTICS- Obviously, the focus of this episode becomes the polling data; only CJ expresses optimism, and is rewarded by their approval rating exceeding her expectations and jumping by 9%.
Even more importantly, the administration has big MO- Momentum in their corner. It's an optimistic end to an optimistic run of episodes, and next, we tackle our first West Wing Season Finale. Expect big things!
What's next? S1e22- What Kind of Day Has it Been
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