One of the great unanswered question regarding Spain's election is how many people swung? That is to say, what is the difference in voting patterns between that predicted by reliable polls just before the bombing and the actual poll results. This is the percent of the vote that the terrorists can convince to move their way with a bombing. The electoral reality is that you want your base to go out to vote but what usually moves elections is this swing percentage.
It is also the safety margin for Spain's next election. If the conservatives are leading with less than this percentage, it pays for terrorists to repeat their performance with a bomb right before polls. If it exceeds it, they've just created another Bush, but one with an explicit electoral mandate to go all out against them. Unfortunately my spanish is practically nil and I don't have access to such polling figures so I can't personally calculate the numbers. However, I wonder what the major media's excuse is for not reporting them?
Posted by TMLutas at March 15, 2004 09:46 AM