Tsai will get at least 47% votes -- UDN Editorial

Observers have been highly confused by polls for the upcoming 2012 presidential election --- blue media claims that Ma keeps leading by a margin around 2~8%, and pro-green media say 50-50, which will likely be translated, according to past experiences, into that Tsai's the winner by a margin as large as 10~15%.

Oddly, the United Daily News (UDN), one of the can't-be-bluer KMT propaganda-like media, published an editorial today, claiming that Tsai will get at least 47%. Their reasoning, in fact, indicated that the 47% is a bit underestimated:

The premise of this framework is that Tsai gets 47% votes. Two references support this idea:

1. Frank Hsieh got 42% in 2008, and the momentum of DPP now is stronger than the DPP in 2008, and support to Tsai is also stronger than the support to Hsieh in 2008. So Tsai's votes will go up from 42%;

2. Chen Shui-bian got 51.11% in 2004. Although it was interfered by the 319 shooting, but whichever you look at it, it shows that the DPP has the potential to get 50% support of the voters. Now the momentum of DPP is stronger than that in 2004, and Tsai is better than Chen, therefore Tsai has the potential of approaching 50%.

Based on these two references, it's convincing to argue that Tsai can get 47% of the votes.

So what's going on here ? Do they suddenly come to sense and realize that the momentum of DPP is un-ignorable this time ? How do they explain those polls they did, that Tsai was around 33% ?

Polls by UDN on 2012 President Election
Date	Tsai	Ma	Soong
2011/11/27	35	41	10
2011/12/ 3	32	39	10
2011/12/10	33	40	10
2011/12/12	35	42	10
2011/12/17	33	41	10

This editorial from the UDN seems to bn an admission that:

(1) Blue polls always underestimate green candidates by 10~15% (47-33 = 14%). But this is certainly not new. A famous pro-blue writer Nan Fang Shuo (南方朔) said in an article that :

正因為綠色群眾較不表態，懂選舉的人都知道，國民黨要贏，投票前半年，他們必須領先至少15%，投票前3個月至少要領先10%
Because green supporters are more likely not to display their voting behaviors, whoever knows about the election knows that, the KMT must lead by at least 15% and 10%, half year and 3 months before the election, respectively.

See another admission in a video by a TV commentator who is deep-dark-black blue.

(2) Green supporters DO NOT display any stronger willingness to tell the truth in polls than ever, a point what many observers ( example ) claims without support of substantial evidence. In a response to the above article cited, I wrote:

Many people claim that (that the green supporters are more willing to tell the truth in polls this year), but none can provide anything to back that up other than pure speculation. Such speculation most probably came from a sense that the green supporters are higher in moral this year, as seen in new report or TV or any campaign activities.

That sense is correct. However, converting that observation directly into green’s willingness to provide faithful answer during polls conducted by pro-blue media is a serious mistake. Many green netters I saw on forums reported how they intentionally told poll calls that they want to vote for Ma.

The blue poll center knew this very well, too. Here is a paragraph in a recent interview of the vice manager of ChinaTimes poll center, conducted by a journalist (?) from China, posted on 12/27/2012 :

【对我们来说，一般加权之后，绿营会上升，因为考虑到愿意接受中时访问的可能是蓝营较多，绿营的可能直接把电话挂了。

To us (China Times), the green support rate generally will go up after weighting. Because we considered that blue supporters are most probably more willing to take polls conducted by China Times. The green supporters might just hang up the phone.】
访中时民调

Yes they did take that into considerations and make weighting outta it. But, they refused to publicize how much adjustment they made:

【在民调数据之后要进行加权，但是加权数不会公布。
After we took the polls, the data need to be weighted, but we won’t reveal how much we adjusted 】

From all sources, “more pan-green supporters were willing to express their preferences” seems to be nothing but a rumor that many took as a fact.

In the mean time, less than 2 weeks before the voting, the xFuture has been predicting that Tsai lead Ma by 6~ 12% for 4 weeks ...

UDN's Editorial:

選宋楚瑜就是選蔡英文

【聯合報╱社論】
2012.01.02 03:10 am

有人說，「選宋楚瑜就是選蔡英文」，宋楚瑜揚言提告；然而，「選宋楚瑜就是選蔡英文」，已是昭然若揭的事實。

這是以數字推演出來的結論。一般的說法是：若以蔡英文的得票率為四十七％當做準據，則馬英九若要贏蔡英文，就至少必須得票四十八％。四十七加四十八，餘下的空間只有百分之五；也就是說，在此一架構下，宋楚瑜的得票若超過百分之五，馬必落選。

此一架構的假設前提是蔡英文得票四十七％。有兩個參考點，可以支持此項假設。一、謝長廷在二○○八得票約四十二％，而此時民進黨的氣勢勝二○○八的民進黨，此時蔡的聲勢勝二○○八的謝，因此蔡英文的得票至少可從四十二％起跳。二、陳水扁在二○○四年得票五十‧一一％，當年雖有三一九槍擊案影響，但無論如何皆顯示民進黨有得票近五十％的潛力；而此時民進黨的氣勢勝二○○四年，此時的蔡勝二○○四的扁，因此蔡的得票率亦有向五十％趨近的實力。從這兩個參數作出蔡英文得票四十七％的推論，具有說服力。

如前所述，在這個架構下，宋若得票超過五％，馬即落選。那麼，宋的得票會不會有五％呢？答案是有可能。因為，五％就是六十五萬票，若以全國一萬五千個票匭來計算，只要宋楚瑜在每一個票匭開出四十幾票，就能達到那個票數，怎謂沒有可能？

也就是說，宋要拿到五％選票，從統計的常態分布來看，是有可能的（他在二○○六台北市長選舉得票四‧一四％）；反過來說，如果宋楚瑜拿不到五％，則那種選民的表現所透露的對世局國情的深刻成熟思考，才是統計學及社會學上的異態，反而可以令人驚異不置。

此次選舉唯一可以確切預言之事，就是宋楚瑜絕對不會當選。因為，仍以蔡得票四十七％為準據，宋若要當選，須獲四十八％選票，也就是要將馬壓至五％以下；但如今宋的民調在六至七％徘徊，其看好率則在一％以下，甚至有時低至○‧一％。宋之絕對不會當選，是當然與必然之理，亦為宋楚瑜自己心知肚明之事。

此時宋能拉到的選票，絕對大多數應是泛藍的選票。因為，宋標舉的是極統觀點，不可能有泛綠選民把票投給宋；所以，宋拉到的每一張泛藍選票，都會造成使馬落選的壓力，亦將成為使蔡當選的助力。因此，選宋楚瑜就是選蔡英文，這個論點可謂理所當然，毫無疑問。

問題在於：宋楚瑜執意倒馬挺蔡，卻陷於自我矛盾之中。宋楚瑜的中心觀點仍在國憲認同與兩岸政策，他公開肯定馬的ＥＣＦＡ是「重大努力」，又公開指蔡之否定九二共識「後果嚴重」；倘若這是宋的真信仰，他卻要拉下「重大努力」的馬，而要拉上「後果嚴重」的蔡，這豈不是自相矛盾？

沒有人比宋楚瑜更知道他絕對不會當選，也很少人比宋楚瑜更知道蔡英文若當選，將在國憲認同及兩岸關係上發生的「嚴重後果」。有人問起「五％生死門」的問題，宋楚瑜說：「重要的不是五％，而是誰能不讓台灣趴下去！」但是，宋楚瑜如今正在做的事，就是要拚命拉下馬英九，將台灣綁在蔡英文的台獨戰車上，親眼目送台灣就這樣趴下去！

宋楚瑜如果有一丁點為國為民的不忍之念，即使他有千般百般的私仇私恨，也沒有理由裹惑五％的選民與他一起去製造「嚴重的後果」，「讓台灣趴下去」。宋楚瑜明明知道他自己是在摧毀國脈傷害台灣，但那些迄今仍支持他的泛藍選民，尚以為是在伸張正義救國家；那些泛藍選民難道知道：宋楚瑜現在要利用他們去做的，其實是等於要他們扶助蔡英文做中華民國總統？

選情緊繃，間不容髮。除非蔡英文可衝破五十％過半選票，或蔡英文的選票低於四十五％；否則，宋楚瑜的得票高低必定是馬英九能否當選的決定性因素。一％十三萬票，莫說五％是生死門，一％都可能決定馬蔡二人的生死。

宋楚瑜必須說明的是，「棄馬保台」難道就是他的救國方略？他說，現在如果不選了，「連人都做不成了」；但當他在一月十四日若與蔡英文共同實現了「棄馬保台」的台獨大業，莫說「人做不成」，當他揹上「汪精衛／吳三桂」的罵名，恐怕另日也無顏見他那為捍衛中華民國而浴血苦戰的亡父宋達於地下了！

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【2012/01/02 聯合報】@ http://udn.com/

全文網址: 選宋楚瑜就是選蔡英文 | 社論 | 意見評論 | 聯合新聞網 http://udn.com/NEWS/OPINION/OPI1/6818432.shtml#ixzz1iH3HmaUC

The Shutting Down of a Reputable Poll Center

A quick response to Michael's blog about the sudden shutdown of Global Views' (遠見) poll center. I don't have time to gather references like I usually did, so bare with me.

The following is some background info that might be helpful to understand the context behind what's going on:

1. Back in 2000 when there were 3-way campaign for the president: KMT Lien (連戰), PFP Soong (宋楚瑜), and DPP Chen (陳水扁) -- that is, 2 blue and 1 green, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then Lien's campaign manager(?), announced a poll result right before the voting day, saying that Lien already won over Soong in polls by a large margin, asking blue supporters to focus their votes on Lien but not waste it on Soong.

The election result was that Soong lost to Chen by only a small margin, but Lien's votes were barely half of Soong's, making Chen the president. If Ma didn't announce that poll to tell people Lien already won huge in polls, most likely Soong would have taken more votes than Chen did, and the blue would never have lost the government to the green.

That is, Ma is not only the critical reason for Soong to lose the president race in 2000, he is also the grandfather of "fabricating polls."

Because of Ma's behavior, Taiwan passed a law to forbid poll announcements one week before any election.

2. Starting from May this year, the numbers of polls conducted by pro-KMT media were abnormally high. They run like a poll every two or three days. It feels like that the entire news field is flooded with polls intentionally;

3. The poll center of the Global Views was established by the director Mr. Dai (戴立安) several years ago. GV's polls is considered somewhat more neutral and objective in Taiwan;

4. Every poll has to be weighted based on the distribution of gender, age, etc. The GV used to publish the weighted polls. But starting from May this year, they started publishing only rough data (which always show Ma won), and hide the weighted result behind a pay program. Users have to pay to peek into the real result. The GV warned to sue anyone who publishes the real result;

5. According to words accidentally slipped out of people's mouth, DPP's candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) probably (note: I put this word to protect myself) won over Ma by a margin of ~7% in the GV's real result. This result is very different from ALL OTHER pro-KMT polls (they all say Ma won; some polls say Ma won by more than 10%);

6. Not long ago, the GV announced that they will put more effort to bring the race to the people by conducting more more reliable polls on the president race, starting from October;

7. Then suddenly, without any sign, the GV shuts down their political poll center. Mr. Dai (戴立安) resigned, giving up the entire polling model he established and maintained. Some sources said he might be forced to leave;

8. In an interview, Dai said that Tsai won Ma by 4~6%;

So, now, here we are. Now all those pro-KMT polls can publish any result they want -- just like Ma Ying-jeou the Grandfather of False Polls did in 2000 -- without any other poll standing in their way.


#1. Global Views Shuts Down Polling! =UPDATED=
http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/2011/10/global-views-shuts-down-polling.html

Tsai Ing-wen for 2012

After revealing her intention of running for the president two days ago (3/9), DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) delivered a speech, titled "I heard Taiwan's voices - Tsai Ing-wen for the DPP presidential primary" in a press conference today to make the formal announcement, becoming the 2nd to roll into the race - after former VP Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).

It probably took many by surprise, cos judging from the behaviors of all potential runners in the past, people might expect that Su Tseng-Chang (蘇貞昌) would have made his announcement before Tsai did. Su managed to put himself into the spotlight again and again with activities one after another - music concert, book publishing, photo exhibition, etc, since his a-bit-embarrassing loss in Taipei mayor election last year (Nov, 2010) -- an election in which he behaved in a not-very-glorious manner of total disregard on the power and responsibility structure of the DPP. Not following the nomination process, he made a public announcement of his intention to run for the Taipei mayor at a time of turmoil when the DPP was suffering the possibilities of splitting and losing in the two southern cities, Tainan and in Kaohsiung. His move forced Tsai and the nomination team of the DPP to face a choice of either accepting his term unconditionally, or suffering a storm of yet another splitting on the north if they opted to pick a candidate of their choice to run for Taipei (not Su) by following the nomination rule. That wasn't really a choice for the DPP, 'cos they couldn't possibly afford to having another splitting impact. As a result, Tsai and the nomination team were forced to bend the rule for Su. Su's move was considered a power-grabbing one, made at the cost of his own party and comrades having to give away their power of determining candidates. Since Su wasn't in any party staff or official, it became that he took the power that was not followed by responsibilities. It apparently angered many green supporters.

With that inglorious history, as well as some very questionable moves he made in the past, it's natural for people to expect him to behave the same way to make an early announcement.

But the DPP's president candidate is to be decided solely by public opinion polls in which Su doesn't seem to get an edge, albeit the continuous effort of the Liberty Times to promote him by (systematically) filtering out positive news about Tsai Ing-wen -- sometimes you have to go to the pro-blue media, or even China Review News, to see important news about Tsai. Last week, when reporting an article of aiming at criticizing Tsai and promoting Su, the Liberty Times deleted a sentence, "(Su) himself voluntarily told DPP legislators that his support in polls was advancing" (告知自己民調逐步攀升的訊息), which (accidentally) revealed the secret of whom might have been behind a recently circulated rumor that Su was leading in DPP's internal polls (the DPP denied any internal poll was ever conducted). It doesn't look good for Su. The LT reported everything else (criticizing Tsai and promoting Su), but this sentence was deleted. Other media - if they do report it - reported that sentence faithfully. The most recent filtering of Tsai's news was a speech, titled "Dynamic new world - the young generations and the future" (變動中的新世界-青年世代與未來), given by Tsai to university students. The speech is an important one to show Tsai's vision on future generations and is a prelude of her speech today. It can be found in many media but not the LT.

And these are just a few of many many examples. The LT has been criticized to operate like Su's personal advocating organ ever since the infighting between Hsieh and Su for the previous presidential primary way back in 2007. For its bravery of continuous flattering Su albeit years of complaints, the LT (自由時報) has earned itself a nickname "自由蘇報", where 蘇 stands for Su.

So it makes no surprise that the LT continues its tradition of blowing Su's popularity out of proportion, which would mislead its readers into believing that Su is in the lead. But all that efforts don't seem to make a significant achievement this time. The following are some quick pointers of support rates (in percentage) between Tsai and Su:

Date	Tsai	Su	Host	Type*	Stance^
1/21	23%	25%	TVBS	Calls	blue/red
1/21	37%	38%	TVBS	Calls/Comp	blue/red
2/12	81%	5%	Black Rain blog	Online	green~blue
2/24	42%	23%	Apple Daily	Calls	green~blue
2/25	73%	13%	Boss Talk	Call-in	Deep Green
3/1	37%	39%	TVBS	Calls/Comp	blue/red
3/1	65%	31%	Future Market	Market	green~blue
3/8	69%	30.6%	Future Market	Market	green~blue
3/9	73%	25.5%	Future Market	Market	green~blue #
3/10	31%	31%	udn.com	Calls/Comp	blue/red
3/11	77%	19.5%	Future Market	Market	green~blue @

* Comp in Type: means the data was collected as a comparison against Ma Ying-jeou; ^ "Stance" on the right column displays my opinion on which political stance each host holds. green=pro-Taiwan; blue=pro-China; red=China (note: some consider the "Black Rain Blog" deep-green); # collected from the Future Market website about 12~16 hrs after Tsai's running intent was reported, showing that the gap between Tsai and Su was enlarged significantly; @ collected 2 hrs after Tsai's announcement speech, with even bigger gap. Now Su's support drops down to about 1/4 of Tsai's.


One thing noteworthy is that the only host media reporting Su is barely winning over Tsai is TVBS, which aligns very well with the "promoting Su, denouncing Tsai" phenomena seen in the blue camp. All the other available data - except that of udn, which happens to be a pro-blue media - shows that not only is Su losing to Tsai, but also he is losing big. At best, Su can only get half of what Tsai has. The report (on 3/8) of Tsai intents to run boosted Tsai's support by 4% and lowerer Su's by 5.1% (a 9.1% gap), and the formal announcement today (3/11) put another 10% gap between them, making Su's support barely higher than 1/4 of Tsai's.

Not only so. Even before Tsai expressed her intent, there are groups of different stances formally expressed their endorsement on Tsai: domestic and oversea scholars and researchers, WUFI, students and The Formosan Statehood Movement. I haven't seen any group come out to endorse Su.

With the huge odds against him, Su's only chance is to "bypass the game rule" again, by pushing a coordination process in which a consensus might be reached in a closed door manner, with the endorsements from several DPP old guards who are supporting him and/or against Tsai.

He first made a move to have a so-called secret meeting - a secret meeting that was all over the news immediately - to initiate a talk with Tsai, such that "Su is the one who is seeking consolidation but not friction."

About a week later (3/6), a more formal meeting, consisting of all those important DPP big heads, was held. It was said that a consensus was reached -- on the sense of the necessity of consolidation, but not the sense of who should be the one.

Tsai's sudden announcement came two days after that meeting. Something probably happened - or should have but did not - during that meeting, pushing Tsai to think that it's the right time for her to come out. One explanation is that those old guards in the DPP attempted to enforce a "Tsai-Su" pair or even "Su-Tsai" pair, bypassing the polls entirely. The attempt might have been sensed by Tsai, and a quick decision to announce her campaign was needed to stop the manifestation of that attempt.

There's another explanation that Tsai has got everything set in the party, in such a way that if she leaves the chair position now, the party could move forward smoothly for the future duties.

Tsai will take a leave from the chairperson post. It was originally circulated that Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) could be assigned the acting chairperson to perform the party duty. Hsieh has done an excellent job organizing the campaign for the DPP in Taichung last year during the Five-City election, and has maintained good relationship with Tsai and her team. Surprisingly, DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) was picked as the acting chairperson instead. It was said that Tsai wants to avoid the impression of a Tsai-Hsieh alliance that could potentially intensify the conflict of sector fighting inside the DPP.

Tsai has already organized part of her campaign team, some were party staff, resigned from their posts to follow her. It fits well with her style -- everything thoroughly thought and well planned before making a move.

In the mean time, a Central Standing Committee meeting held on Wednesday (3/9/2011) decided to assign 5 people as members of Polling Committee (民意調查委員會) to operate the upcoming polls for nomination of candidates.

The committee will decide 5 organizations on 4/25 to carry out the polls for the president primary, with 3000 valid samples in each poll. The primary process is scheduled as follows:

3/17: announcement of primary process
3/21~3/25: registration
3/31~4/22: speeches for each runner
4/25~4/29: polls
5/4: announcement of presidential candidate

Poll Shows Ma's China Approach Is Overwhelmingly Unsupported by the People

China insists that the One China Principle -- (1) There's only one China; (2) This China is PROC; (3) Taiwan is part of China -- is the precondition to sign any agreement with Taiwan.

Ma Ying-jeou insists -- against the view of whole world -- that the term "China" refers to the ROC, the current government in Taiwan, but not PROC.

No matter what, both China and Ma agree with the concept of "one-China", and Taiwan is not a state of her own but just part of that one-China.

Never have we heard that Ma opposes the One China Principle. There's no doubt that he wouldn't hesitate to sign any agreement with China under the premise of One China Principle.

Recently, Ma has repeatedly claimed that the ECFA between Taiwan and China has already been decided (勢在必行, which means "must be done". Google with these keywords: 馬英九 ECFA 勢在必行) and he will not accept a referendum be held over it because (1) we can't run a referendum on every single subject (TT interview) and (2) it has already got the support of majority in Taiwan.

Taiwanese never ask to hold the referendum on every single subject. Ma's excuse is simply a ridiculous generalization to hide his anti-democracy mindset. (Michael's)

And the claim of majority support doesn't come close either.

A poll announced yesterday shows that 80.2% of Taiwanese oppose ECFA, or similar economic agreement, under one-china framework.

Ma Ying-jeou also strongly opposes the idea that the ECFA has to be approved by the Legislative Yuan before signing. He insists on signing it first, then send the signed agreement to Legislative Yuan for "review."

He argues that under his administration any agreement signed with China will not take effect if it is not approved by the LY.

That's an out right lie.

Just 4 months ago, Chiang-Chen Agreement (江陳協議), the agreement signed with China without the approval of LY, took effect "automatically" in December 13th. It wasn't even reviewed by the LY (江陳會協議交協商 今自動生效).

That is, the agreement took effect behind people's back -- without any review by the people, let alone an approval.

If Ma "respects people's opinion" as he honey-tongues repeatedly, and sincerely thinks that LY should be the guard to any agreement his government signs with China, then why does he insists on signing it first before sending it to the LY ?

It seems that Ma Ying-jeou is again playing the same trick of "automatically taking effect" as that in the Chiang-Chen Agreement case in order to avoid the monitoring of ECFA by Taiwan people.

But this time, the people might not cut him a slack. The aforementioned poll shows that as much as 89.2% think that the ECFA should be discussed and monitored by LY before it is signed. This high rate is non-partisan -- even 88% of pro-blue supporters disagree with Ma's tactic.

On the ECFA referendum issue, the poll result also slaps Ma on the face -- 63.5 % think that the ECFA should be decided by a referendum.

Check out how far Ma Ying-jeou goes into the la la land from the entire poll shown below. Any error in translation is on me.

Poll on Ma Ying-jeou's China approach (Mar 13, 2009) Note: the right column (in blueish background) represents Ma Ying-jeou's position on cross-Strait issues.
1. Know about CECA/ECFA	Yes: 44.1%	No: 44.7% (Never heard: 11.2%)
2. If Taiwan doesn't strengthen the economic cooperation with China, will Taiwan be excluded by the international economy and trade community ?	No: 56.8%	Yes: 37.6%
3. Will further economic cooperation with China make Taiwan over-dependent in China and jeopardize Taiwan's autonomy?	Yes:	No:
All	48.8%	43.3%
Pro-blue	32%	63%
Pro-green+non-partisan	77%	(n/a)
4. Are you worried that the cross-Strait economic cooperation will bring large influx of low-cost daily and agriculture products, causing negative effects on Taiwan's traditional business or even unemployment?	Yes: 70.7%	No: 27.4%
5. Should the ruling party discuss with the opposition parties to get consensus before negotiating issues like CECA/ECFA with China ?	Yes: 78.2%	No: 17.8%
6. Should the CECA/ECFA be discussed and monitored by the Legislative Yuan before it is signed ?	Yes:	No:
All	89.2%	6.7%
Pro-blue	88.0%	(n/a)
7. Agree that signing CECA/ECFA might involve in the sovereignty, so should be determined by a referendum ?	Yes: 63.8%	No: 32.3%
8. Have the confidence that Ma's government is capable of standing up for Taiwan's rights and interests in cross-Strait negotiations?	No: 53.6%	Yes: 41.3%
9. Can accept the signing of economic cooperation agreements with China under the precondition of "One China Principle"? (Note: The trend of response is the same for non-partisan, green and blue)	No: 80.2%	Yes: 13.3%
10. Should the economy and trade cooperation with China be moderately controlled, or should all restrictions be lifted?	Moderate Control: 81.7%	All lifted: 12.8%
Source: DPP's announcement on 3/13/09, "81.7%民眾認為兩岸經貿應適度管制 馬政府必須正視人民的聲音" (Translated to English by Taiwan_Echo)

Note: Check out Tim Maddog's recent post on a poll (Ma Ying-jeou's spokesman distorts the truth) that shows how Ma's government cheats her people by advocating Taiwanese opinion that is completely opposite to the reality.