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Monday, November 26, 2007

The Creative Arithmetic of The Steadmann Polls

I badly need some further education in mathematics to understand something that really puzzles me.

I wasn’t really all the bad in maths and I scored a decent credit in my O-levels, however my limited knowledge is obviously not enough to enable me fully grasp the latest Steadmann poll.

Here’s my simple question.

How is it possible for a presidential candidate to lead convincingly in 6 provinces but end up tying with his opponent who has a strong showing in only two provinces?

Don’t get me wrong. I am genuinely looking for answers here because I believe there is a logical explanation to this. One of the possibilities of course could be the fact that the single community, from which the latter presidential candidate is receiving most of his support from, outnumbers several other top communities in Kenya put together.

Having said that, let me add that the Steadmann folks are way too sensitive to effectively handle the very public and very political tool that they are dealing with here. Right from the word go senior executives have been leaving comments in this blog whose main aim is to ridicule rather than “educate” us so that we understand this polls thing better.

A recent comment by A Steadmann executive has even taken a cheap shot at this blogger. The comment appears below THIS RECENT POST which was written by Phil (and not by me as our Steadmann executive seems to believe).

At one point the obviously uninformed Steadmann sympathizer says of this blog and blogger;

So if you ask me all this is just propaganda to ensure Kumekucha gets more hits, have you people ever asked yourselves how much money this guy gets from this blog? did you maybe think that he cleverly makes up this stories to ensure you all get fired up and keep posting comments not mentioning visiting this blog every other day.

This cheap attempt to incite readers against this blog is uncalled for and it is clear that the Steadmann folks understand very little about blogging and this blog in particular. (Admittedly as little as we understand about their sensational and erratic polls).

For the record, a decision was taken a few weeks ago to allow top commentators to make uncensored posts in this blog. The idea was to ensure a balance and for this reason we now have top authors in this blog from across the political divide and beyond. For instance, there are those who are die hard ODM supporters (and have no qualms letting everybody know about it) and we also have fanatical PNU and ODM-K supporters. And finally we have the horseless or neutral guys. Incidentally the post that so irked the Steadman executive so much so that he felt obligated to take his cheap shot, was penned by Phil aka “rabidly ODM”.

My advice to Steadmann is not to waste energy targeting the messenger but rather to address themselves to the message. It is no secret that in most Kenyan’s eyes, Steadmann has lost all credibility, indeed many readers (from right across the political divide) have said so here. That is not Kumekucha’s fault.

Their energies badly need to be directed towards repairing their public image and in “educating” Kenyans more so that we can understand their polls better and thus say the more flattering things about them that they so badly crave.

P.S. I dare these so-called anonymous Steadmann symptahizers leaving comments here to use their real names and job titles and quit hiding behind the anonymous tag.