Venezuela's Chavez likely to win re-election -poll

[Flanker]

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez holds an 18-point lead over his closest rival and likely will be re-election on Dec. 3, a telephone survey showed on Thursday.

Private Venezuelan pollster Hinterlaces surveyed different groups of 1,500 people every two days between Oct. 9 and Nov. 3, asking them how they would vote.

Chavez's support fell to 45 percent from 51 percent during that period while support for his main challenger, Manuel Rosales, fell to 27 percent from 31 percent.

...

The result are in line with most other surveys that have given Chavez a lead of between 18 and 35 points. A survey released by Hinterlaces in September also gave Chavez an 18-point lead, but was based on different methodology

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/11/10/worldupdates/2006-11-10T011807Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-275681-1&sec=worldupdates

A few things to note Hinterlaces ranks #2 as one of the most anti-Chavez pollsters in Venezuela, (The first does not even releases voter intention because it is that bad) and still the best poll they can do is an 18 point lead.

[David__77]

1. Chavez will win in a landslide.

He's taking the country in the right direction. The only thing I don't like is all the country's trash winding up in Miami.

[IntiRaymi]

8. They'll piss and moan like the Cubans.

Oh, to be a member of a dispossessed elite.

[HappySavage]

15. So I guess I'm trash, then?

You sound just like him, insulting those who don't agree with his "revolution".

What exactly do you know about Chavez and Venezuela (besides what you've read on the Internet, that is)? Have you ever actually heard him speak? Have you taken a fact-finding trip to Venezuela to see for yourself the "achievements" of the "revolution", or are you content with swallowing the propaganda Venpres spews out? Are you familiar with any other "revolutionaries" besides Chavez like Jose Vicente Rangel, Jesse Chacon, Lina Ron, etc? Do you know why Venezuela's oil production has dropped since Chavez took over PDVSA? Did you watch the video of the president of PDVSA telling the employees to support the "revolution"...or else? Do you know why Chavez has given so much money away to other countries (like paying off Argentina's national debt) rather than fixing the most basic infrastructure problems? Because quite frankly, the roads are falling apart, bridges are collapsing, the streets are full of trash, the public hospitals are a disgrace, and so on and so on. Renaming stuff and politicizing the hell out of it is not the same as helping the poor. Ever heard of Acude and Corpomercadeo AKA Mision Robinson and Mercal? I doubt it.

Oh, and by the way, being anti-Chavez != pro-Bush.

I honestly thought Democrats were more rational than Republicans. I really did. I thought they were more enlightened (and less full of shit) than the Republicans and the Jesus freaks, but I guess I was wrong. They never met a war they didn't like, provided someone else fought it, and you never met a "revolution" you didn't like, provided it took place in another country.

Ever wonder why some Cubans over the last 47 years have risked their life to get out of that hellhole? If it's so wonderful, why don't they stay? Hmm, let me guess...because they're a bunch of fascists, right?

[Judi Lynn]

19. From whom are the Mexicans fleeing, so many that hundreds die each year

trying to get here? And there isn't even a crushing US embargo on their country!

I never fail to be amazed that ANYONE is stupid enough to pretend Cubans, coming to America to accept instant free legal status, with NO immigration agents chasing them around, to accept the benefits of US-taxpayer-donated Section 8 housing, food stamps, welfare, medical treatment, instant work visa, etc., etc., etc. are running from worse conditions than those involved in Caribbean migration, or Mexican, or Central American people who come through Mexico to the U.S.

Hundreds and hundreds die annually in the desert, the river, in the ocean coming from all over this hemisphere, and only the Cubans are allowed to stroll in, unchallenged, and start dipping their hands in the US taxpayer-financed cookie jar. Only Cubans are the wealthiest Hispanic immigrant group in the U.S.

By the way, just love what you've done to Miami, named the "Poorest city in the United States with a Population Over 500,000" multiple times by the United States Census Bureau, and also named "Terrorists Capital of the United States" by the FBI. Cool.

[Judi Lynn]

16. Isn't that the truth? So much trash there now. Too damned bad.

When; the entire world was out in the streets protesting _Bush's coming war, in Miami the Cuban right-wing idiots combined with the right-wing Venezuelans who moved there and had their own anti-Chavez parade, with two of the coup-leaders as the guests of honor.

Pathetic asses.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. It's been a good week for democracy.

[Matilda]

3. Yeah - smell the roses.

Life's good.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. At the moment I read your post, "I Can See Clearly Now" came on my playlist

Almost Jungian, I daresay.

[bemildred]

4. "between 18 and 35 points"

Well, they have certainly got that nailed down.
:rofl:

[Pastiche423]

5. He's going to win, I just know it!

[Judi Lynn]

6. Here's a decent reference to Hugo Chavez's career in Venzuelan politics:

A beacon of hope for the rebirth of Bolívar's dream

A shadow of his former self, Ortega's victory is still an expression of the wider demand for change sweeping Latin America

Tariq Ali
Thursday November 9, 2006
The Guardian

~snip~
Chávez was first elected president of Venezuela in February 1999, 10 years after a popular insurrection against the IMF readjustment programme had been brutally crushed by Carlos Andrés Peréz, whose party was once the largest affiliate of the Socialist International. In his election campaign Peréz had denounced the economists on the World Bank's payroll as "genocide workers in the pay of economic totalitarianism" and the IMF as "a neutron bomb that killed people, but left buildings standing".

Afterwards he caved in to the demands of both institutions, suspended the constitution, declared a state of emergency and ordered the army to mow down the protesters. More than 2,000 poor people were shot dead by troops. This was the founding moment of the Bolivarian upheaval in Venezuela.

Chávez and other junior officers organised to protest against the misuse and corruption of the army. In 1992 the radical officers organised a rebellion against those who had authorised the butchery. It failed because it was soon after the traumas of 1989, but people did not forget. That is how the new Bolivarians came to power and began to slowly and cautiously implement social-democratic reforms, reminiscent of Roosevelt's New Deal and the policies of the 1945 Labour government. In a world dominated by the Washington consensus this was unacceptable. Hence the drive to topple him. Hence the demand by Pat Robertson, the leader of political Christianity in the US, that Washington should organise the immediate assassination of Chávez. Venezuela, till now an obscure country as far as the rest of the world was concerned, suddenly became a beacon.

The majority of the people who elected Chávez were angry and determined. They had felt unrepresented for 10 years; they had been betrayed by the traditional parties; they disapproved of the neoliberal policies then in force, which consisted of an assault on the poor in order to shore up a parasitical oligarchy and a corrupt civilian and trade-union bureaucracy. They disapproved of the use that was made of the country's oil reserves. They disapproved of the arrogance of the Venezuelan elite, which utilised wealth and a lighter skin colour to sustain itself at the expense of the dark-skinned and poor majority. Electing Chávez was their revenge.

When it became clear that Chávez was determined to make modest changes to the country's social structure, Washington sounded the tocsin. Nowhere has the embittered bigotry emanating from this quarter been more evident than in its actions and propaganda against Venezuela, with the Financial Times and the Economist in the forefront of a massive disinformation campaign.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1942878,00.html

[IntiRaymi]

9. This is the brutality of the system:

More than 2,000 poor people were shot dead by troops. This was the founding moment of the Bolivarian upheaval in Venezuela.

Latest smear: Chavez is an antisemite.

The punches come from all directions, apparently.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Absolutely! Right-wingers are tying themselves in knots these days,

trying to go against their OWN prejuidices in order to smear a possible "lib'rul" in the eyes of other "lib'ruls."

That's how you get stinking racists trying to counsel and guide moderates and progressives, informing them that Chavez is "buddies" with Iranians, with anti-abortionists, etc. They don't realize that while they're busy pointing at Chavez, a lot of us are still staring at them!

[IntiRaymi]

11. What dependence does Chavez have on American Liberals?

This escapes me.
Why does smearing him as an antisemite have to happen in the american media?

[Judi Lynn]

12. Yeah, that doesn't make sense, does it? I think it comes from a deeper region.

I imagine a right-wing political group, like the Republicans, known for meddling in Latin America for ages, for financing and directing death squads, running covert operations, murdering and slaughtering as many suspected "leftists" as humanly possible through puppet dictators, just do NOT want any part of the American public to be capable of opposing them if it is learned they are going to get into some very heavy aggression against Venezuela's very popular (in Venezuela) President.

I think they want to control us because they are afraid we can cause them problems if they try to shove the man around, or knock him off, as they have with so many OTHER leaders already. They don't want to have to fight us, too.

Their twisted troll followers streak to their keyboards and get in everyone's way trying to fight with people who know something about the man and his history, and his policies.

[IntiRaymi]

14. Class warfare in south america is intense.

I know this firsthand. Elites are more beholden to the USA than they are to their homecountries - I sometimes wonder if political influence HERE causes the media to say these things.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Well, after all the mergers, and the media falling into the hands of HUGE

corporations, it has all taken a hard right turn, hasn't it?

It would be heaven if the Congress ahead makes some headway in re-instating the Fairness Doctrine, and breaking up the choke-hold the corporations have on our basic news sources.

[Selatius]

13. Telephone surveys are automatically weighted against Chavez

The income disparity had grown so wide in Venezuela before Chavez that most of the country is so poor that few of them have a phone. The IMF program of privatization and neoliberalism wrecked the nation. Chavez has had to move in the opposite direction towards the equivalent of the New Deal.

The fact that the phone poll, weighted against him, still show him ahead should be taken as a sign of how popular he is with his people.

[Judi Lynn]

18. The phone poll results are very interesting!

As for the poverty problem, around the time of the coup, a DU'er woman who used to live there also mentioned that the phone polls basically reach the wealthier Venezuelans, as the poor simply don't have them, and there are so many poor people.

Also, door-to-door inquiries don't help much, as those people, like Venezuelan doctors just will NOT go into the barrios among the poor.

Only a decent, non-oligarchical government can keep Venezuela going in the right direction and bring the help Venezuelans need, and that's going to take time, since it took so many years of crude, mindless greed from the oligarchs to get into that horrendous condition.