President Bush Stands Athwart The Globe, A Colossus
Published September 18, 2004
News polls:
CBS/New York Times: Bush's post-convention bounce remains intact, if even slightly larger in this poll; Bush now leads Kerry 50 percent to 41 percent among registered voters, giving the President a 9-point margin.
Gallup: Likely voters: Bush-Cheney - 55%; Kerry-Edwards - 42%
John Kerry is French Toast.
But I'm sure he and seasoned trial-lawyer John Edwards will sue anyway...
"Hillary in '08!" Print your signs now! ;-]
(Do you miss Howard Dean yet?)
- President Bush Stands Athwart The Globe, A Colossus
- Published: September 18, 2004
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- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Culture: Media
- Writer: RJ Elliott
- RJ Elliott's BC Writer page
- RJ Elliott's personal site
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Polls do more harm than good
The 9/10 issue of the Economist (p.27) lists a few reasons why polls shouldn't be trusted:
- The most recent Times and Gallup polls surveyed voters they considered "likely to vote" but history has shown that polls of "registered voters" are more likely to predict results more accurately.
- Some polls oversample Republicans so are weighted against Kerry.
- "Pollsters have long recognized [that] people who feel public opinion polls shifting in their direction are more confident about telling polsters what they think than those who don't."
A Newsweek poll has Bush leading Kerry 49 to 43, but used a sample that broke down to 31% Democrats but 38% Republican. If you normalize this to reflect party registration, the results give Kerry the lead. (You can't actually do that statistically - the samples have to be right in the first place - but you get the idea.)
A further problem is that polls showing a candidate winning tend to convince his opponents supporters that this will happen.
There's a detailed look at current polls part way down the page at There's A Problem With The CBS News/NYT Poll As Well, which was weighted GOP: 426 (34%), Dem: 399 (31%), Ind: 462 (36%) ("if this poll had been reweighted to reflect more closely the actual turnout of the 2000 election, Bush's 8-point lead evaporates into a 47%-46% tie").
Also drop a bit further down the page to Why You Should Ignore The Gallup Poll This Morning. The sampling weighting to give Republicans an advantage was GOP: 305 (40%), Dem: 253 (33%), Ind: 208 (28%). ("Gallup just confirmed for me that this is the same sampling methodology they have been using this whole election season, for all their national and state polls")
Strange how the errors keep breaking in Bush's favor.
It's an old tactic: When the polls don't show what you want to see, call the credibility of the polls into question.
In this homestretch of the campaign season, the "Kerrians" are becoming increasingly unhinged from the dire reality of the situation they are in, much like the final weeks of the Third Reich.
Polls are your fetish not mine, RJ, in spite of so many of us telling you time and again that they are not credible.
Oh, And it's interesting to see the Stepford-Republican use of "Unhinged" In your post, As i had explained in my earlier post: The wild-eyed Right Is losing Their Cool And becoming Unhinged.
Newt Gingrich certainly had his target audience pegged.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/19958)
I'm wondering, is this post an indication of how credible you are (the term used by RNC operatives is "useful idiot") or how much contempt you have for the awareness of the public.
In either case, it only reflects badly on whatever you represent. At least it give the rest of us a benchmark -- yes, that's how stupid they think the public is.