30 Replies to “About Those Polls”

  1. That’s why I don’t put much stake in polls.
    A politician uses statistics as a drunk uses a lamp post – for support rather than illumination.

  2. They’ve been doing other tricks like oversampling women, under-30s and minorities too. And in a sign that Obama’s in deep doo-doo, they’ve been undersampling Independents.

  4. Couldnt this backfire by constantly saying O is our front wouldn’t that push those on the right to get out to vote in even larger numbers?

  5. Duffman, the Dem-proxies realize that conservatives are already highly motivated to vote to unseat Obama. What these highly suspect “polls” (they’re really just propaganda) do is 1) make some conservatives will start to wonder how it could be, given the nasty state of the economy and Obama’s ineptness, that Romney’s not in front, which the in-the-Dem-pocket media hope will lead to questions/issues about his viability as a candidate, and transfer some of the heat that’s on Obama to Romney; 2) give the appearance of legitimacy to Obama and his policies; those who’ve been doubting their past support for Obama can say to themselves, “well, he’s still popular, so maybe I was too hard on him…”
    A lot of sheeple have a tendency to back the strong horse; they just sort of go with the herd. These highly-biased polls are definitely favourable to Obama’s campaign when it comes to those people, because they give the appearance that he’s legit and supported by the majority of Americans.

  6. Duffman,
    One of the goals of battle is to defeat your opponent morally, not morale, but to the point that the give up the underpinning reason for fighting.
    The puffing up of the poll is two-fold. Prevent the preference cascade against Obama. Once people realize there is blood in the water then his defeat becomes more likely. secondly to not give any oxygen to the opponent, if he is seen as a challenger he will only ever be a challenger. This is also why Obama keeps making self references to being President, it isnt JUST ego. Obama makes the refernces to reinforce the force of office.
    The debates will be key, particularly that first moment on stage. There is no picture that I can find where Obama and Romney appear together. I am sure the Obama campaign wants to prevent that. Image matters, and Obama is cemented in peoples minds as President now, but Romney “gives good suit” and is a smart and articulate debater, now Churchill but neither is Obama.
    That first image will be where many voters will see and hear romney unfiltered, and Obama unsupported, by MSM for the first time. Romney can win or lose the election in the first 15 minutes of that debate.

  7. Please read Mark Steyn’s latest column.
    The whole episode in the middle east is so very tragic.
    When is the public going to wake up to the amateurs who are running the USA govt.
    Very sad. So many people are dying because of the incompetence.
    RIP Mr. Ambassador and the 3 young men killed with him.

  8. It will indeed be interesting to watch the 1st debate, just to see how many teleprompters they can fit on the stage for the Chimp in Chief. It just wouldn’t look right to have him reading the answers to his pre-scripted questions off a sheet at the podium…

  9. Obama will easily win the next election. Romney is such a weak candidate. Obama is much superior.
    Obama leads in the key swing states so I read.
    Then ET will go on fury for the next 4 years posting the same message many times per day about how Obama is this or that.
    That will be fun.

  11. For Obama to win, he must try to suppress the Republican vote and at the same time maximize his chances with those very few swing voters left.
    The polls are one way to get these swing votes to think he is still popular. Zombie had a post about these voters yesterday.

  12. EBD, nice analysis. I think you are completely right.
    Stephen, with regard to the debates, a key problem which the GOP are aware of, is that Obama is a pathological liar. He says whatever he makes up; it has no reference to any factual reality. It’s just to manipulate the audience. Romney can’t spend all his time on stage rebutting Obama’s lies. So, Obama will get away with the lies.

  13. Posted by: Quebecois NDP separatiste at September 16, 2012 8:13 AM
    If you trolled any harder you would demolish the bridge you live under.
    d

  14. ET,
    Dont disagree that the Dems and Obama in particular is willing to tell complete and utter falsehoods, not just spin.
    My point was that the image Americans will see on that debate stage rather than the content. No pomp, no seals, no flags they are equals. That image of the two together will be jarring for Obama because he wont stand out the same way he did versus McCain.
    Content, well yes Romeny cant just be rebutting. However, he needs to be prepared to point out the whoppers on Obama’s record. What will be difficult is if Obama starts fibbing about Romney.
    Why do I think there will be some claim of a release of tax returns prior to one of the debates, likely the second if Romney wins the first one.
    Romeny is a nice guy but is quite capable of sticking the shiv in during a debate. Whether he will or not is another matter. The point is people will make up their own minds unfiltered no matter what the post debate analysis is. How many times have we seen that in our elections. How many times was Harper declared the loser of the debate? That picture putting romney on the same level as Obama is the one picture Obama is trying to avoid.
    Watch Obama makes comments like, “thats what you learn when you are President.” “Being the President…”, “As Preseident…..” “Making tough decisions as President….”
    If Romney plays it right he will find ways to get under obama’s skin on experience and leadership…the things that bug Obama the most….Obama reacts very badly to these charges, being the smartest President evah, and when he reacts badly he comes across as angry, arrogamt and pissy….thats the goal.

  15. Polls are not meant to inform, they’re meant to influence.
    Weak minded people are extremely easy to influence. If you require proof of that, just refer to Quebecois NDP separatiste’s post above.

  16. Ah, I see your point. It’s a performance of the two, and yes, I can just see Obama constantly referring to Himself as The President. And yes, Obama is very thin-skinned and doesn’t accept confrontation or questions about His Superiority very well.
    In my conspiracy hours, I worry that he’ll be ‘bugged’, ie, have some inner ear device where his backroom boys will be feeding him information, since he himself is clueless about most issues.

  17. A shocking revelation! Polls oversampling democrats show the democrats with a lead correlated to the oversampling in the surveys! Who knew? Nobel Prize time for somebody (apparently, the achievement standards have been lowered, so you don’t really have to do much anymore to get one, as Barack Obama and Paul Krugman can attest.)
    Interestingly, for the statisticians in the crowd, I’d say that the slope of the simple regression line that could be fit to this data would be pretty shallow, maybe 0.4 or 0.5, meaning that the democrat lead (the dependent variable) appears to be only about half, on average, of the democratic oversampling advantage (the independent variable). And that pattern in pretty much consistent across the entire data set (which to be fair, though, is pretty small). In plain English for everybody else, if you’re Obama, I guess it really sucks that you’re going to get your ass kicked.
    And in respect of that last contribution, I just want you know that I have my flight to Oslo booked.

  19. ET@10:13. I hadn’t thought of that possibility (bug in the ear) but I would absolutely not rule it out. This man is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the people of the US. An inept, narcissistic egomaniac. I would put nothing past this guy.

  20. Et,
    I am sure if the GOP is sure that obama is getting feeds it is some enough to jam the area. There are enough ex CIA and current CIA that would be happy to assist I am sure.
    Nothing would be funnier than seeing Obama wine and grab his ear when the feedback starts.

  22. The polls will simply vindicate the ballot box stuffing which will go on. Combine this with electronic polling and the Dems are in like flint.
    Canada was no dif when the Libel party pollsters were showing a Lin minority government. Blatant attempt to influence voters with no accountability.

  23. Stephen,
    gotta agree with you. Obama will play superior and Romney needs to get under his skin. I think he will succeed. One thing that impresses me about Romney is that he does have sharp elbows and is not afraid to use them. Remember, Obama ran against a candidate last time who basically gave up. In all his previous elections Obama used other means to win. Romney is tough and Obama has never run against a tough opponent.
    Everybody goes on about why Romney is not way ahead. Well Obama has they press pimping for him at every turn. Witness last week. Reagan suffered similar headwinds during his campaign in 1980 (though not nearly as strong). Carter was ahead in the polls until the last week. Reagan won with a convincing plurality.
    While no Reagan, Romney has the ability to speak his mind and this will serve him well.
    My daughter thinks Obama is a twinkie. The sooner that pompous ass exits the world stage the better.

  24. Yeah well….Palinizing Romney or Ryan just don’t work that well….however they did stiff Palin successfully with absolutely nothing…..they claimed she was stupid and inexperienced although she was vastly ahead of OBOZO in every category….
    The duffus public believed them like just they did old Chronkite….who styled the Tet offensive as a Communist victory when it was undeniably a defeat.

  25. Are these samples significantly more over-weighted to Dems than they were in 2008? I remember similar ‘we can’t lose’ bravado back then.
    Romney is an incredibly weak candidate and the worst GOP nom in decades. That and the drooling imbecility of most of the electorate in America (as with the vast majority of countries) makes O victory totally possible and even probable.

  27. LAS,
    Some of them are. The Dems ended up with a D+7 in the actual vote, and it was a high water mark, but I am repeating what is clearly written in the article. Any poll that samples them at a rate beyond that is crazy.
    As for weak nominee. Not than McCain or Dole thats for certain, he is better than both of them as a candidate and the campaign is better than either. I would argue that romney is a better candidate than W but the campaign isnt as strong.
    After the kind of pummelling that romney took in July and August wasn’t everyone surprised that he could still stand?
    Lets se how the debates go. The debate is the critical setpiece, was clear 2 months ago that it would be. And romney still has a ton of money leftover.
    My guess, Romney’s plan involves a push in October to build momentum toward election day, Obama’s campaign was structured around trying to bury Romney before then….Obama’s strat hasn’t worked yet and he has spent an enormous amount of money with high overhead to not acheive his goal.
    The question eventually will turn to how Obama’s campaign hasnt met its goals and whats wrong with it.

  28. In 2008, polls adjusted for the Dem enthusiasm by using a D+7 factor in polling. In other words, they assumed that Dems would turn out at the voting stations by numbers 13% higher than Republicans. In 2004, this factor was basically even. So, when we see a factor used by Reuters and ABC that is actually higher than what they used in 2008, they would have to believe that there will be a higher enthusiasm this time around. I doubt they could rationalize this, so I’m left believing that they are simply fudging the numbers to produce the results they want.
    As someone posted earlier, polls are not intended to inform. They’re intended to influence.

  30. Right. Fox News overweights Democrats in its surveys.
    These polls don’t weight by party. They report party affiliation. It’s an observation.

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