Anyone following the presidential campaign through the prism of media polls is doing themselves a serious disservice. Virtually every one uses a polling sample that is so heavily-skewed towards Democrats that it distorts the actual state of the campaign. Of course, that is a feature, not a bug of the polls. The polls are specifically designed to drive a narrative that Obama is surging and Romney is struggling. Increasingly, though, the polls are having to go to ridiculous efforts to support this meme. Friday’s CBS/New York Times poll, for example, uses a D+13 sample of registered voters. This is absurd.
Related! Journos For Obama.
I’m curious as to what the actual result of the narrative is going to be. As a conservative or a republican or a libertarian or a democrat or a liberal, doesn’t that narrative actually promote a higher turnout FOR Romney and a lower one for Obama. If you are thinking of voting Obama, and then constantly hear that Obama is going to win, how committed are you going to be to getting out and voting?
I am with Daryl on this one. I think it may serve to fire up the conservative base. No one wants another 4 years of this, and I expect the turnout to reflect that fact.
Thanks Kate, for keeping this upfront. God knows we are gone need all the help we can get to defeat the One.
I never trusted these polls, and it’s not just that the leftist media is biased they are actually just an extension of the DNC, and when all hell breaks loose it ain’t gona go well for them.
Daryl, it’s voter suppression. Campaigns need momentum. Putting out “Obama is ahead in the polls” creates the image that Obama has momentum and is going to win. The idea to conservatives is “Give up, you’re going to lose anyway”.
Second, if Obama was behind in the polls then the media would have to start coming up with explanations as to why. And the media doesn’t want to have to catalogue the numerous failures of the Obama administration.
These are the ideas at least. Whether they work or not is an another matter entirely. You have to put on a good show. In a battle, it dosen’t much matter if your uniforns are all nice and clean if you’ve run out of bullets.
I think cgh’s analysis is the accurate one. It’s both psychological, to deflate the GOP so that they will give up rather than going out door to door, raising funds, speaking, distributing brochures etc.
But, even more important, is cgh’s second point, is that if Obama was seen as behind, the media and the DNC would have to explain it. These explanations couldn’t all be attributed to Bush, the Japanese tsunami, ABM machines, or whatever. They might have to focus on the real failures of Obama both domestic and foreign. They aren’t going to do that.
This is a vital election. It’s not simply for the sake of America and freedom and capitalism and democracy, though it IS for all of those reasons. It’s also for the world and its fight against Islamic fascism, a fight that Obama is refusing to deal with.
And, internally, for the Democrats, it’s a fight for their own way of life. That is, the leaders of the Democrats are the ‘kings’ of the US society. They are fighting to retain this power.
They are the wealthy, the connected, they are totally isolated in their gated communities, their private schools, their connections to others who like them live in the imaginary world of ‘we know best’, in the world of big welfare and nanny state government. They know what foods we should eat, how we should live, what we should think. This network of connections between the government, the schools and universities, the intelligentsia – the Democrats are fighting to retain this power.
Just like the Islamists in the MENA, who are exactly like the Democrats. They too live in an imaginary realm, they too set themselves up as Rulers, they too want wealth and power and dream of a utopian world of control.
That’s why Obama is so dangerous. He has the same mindset as an Islamic fascist. They can plan and plot to kill an ambassador in Libya, while Obama sits with his Kill Cards and selects who he will kill via one of his Drones. Not much difference.
Don’t forget the Alberta election and all the pundits and polls predicting the WRP would sweep…I’m thinking the pollsters are being fed what they want to hear from the electorate and its actually going to be a landslide for Romney. God forbid that your neighbours find out you don’t want to vote for the one. Once into the voting booth, I believe that reason will trump emotion, and Oloser will be off to Chicago and the adults will be back in charge. Of course Congress will still want to spend like drunken sailors (no offense to drunken sailors), but at least we can hope sanity will prevail and they will get their fiscal house in order. We will all suffer if Oloser gets re-elected as the entire world economy will crash within weeks. I hate gloom and doom but I don’t see any other option if they don’t vote Romney.
ET, there is a difference – the Lybian ambassador hadn’t conducted military operations against US forces.
I think your analysis is accurate and succinct. The Dems have no choice but to convince voters they are progressive ie nice but if they vote GOP, well they’re just ignorant or misinformed. How do you convince nearly 50% of the population they are that. In order to win the Dems must sell the meme that American voters are “progressive” (ie-NDP, social democrat) and want ever larger government intervention and debt intruding into their lives. I just don’t believe that’s the case and the polls are stuck because the electorate are not yet engaged and won’t be so for about a month.
Then the fireworks will start for sure as Romney makes points in debate and polling. I sincerely hope he is ready because a McCain like underperformance will doom the Republicans.
Regarding the MENA; Iran is very close to producing deployable nuclear weapons, and Netayanyahu knows it, and wants to tell the POTUS why he believes that because that is something, notwithstanding secrecy issues, you do face to face. Put another way, Truman didn’t phone Stalin to tell him he had the atom bomb. Yet Mr. Obama won’t take the meeting preferring briefings or summaries of events so he can campaign. If he doesn’t do something soon Mr. Romney should step into the breach and offer to show the necessary leadership. Provocative yes, the MSM would have a cow, but perhaps necessary in these very dangerous times, with revenge asassinations and riots over trivial films.
I also think AQ is planning, perhaps executing something big, and North America, which has been spared rioting is the target. The head of AQ’s brother was recently released from prison by the Egyptian government and I wonder is there’s a connection. I hope authorities are presently tightening up security in the hopefully-unlikely event I’m right. I also hope the POTUS doesn’t perversely force Israel to attack Iran, because this operation cannot involve an air attack only.
The US must deter Israel from attacking Iran and Israel can deter Iran from ever deploying weapons or worse, supplying assistance to terrorists, with the US guarantee of military action if Iran deploys any WMD. But, by isolating Israel and focussing on the Arab world, the Obama/Dem administration are allowing a dangerous sentiment to mount in Israel – they’re on their own so they better put a stop to Iran’s nuclear progress.
Deter or deploy; Mr President, don’t pick up the phone, pick up the ball.
The problem with what happened in Alberta was the polls showing the Wildrose in the lead. Then the rest of the media’s campaign was about how well they would govern (vetting), not about the PC’s record.
If the media showed Obama losing then they could focus on Romney like they did up here on a couple of lower level wildrose candidates. The problem with this is Obama’s funding would dry up, no one likes a loser except for Hollywood.
I expect them to show Romney in the lead once Obama has sucked up enough money for the campaign. Once Romney is out in front, they can try and destroy him.
shamrock, a very good analysis.
It’s shocking that Obama refuses to meet with Netanyahu. Incredible. Here is THE tinder box of the world, the ME, and the key issue of Iran’s nuclear bomb, and Iran’s stated intention to ‘wipe Israel off the map’, and Obama refuses to meet with him. Instead, he campaigns.
Is the Obama team that brain dead? Is it that he doesn’t want to know about the reality of Iran? Is Obama’s campaign in such deep trouble (and we know that it might be) that he can’t spare an hour to deal with his duties as president?
Romney has already said that he’d meet with Netanyahu, but Romney doesn’t have the power as president that Obama has.
Is Obama trying to force Israel to attack Iran? That’s exactly what Iran wants, for that would enable it to attack, not only Israel, but to use its forces in Syria, and to attack Libya, Egypt and Iraq. Iran has an imperialist agenda and it is just waiting for the spark to move. Whose side is Obama on?
Obama won’t support Israel. Ignore Obama’s pompous speeches. He’s a pathological liar and says one thing one day and its contradiction the next day. He himself has no problem with these contradictions; if you do, that’s your problem.
Yeah, let’s not trust all those silly polls that were accurate in 2008. 😛
Re the poles: Remember “Bush stole the election”?
How about: Romney stole the election. Ya! We were way ahead in the poles! A land slide like that is not possible when we had that big a lead in the poles? Romney musta cheated! Ya! Romney cheated! Ya! Romney stole the election! Rise up!
Obama owns the media, unions and the radical progressive vote. He’ll win count on it every evil anti-American organization in the US backs him. Hope and Change, financial ruin and pain.
Darryl:September 17, 2012 3:41 PM
“Yeah, let’s not trust all those silly polls that were accurate in 2008. 😛
In 2008, the unknown and unvetted candidate Obama, carried 28 states to McCain’s 22, Obama winning by 8 percentage points. When you consider all the factors relating to Obama’s victory such as, media malfeasance, voter fraud, Bush hate, black guilt and McCains weak performance it’s no wonder the polls were skewed in Obama’s favor. Now that everyone knows what a dipshit he is the tables will be turned this election
I’m a devout libertarian and the thought od state intervention in anything appals me – but more and more I’m thinking that there should be some serious jail time handed out for these media attempts to engineer outcomes in the Democratic process.
The rigged polls probably indicate how much voter fraud the Dems feel they will need to steal the election.
Weak. There was no evidence of voter fraud in 2008 and vven the relatively balanced polls put Obama ahead. Betting start dealing with this second term now.
LAS, you are missing the point. The media didn’t have to ‘fix’ the polls in 2008 because the election was clearly, right from the start, a win for the Democrats.
The media were also not doing their job of vetting Obama and were engaged in an incredible adulation – which itself worked to increase the electorate adulation – and thus, the polls in 2008 were accurate.
This is a different period, and there’s a great deal of information out now about Obama’s failures both domestically and in foreign affairs. The adulation is simply not as deep as it was in 2008.
I think that cgh and shamrock make very good analyses of the situation, which is that the Democrats must skew the polls because they can’t deal with the problems of this presidency in the campaign. They require continuous adulation or ‘fear mongering’ (a common Obama tactic) of ‘if you don’t vote for him, terrible things will happen’.
LAS
you can say there is no evidence of voter fraud until you are blue in the face, it will not change the fact that there was and that we know there was.
And there will be even more this time around,
as about 99% of it is in favor of Democrats
(voter fraud is almost exclusively on the left – another thing for you to deny )
Obama will be re-elected in part because of this massive voter fraud that will reach new highs
but this time it may trigger some riots…
it’s not just that the leftist media is biased they are actually just an extension of the DNC
Ratt
Your too kind. What they really are is corrupt propagandists disguised as Media. Shills in every sense for the DNC. Anti-American to the hilt. Pro-Marxist fanatics, with a love fetish for the cult of Obama
LAS is drinking the koolaid again. Probably served by those nice Black Panther gentlemen at the polling station.
Couldn’t have put it better myself, gordinkneehill. The only question is how many packs of feral beasts of burden the Obama campaign will bribe with money or drugs or amnesty from deportation to vote as many times as necessary for Obama (without making it too obvious to ignore even by the mainstream press).
All things considered, this makes our own pollsters look much better. The pollsters for the Alberta election seem to have done their job right for the most part, describing rather than determining voter sentiment. They got the outcome so wrong because they didn’t account for Calgary and Edmonton Muslims turning out fifteen or twenty times under twenty different names for the Alberta PCs under orders from their imams.
Obama will be re-elected no matter what, just as Alison Redford was going to be confirmed premier no matter what. Let’s see if he actually manages to finish his term alive and in one piece.
I said this time voter fraud may trigger riots
and if by some miracle Obama is not elected, expect even more rioting almost exclusively by blacks as the media lying trough their teeth will brainwash people distort the truth and indirectly encourage them to riot.
the left controlled media is more and more rootless everyday
something has got to give…
I hope you optimists are right, but polls are pretty accurate most of the time, methodological errors notwithstanding. I don’t really believe in a vast conspiracy among professional pollsters to skew the results.
Obama has a built in lead thanks to identity politics. He’ll take all the black vote and most of the Hispanic vote. That’s about 20% of the total before you even consider the witless young people, university professors, civil servants and union members. It’s a pretty steep hill for Romney to climb.
Basic problem is that half the U.S. electorate are brain dead zombies who just want free stuff. (The percentage is even higher in Canada but thanks to our electoral system the adults still get to take charge from time to time.)
Personally I think we are witnessing the decline of the West. And who better to preside over it, actually, than a dodgy useless fraud like Obama?
“I hope you optimists are right, but polls are pretty accurate most of the time, methodological errors notwithstanding. I don’t really believe in a vast conspiracy among professional pollsters to skew the results.”
~Jim303
SAMPLE: Do not let these polls fool you. In 1980 similar polls showed Jimmy Carter leading the Old Cowboy almost to the very end. Carter was ahead of Governor Ronald Reagan by 4 points in late September, by 8 points in October, and the Gallup polls had him ahead of Reagan by 6 points in last days of the election. Reagan won by 9 points, sweeping 44 states. In 1988 Governor Dukakis at one point led Vice President George H. W. Bush by 17 points. He lost by almost 8 points
FROM
The American Spectator
There’s another aspect to this. Remember, like the last half dozen elections, this one is all about what happens in about half a dozen states or so. The rest are all foregone conclusions. So the strategy only has to work in a majority of these decisive states to put Oby over the top.
Getting an extra million voters out in Texas or Georgia doesn’t matter. It’s getting your voters out and keeping the other side’s home in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania is what matters.
And do you think modern political machines can tailor a strategy that narrowly? Oh yes indeed.
Oz, you are entirely right. If you let me do the sampling and let me set the questions I can give you any answer you want to any question you can imagine.
Jim, no, polls are propaganda tools. Polls had Marois winning a majority government in Quebec right up to election night. If you saw the broadcast, all of the networks were frantically trying to explain the unexpectedly strong showing of Charest and the Liberals. The same polls also claimed a second place finish for CAQ, again for which they had no explanation.
It’s not enough for pollsters to be unbiased. They must seen to be unbiased. My (wild) guess it that pollsters will balance their weightings due to such publicity, and then we’ll see headlines like these…
Romney Surges In Polls!
And we’ll be left asking, “Does the MSM report the news, or are they the news?
shamrock…..except for the bit about rioting caused by the film,good read.
Yeah, well, don’t mention political polls to Wildrose supporters in Alberta. Still in some pain from the last election, thank you.
The only poll that counts will be in November when we see how much Obama will win by. You fools really are in denial aren’t you? Oh yeah, it’s gotta be the polls that are wrong, it can’t be that over half of Americans are far too smart to vote for a tax dodging, lying, incompetent twit like Mittens. His whole campaign has been a disaster including the convention. This guy has been running for president for 6 or 7 years and he’s still screwing it up. And you want him to run an entire country!!?? Look at his latest mess; he disparages half the U.S. population by saying in essence that they are lazy and don’t pay taxes. This coming from a dickhead who refuses to reveal his income tax documents! Now you and I can put down half the nation if we want (I do it all the time when talking about rightwingers) but this is a man who wants to be the President of the USA when in reality he wants to be president of the teabaggers, billionaires and southern hillbillies. Reason #522 Obama will be relected.
LAS linked the other day to an Ipsos/Reuters poll, reported in the National Post of all places, purporting to show that Obama was “in good shape, with an increasing lead over Romney”. Seven percent. Then we find out that the poll oversampled Democrats by almost ten percent by comparison with the electorate (my working assumption is that it’s basically even between Rs and Ds, which is close to, but not dead on with Rasmussen — if we accept his findings, which he, um, actually tries to get at in his surveys, the story is even more of a non sequitor).
Well, if you’re Obama, that’s gotta suck: a poll oversamples your own supporters by ten percent, (or almost fourteen percent if you believe Scott Rasmussen), but you’re only ahead by seven? That says to me that he’s losing and that either his own supporters are abandoning him in large numbers, or Romney’s lead among independents is enormous (most likely a combination).
Then we find out, in this story, that the CBS/NYT poll oversamples Democrats by thirteen percent by comparison with the electorate (almost seventeen percent, if you believe Rasmussen) and he’s only ahead by three? Well,…
While I know just enough about inferential statistics to make me truly dangerous to your health, wealth and freedom, I’d say that the scatter diagram from Ari Fleischer that Kate posted yesterday says it all: the slope on the single regression line that would fit these data is somewhere around 0.5, or maybe a little less, which has got to be truly devastating for Obama, not that he would understand it and not that I have any sympathy for him. If you draw a straight line between the Rasmussen result and the Democracy Corps result (which is ironic, since it’s, you know, a Democrat poll), you’ll see what I mean (pardon the pun): for every two percent oversampling of Democrats, he gets a little less than a one percent advantage.
Curiously, the CBS/NYT poll is being shown as a six percent Democratic oversampling advantage on this chart, with a three percent lead for hisself, which would fall right on a 0.5 slope. I’m not quite sure about the discrepancy between Ari’s diagram and this story, but Ari’s information is clearly on the, er, conservative side… If the data in this story were true, the slope on the line would be even shallower.
What is truly remarkable, IMO, is that this little thingee that Kate started from the home province of what’s his name — you know who I mean, Roy Romanow or something NDP — Keifer Sutherland’s grandfather — the bestest Canadian, evah!? — is talking about things that you’d never see in the MSM.
As my sister, who happens to know a lot about inferential statistics, says about Canadian political opinions polls (except for Nik Nanos), “What do they do, walk the streets of Toronto interviewing people until they get the result that they want?”
DS: I hope you’re right. You may well be, but I think the stupidity of the public and Romney ineptitude can really put it over the top for Obama.
CF: you’re full of shi**. There is no evidence of voter fraud during the 2008 presidential election, and evidence outside that election is pretty scant.
Romney campaign a mess
Call me silly if you must but I truly believe the economy will be a deciding factor in this election. The media, too deep in the tank for Obama to get out, will do its damnedest to mislead and misinform but the unemployed voter knows what is really going on and will vote with his empty wallet.
It also doesn’t help Obama to be spineless weasel and appeaser but that’s just my opinion.
LAS, 11:12p.m. — May we have a reference, please?
Sorry that was supposed to be coded text. HTML never liked me.
http://reason.com/24-7/2012/09/17/romney-campaign-said-to-be-in-disarray
“…but I think the stupidity of the public…”
LAS, you really are a progressive! This one single comment says everything I need to know about you, no matter what sugar coating you put on your comments, your contempt shows through.
David Southam said: “…for every two percent oversampling of Democrats, he gets a little less than a one percent advantage.”
Excellent point, and one I made elsewhere. It fills me with joy that Barry is a few points ahead in a poll with that much over-sampling of DemocRats. It means two things.
1)Because registered DemocRats are about 30% or less of the population Barry is -losing horribly-.
2)Because that little amount of boost for Barry with that much over-sample means his own party is only about half behind him.
Also, if the full unquestioning support of the media was worth 12% in 2008, its worth quite a bit less now. Their audience has shrunk by ~half since 2008.
November cometh!
Hey Steve, he didn’t say they were “lazy” that’s just you lying and accusing Mitt of doing what you have to do to convince yourself.
How’s that working out for ya?
Steve sounds like a disinterested, non partisan, straight from the hip, news reporter, fund raising for Oboingo.
And now Mitt has gone and destroyed whatever chance he had. Way to go loser.