September 5, 2008
US: Obama 42, McCain 39 (YouGov-09/1-3)
Economist /
YouGov-Economist
9/1-3/08; 1,000 Adults, 3%
Mode: Internet
National
Obama 42, McCain 39
(8/26: Obama 41, McCain 36)
By Eric Dienstfrey on September 5, 2008 5:05 PM | Permalink
Comments
Is this poll similar to Zogby?
Bickering over the national polls really doesn't mean squat. Electoral college, hello?
Just look at the projected numbers. Obama has more money, more resources, more people on the ground in all of the battleground states. His grassroots capacity dwarfs McSame's.
You neocon nuts can jabber on all you want about the tide is changing in the national polls etc etc., but quite frankly they don't matter. There is no way McCain will recuperate the deficits he is in in Penn, Mich, Minn, Wisc. All Obama has to do is carry a couple of battleground states and IT IS OVER.
And as you well know, his grassroots operations and enthusiasm dominate McSame...
The Fat Lady Has Sung.
OK...I know I'm sounding like a school teacher but name calling won't get your point across.
Give facts Guailo (even though I think what you would reference).
So he is still in the 30's. Hopefully Palin can move him close to 45% - otherwise it's over.
I think this poll is an outlier. It's just too close to the election to have people polling nationally in the 30s.
There is no way both candidates are below 45. How the heck did they get so many undicideds? Add 5-7 to each candidate and you are probably on the right track
Am I reading the tabs correctly? 14% of African Americans are undecided? I don't think so.
One's initial response to this question is: of course; but will the country blindly accept the default position of intelligence to a potential President, especially after the current President's intelligence. I am straight up questioning Sarah Palin's competence. In her eight days on the national stage she has demonstrated no capability for logical thought. At her introduction last Friday (8/29) she regurgitated a speech written by somebody else. The following weekend in Pennsylvania she essentially repeated the same speech. Palin's third and most recent public appearance was her acceptance speech at the RNC in St. Paul. Here she gave yet another speech written by somebody else, but this time it was also written for somebody else....
VFA:
please, please don't...no more...STOP
@voteamerica
well i am glad that someone is so smart!
perhaps you might want to download the obama interview with oreilly in which obama so wisely discusses muslim behavior in the key countries of strife.
he leans forward, uses his deeper cadences and explains to us the dumb folk why al qaeda could not be a threat via iran because it is a sunni organization. holy cow, that simple!!
there are such things as simplistic answers and then again such things as simpletons. obama showed he is the latter.
for years iran the land of nasty shias has been in bed with syria the nasty sunnis. hezbollah is their joint band of police heavies to enforce whatever they damn please get enforced.
but if you think obama has a clue about foreign policy then you with all your smarts and your candidate need to at least wiki more often.
honestly, his knowledge would grow immensely forget about reading in depth books on the subject...let him just start with wikipedia.
you too, smartypants!! give it a go why not??
boskop:
VFA was bad but you are worse. Try to be better than that. Obama did a great job in the interview with O'Reilly and if you think O'Reilly would let Obama talk for more than 1 minute at a time, then you're mistaken.
Obama understands the nuances in policy but don't talk to me about Obama not understanding the differences between Suni and Shia when McCain is way worse:
I just found out that Rasmussen uses an automated computer dialing system with their surveys. This makes their polls completely random. I would think that this lends more credibility to their polls. A lot of pollsters are selective especially in states where large concentrations of voters of various persuasions live within the same radius. This method tends to give biased results favoring one party or another.
However, I don't know how much credibility we can lend to any pollster this year. I read today that in the Michigan primary last year, polls showed that the continuation of affirmative action that was on the ballot was going to pass by a large margin. The exit polls also showed that it was going to pass. However, it failed by a large margin; this is the Bradley effect. People say they are going to vote one way and then vote another. They also fib about how they voted.
If you looked at the pollster website for the democratic primaries and looked at which state was carried by whom, you would find a very accurate portrayal of what happened.
The only trend I noticed that was different obviously was that, when the elections happened, if a candidate lead 50-45 in polls, the election result would be twice the points because there are no undecideds in the later primaries.
please. this is spin. just stick to the damn facts buddy.
he doesnt get the dynamics and neither do you.
take another look and then tell me he didnt
say that iran is really not the big deal because it's shia and al qaeda is sunni.
then review your most recent history like the
lebanese imbroglio led by nasrallah.
the bombs were trafficked through syria and they share hezbollah. they share a long, very long history of mutual armament and intervention.
you show such an immense lack of knowledge you best take your candidate and his nano sized compendium of facts to the local kids library and take out a book or two.
Boskop
You have that wrong. Alqaeda is an outlaw organization in Iran. This will appeal to you any one convicted of membership - execution!
boskop:
show me your sources based on your argument.
I want to try something. I'll do it too. For everyone who is going to pull out a statistic or something they call a fact, I want a link to a document or something that will show that what you said is true. It might be tiresome but it's better than lying like some people tend to do here. Opinions are fine, but if you're going to call something a fact or make a statement that needs facts, SHOW US THE FACTS!!!!
And no more "media bias" talk cause proclamations prove nothing. Right-wing, left-wing, argue facts not what you think is bias or not and if you think they're wrong or dishonest like when Stillow talked about the average unemployment rate, don't call them names or say it's left wing or right wing spin or whatever excuses you have. SHOW FACTS TO COUNTER THEIR CLAIM!!! If you can't then don't make a contribution cause from now on, I will not consider a "fact" credible until I see a source for it.
There's too much crap and false "facts" and media bias accusations and that gets us nowhere. If you think that our statements are bias or spin, prove it with facts and not proclamations.
Show me Obama saying Iran isn't that important.
Robi
you are going to end up on your own! That's a fact!
thoughtful:
wait which part?
And also, what you or I call fact, marctx, stillow, and player obviously don't. That's why I'm saying people should show their sources so people can't just say "that's not true"
@thoughful, @robi
sunnis are baathists. sometimes. sunnis live in most middle eastern states. sunnis dominate in syria. sunnis are al qaeda ...sometimes.
the syrians work with the iranians. you over simplify. the nexus is complex. iran supplies syria which supplies hezbollah in lebanon.
hezbollah was invented in iran. some debate that. but it's pretty much true.
hezbollah was coopted by the palestinians. palestinians are sunni.
not that simple as you can see.
their mutual enemy ,,israel obfuscates the lines drawn by simplistic comments as the above.
obama is dangerous for thinking it is this easy. you are dangerous for thinking he is that smart.
Show me a speech or an interview where Obama said that the situation was simple.
Also show me something that proves what you are saying about the complex network.
You are putting words in my mouth and most certainly in Obama's. Show me SOURCES. If you can't then stop talking about this subject.
Everyone:
obviously things we find as obvious facts don't seem to match with each other. So when I ask for sources, I'm not saying it's true or not. I'm just saying show the sources so people can't say "you're wrong" even though you're telling them the sky is blue
Listen those people are my buddies I don't agree with their views, they don't with mine. I don't have a problem with them.
I agree with them about a lot of the liberal trolls, I am sure there is a 5th Column type of disinformation unit.
If what these guys say is so obviously factually incorrect. then put it to them.
You know I respect people who care, Ok theiir views are extreme so our mine!
@bookshop
I'm still waiting for you to put a single fact forward. All you have is false accusations, spin and misunderstandings.
Who is spoon-feeding you all this right wing crap?
Your dinner: http://www.mattmatarazzo.com/images/elephant-shit.jpg
To Boskop: you wrote
"for years iran the land of nasty shias has been in bed with syria the nasty sunnis."
You also wrote:
"you show such an immense lack of knowledge you best take your candidate and his nano sized compendium of facts to the local kids library and take out a book or two"
For someone so comfortable sending people to "the local kids library", perhaps you should be aware that the Assads (the ruling family of Syria) are actually Alawites---a Shi'ite sect.
And let me ask you one simple question. Please answer it for everyone here as I am sure they are all curious.
If you think the difference between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims is so important (which it is) why are you supporting a person that does not know the difference between the two?
Please, tell us. Is your candidate senile or just plain stupid?
@bogstop
please, we're all waiting. Why are you supporting a person that does not know the difference between a Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim?
Please, tell us.
@robi
if this commentary of and by obama is new to you then i am sorry. you can download oreilly, where obama tries to back off his previous comments but then sticks his big size 13 foot in his mouth.
i havent the time nor the inclination to have some stranger come in and tell me to find articles for them. isnt that your job?
it is basically understood that people on this site are knowledgeable and can do this themselves.
so you can take your fiat and...
if you want a lesson, take a course. or pay me and i'll teach you. nope sorry, i have a full time job and some.
your ranting belies your intellectual insecurity. many of us, those who disagree with me like thoughtful are rather savvy as are most who come to play in this sandbox.
so fill up your mental tank and come back and joust! see ya soon...
@bugmop
Please, tell us. Why are you supporting a person that does not know the difference between a Shi'ite and a Sunni?
"it is basically understood that people on this site are knowledgeable"
That was before you showed up and lowered the average.
@kerchdavis
anyone can make a slip. last i heard we had 57 states and someone didnt know who the president of russia was.
should i go on?
Boskop
I am with you, it is not that simple!
Wasabi Sunni You know there are different types of Sunni, indeed Shias, indeed other sects completely!
You know its like Protestants and Catholics Conformist and Non-Conformists look at all the Christian branches.
Is there enmity between the Saudis and Iranians? Of course there is!
I watched the O'Reilly interview so if you think Obama is backing off of Iran, give me a speech he gave or something we wrote or something FROM HIM that proves he doesn't think Iran is important.
Let's try this again...
Would you guys please all stop arguing with Stillow, Boskop, Player, MarcTX, and every other radical nut. Nothing at all is being learned from this and it's drowning out legitimate discussion.
Arguing with a radical nut gets you no where. Do you think these people are going to change their minds? How many times do they have to bring up Hitler for you to understand that???
STOP!!!
STOP!!!
STOP!!!
It's hard to find sources for stuff you make up.
sorry, brambster :(
OK I will ignore them...I swear they're like alcoholism...I want to stop it but I keep on going cause it's so fun and easy...I'll try to stop again.
@thoughtful
you see guys, though we totally disagree we understand that NOTHING is that simple.
even thoughtful knows i cant stand some mccain stuff. but shia sunni rifts are so complex and so new to us that the first place for you to take a look is the work of bernard lewis.
start there.
then you can ramp it up. read some new books on the iranian blogging underground. read the history of islam, it is really fascinating and totally human and totally lame like every other territorial/religio imperative.
then come back and we'll chat.
tally ho, and hip hip as they say in thoughtful's home:>)
adios as they say in mine.
To Robi:
W/r to giving references, it would be a good idea if there was a consequence to spouting rubbish on this website. Unfortunately this is not the case as I could tell after spending a few minutes reading the posts from Boksop who is probably the most clueless. It was a complete waste of time to read these posts, but I wanted to correct what was said about "Syria being ruled by the Sunnis"
@ brambster, lol. You are right, of course.
@ Robi, I agree with your general point about using links to actual examples of the things we (including me) claim.
Also, randomly pasting entire articles, unrelated to the topic at hand no less, should be seriously off limits. No more spamming.
Poor Mark or his staff have to waste their time cleaning up these messes. Considering all the good they do in sharing their expertise they really shouldn't have to worry about this.
@pion
syria is mostly sunni. that is what i said.
To Boksop:
No, you also said: "sunnis dominate in syria"
@obamites
you cannot get a purview of the sunni shia hezbollah baath wadi etc commingling and internecine bickery by quickly reading wikipedia between posts. which you are clearly doing.
but at least you are more knowledgeable now than you were at the beginning of this thread.
so congrats!!!
@pion
of course, they make up over 75% of the population. if you know another term to describe BIG MAJORITY then by all means enlighten us!!
Yeah....so I definitely think this poll is off lol.
@robi..caves!!!
like i am surprised you couldnt handle the mental heat.
neither can your guy.
There is a lot of talk about what kind of Muslims live where, but that kind of talk is nothing more than a distraction to the question at hand. Is Iran working with Al-Qeada? Up to this point in time there has been no one here nor anywhere that has provided any tangible evidence that Iran is actively working with Al-Qaeda. I find this implicit incrimination similar to the tactics and strategies used to convince the American public that there were WMDs in Iraq and that we should authorize the administration to invade Iraq a 2nd time. Iran might be a threat (and a grave one with Nukes), but I'll need some evidence before making the leap that they are working hand in hand with Bin Laden. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
Having watched the first part of O'reilly's interview of Obama I thought that:
-Obama weaseled out a bit on admitting that he was wrong about the surge
-Obama showed that he understand the difference between what is a real threat to the United States and what is a potential threat to the United States.
-Obama showed that at the minimum he will at least try to use some diplomacy before using our military.
boskop:
What do you read for your views on foreign policy?
To ncc81701 (cool name BTW):
I agree with your three thoughts. I find that at times, Obama is a bit too conciliatory. I'm impressed with his willingness to deal with someone like O'Reilly. BTW, O'Reilly was pretty well behaved---I wonder if he secretly craves respectability.
@Bamster:
A radical nut huh?
bin laden hooking up with iran? not likely.
at least not directly.
btw: if obama were so dead on about the war, and btw so were most people who saw that lame presentation by colin powell at the UN...then why come and how so didn't he hammer it to death except for that one speech in october 2002 which he is looping into his dogma like a chinese trying to lip sync edith piaf. take after take after take.
expediency. that's why not.
Player:
No offense but you were trying to argue that everything this site is about, which I have found to be very credible because it was able to predict the primaries very well, to not be credible because people won't vote for him in secret. I've heard that before...but where?
Boskop:
what do you read for your foreign policy information?
@robi
i dont read foreign policy. i read facts. history. religion.
To Brambster:
I only read one post by Player---it did not strike me as the post of a radical nut job.
Boskop: "i dont read foreign policy. i read facts. history. religion."
I'm in awe.
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1743-8586&site=1
As well as the Economist.
There is a lot out there and there are a lot of different opinions. People like the ones who write in these journals (except for the economist I believe) are in charge of foreign policy and are important advisers.
This isn't abstract, it's real life. I should know, it's my field after all.
http://www.worldsecurityinstitute.org/?gclid=CLm1x7H8-pMCFQEGQQodERPuVA
Sorry I forgot about the multiple link rule so I might have copies of these posts
The Syrians have a secular government dominated by the socialist Baath party.
I can't believe all this arguing over a simple fact that any one of you look up with a two minute Google search. And Kerrchdavis, making fun of someone's moniker is childish. Can we have more adult behavior here?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4439294.stm
Mr Assad inherited the presidency in 2000 from his father who ruled with an iron grip for three decades.
A peasant's son, Hafez al-Assad worked his way up through the ranks of the air force and the socialist Baath party.
In the process, he lifted members of his own Alawite minority - like Mr Kanaan - from the confines of poor, rural Syria to the realms of power. Alawites worry they are the ones that are going to eat all the revenge and discrimination
Joshua Landis
Alawites are a secretive off-shoot of Shia Islam who revere Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad.
They are regarded as heretics by many Muslims, especially orthodox Sunnis, and have faced centuries of discrimination.
In a country with a 75% Sunni population, only a strongman like Hafez al-Assad could have imposed himself as an Alawite president - with the help of the Baath party.
"All the minorities in the country embraced the Baath party, a pan-Arab socialist party," explains Joshua Landis, a US expert on Syria who is married to an Alawite.
It offered a secular vision of Syria that would dismantle very serious religious splits."
I recommend the Washington Times Quarterly especially. It's very good. But all of them are very informative. It doesn't hurt to know policy especially when that's a major part of the candidate.
zotz:
I'm happy
@Robi:
Its called the Bradley effect. Its what happened in the New Hampshire primary where the polls said that Obama was going to win big time but HRC won.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect
Player I'm aware. I'm not saying the effect is made up. I'm saying that the application isn't right because the primaries have shown since then that the pollster.com trend lines are fairly accurate. According to your logic of the Bradley effect, Obama wouldn't have won the primaries.
@pion:
Fellow Star Trek fan I see :)
@Boskop:
"if obama were so dead on about the war, and btw so were most people who saw that lame presentation by colin powell at the UN...then why come and how so didn't he hammer it to death except for that one speech in october 2002 which he is looping into his dogma like a chinese trying to lip sync edith piaf. take after take after take. "
Honestly, I think the American public (myself included) was sold on the lie that Iraq had WMD. The question of whether Iraq had WMD isn't something that could have been answered by a quick google search. It required intelligence that can only be gathered by agencies like the CIA. Since the public had no access to this kind of information we had to put our trust into what our President was saying because he had access to that kind of information. Putting Colin Powell at the UN was a pretty smooth move since he was probably the most trust worthy person in Bush's Cabinet. Time has shown that that thrust in the Bush administration has been misplaced and thousands of American soldiers paid for it with their lives and thousands more paid for it with their limbs. In hindsight we probably should have listen to Hans Blix to Bush but who (besides the Ultra left) would have believed at the time that the Swedish guy was the one telling the truth and our own leader was the one spreading the lie? IMO, this is probably why the majority of the public was for the war before we were against it ;).
As to why Obama weren't blowing the horn on the Iraq war, if you think about it no one would have cared. I didn't even know who the guy was until mid last year. I've never seen any of his speeches until the beginning of this year, and millions of Americans just found out who he was a week ago. Obama saying he was against the war in 2002 was like your town mayor saying he/she was against the war back in 2002, on one on the national stage would have even heard it.
Having Obama repeating the fact that he was against the war in 2002 every chance he gets is no different than McCain repeating his POW story every chance he gets. They're both candidates and they are both trying to sell themselves.
sorry to disappoint you Player....the Bradley Effect would have ended Obama's victory during the Primaries when he won votes from States that never lived near let along voted for a black man, and beat the most known experienced Democrats.
[boskop:syria is mostly sunni. that is what i said.]
Incorrect: Syria is a Secular Shia Baath part (Alawi of the Shia out of 12 Imaams). Sunni only represent less than 40% in the country....in fact the largest Syrian population are Christian and Shia Muslim.
it might help people to argue with fact and educate themselves about the Middle East and the 300 Million who live in it. I know its hard when either side is trying to trash their man's opponent.
Player~ Regarding the random dialing and automated procedure tha Rassmussen uses. While it's true that this might appear to be a better method than targeting areas...it can go awry. Rassmussen uses a post-polling weighting of responses based on the respondants stated Party Affiliation to establish likely voters, for example. So while they may get a "random" assortment of Democratic, Republican and Independant respondants...the mix of these is established by criteria other than actual registration figures for the State at the time.
And I notice that Rassmussen's mix had dropped the Democratic component of the mix just after the DNC, and then increased the Republic component in the soup during the RNC. Interesting!
Other surveys may focus upon lists of registered voters, or zip codes that have certain levels of voting activity, or some complex formulation of age-race-party-and sex to arrive at the mix of who is likely to vote.
To Player and Robi:
I'm not sure how accurate the trend lines are (in terms of predictive power), but I do like the fact that pollster.com categorizes their results in terms of confidence levels (95%). There statistical analysis is far superior than what the averages found on realclearpolitics, for example.
ncc81701-
I support Obama because I think he would be more cautious and explore every option before going to war. I think war should be a last resort. Also, he would build alliances so we wouldn't have to take the whole burden by ourselves. MKcCain was a big cheerleader for invading Iraq. He said it would be easy. He said that Afganistan was already won so we didn't have to worry about it.
McCain is reckless and has not shown good judgement inspite of the surge.
Hmmm! The CBS poll shows 42-42 with 16% undecided (or leaning to third party candidates). This poll is only 3% different (42-39) and yet people are saying it is incredible that there can be "so many undecided" two months out from the election?
Perhaps Palin did three things...1) solidified McCain's support with evangelicals and hard conservatives, 2) drove many independents who viewed him as a social moderate into the undecided column, and 3) drove some undecideds - women who felt that the selection of Palin was much worse than other choices- into the Obama camp.
I took the opportunity to listen in on some right-wing talk radio shows today. A lot of the male listeners were talking about how greatMcCain's selection was...because Palin was a "total MILF". Yeah, good reason to vote for McCain-Palin guys! But I suspect these guys were gonna vote for McCain anyways.
@cinnamonape:
I haven't been able to see the weighting methods of Rasmussen. However, I think that computer random calls takes the human feeling factors out of the polls.
To ncc81701:
"In hindsight we probably should have listen to Hans Blix to Bush but who (besides the Ultra left) would have believed at the time that the Swedish guy was the one telling the truth and our own leader was the one spreading the lie"
I have to object to the notion that only the "ultra left" could figure out that Blix was on to something. I listened to Scott Ritter (the chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998) give a very sound argument as to why Saddam was unlikely to have the fabled stockpiles and he was convincing. I think it's fair to say that being informed was also key to being against the war, in contrast to simply having a straight ideological opposition to the invasion.
@Pion:
I don't know. It seems a reach to put that many polls from some many different weighting methods into a scatter plot with a trend line. There are so many variables to consider. You could do it if all other things were equal.
Player:
I understand your point, but I think the problem is if the random sample happens to be 40% party ID rep and 30% dem and 30% ind. The result could not be reliable. I don't know though. There is an argument for completely random samples being legit.
To Player:
Well given the choice of believing an un-weighted average of polls (in some cases taken months apart) versus a weighted least-square trend analysis, I will put my money on the latter. However, I have not seen in detail what pollster.com does so I am not going to defend their method with my life.
@Player
Yes, you are one of the resident loons.
@Pion
Yes, Player is one of the resident loons.
Use the search feature.
Boskop,
You are totally wrong. Majority and ruling elite of Syria are Allawi (secular/moderate form of Shiite). They are natural ally of Iran because of religion and a lot of other reasons. Iran hates Al Quaeda. In Iraq, Al Quaeda killed many more Shiites than US soldiers.
I can understand you though. You also need Lieberman to whisper into your ears :)
Brambster
Yesterday, player told me that he thought that my disapproval of the Iraq war was evidence that I was a homosexual. But I disagree with you about him being a loon. It's not fair to the rest of the loons!
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Image:Common_Loon_with_chick.jpg
I hope Margie Omero is right!
"These findings build upon earlier results I wrote about this week. It seems increasingly unlikely that former Hillary Clinton supporters will move to McCain because of Sarah Palin. But during the heat of the Republican convention, the Republican base is indeed energized."
Swing Vote:
I think Boskop got the message with my 5 journal recommendations. Don't rub it in.
The phrasing that this poll uses is rare. it says "who do you think you will vote for in november" instead of the more conventional "if the election were held today..."
Adding the time factor in creates a less-sure response and increases the number of undecideds.
I never thought of that. Good point.
To boskop:
I really am not trying to be condescending to you when I say this (and I think everyone would be well off taking this advice).
The journals I gave links to are very good at understanding complex foreign policy issues and is a very good resource to understand the situations going on around the world. I encourage people to read which ever articles deal with areas of their interest (if you're into foreign policy like I am) and understand what policy advisers (because people who write articles like these can end up being policy advisers) are thinking when it comes to these situations.
They don't get political (i.e. Obama is better because or McCain is better because) and they aren't trying to trick you. It's a very good way of keeping informed.
http://www.isanet.org/data_archive.html
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1743-8586&site=1
As I said before, I also recommend reading "The Economist". I don't read the financial times but my peers like it so I guess you could read that too.
The Democratic primaries were completely predictable, based on race. In every case a formula held true. Any state with under 5% minority population went for Obama. Any state with over 15% minority population went for Obama. All states with between 5% and 15% minority populations went for Hillary Clinton. Check it out. You will find this is accurate.
The Bradley effect only takes place under certain conditions, usually when the polls show a minority ahead by three or four points. In many cases the minority will lose the election as a percentage of white voters lie to the pollsters about whom they will vote for, or in exit polls, for whom they voted.
An 8 point lead, as an example, is more than the Bradley effect, named for former LA Mayor Bradley, can overcome. So Obama could readily win a bunch of places.
Each of the polls listed in this wensite should be carefully analyzed. Procedures and practices do influence the polls and some pollsters average several points of bias. This is not intentional. It is a reflection of the methodology the pollsters employ. Reference this site, August 24th, an article by Charles Franklin "How Pollsters Affect Results". Franklin quantifies the biases to an accuracy of 95%. Rasmussen, for example, averages about a three point bias in favor of Republicans. Harris, foir example, averages about a four point bias in favorite of Democrats. In order to accurately assess the polls you should know the biases. Adding biases to margins of error can produce startingly different results from those read at first glance.
@zotz
You mean when he said this:
Your loud mouthed blow hearted name calling will get you no where with me. It just shows your ignorance and immaturity. You are so blinded by the extreme left homosexual elite of the democrat party that you foolishly believe everything they say to you. Its either that or you are one of them.
One of my favorite loony posts by Player also occurred on that same page:
Yea, and a little guy like Hitler who was let out of jail by the liberals will never try to take over the world. Who got fooled there? We have nukes and we will use them if need be. We used them in Japan. The world knows this. You show any signs of weakness in this world and they will eat you alive. The left has got this liberal idealism that they are living in a perfect world. The left needs a little touch of reality to see the dangers. It looks like 911 didn't wake them up.
And searching Pollster for his name shows a long history of racist, bigoted and otherwise strange and objectionable comments. He's a simple-minded person that eats up the toughest propaganda more than anything else because that's what his testosterone tells him to do.
Now Player, like some of the other resident loons, claims to have been for Hillary. I do in fact believe that such people are representative of the types of voters that would have supported Hillary for President, and might have supported other Democrats in the past. These people are just stragglers that didn't get picked up by the Southern Strategy. Many are bigots or racists, and they are simple minded and respond to the toughest rhetoric and claims of patriotism. Obama doesn't play this game. These people might have been Democrats, but they clearly don't identify with the Democratic party platform.
Now for every one of these loons that Obama lost the support of, a Republican-leaning person that pays attention and is sick of being used switched over to support Obama. Obama's Democratic support is no worse than that of any recent Democrat at this stage of the election, and he may very well generate greater support among Democrats than anyone since Clinton in 1996.
brambster unleashing a little rage there.
I employed pollsters for about 15 years. The message is be wary of all polls until you thoroughly check out the processes. Take the CBS poll that showed an even race. 1) it was a small sample for a national poll. This means a marin of error at 4 %, plus or minus and a greater MoE on any internal information. When you get to 7% MoE you're using practically useless data. 2)there were comparatively a high number of "undecideds". In actuality, probably 20% or more have not definitely made up their minds at this point. In polls it depends on how hard the pollster asks the surveyed person for a response. Some pollsters are quite insistant in getting a response. Others don't ask a follow-up at all. Many ask if the surveyed person is "leaning" toward a candidate. The results can obviously change depending on how many people give a firm response. This is a very "gray" area.
From what I recall, this CBS poll may have come out late in the afternoon. The polling workers had collected information throughout the day. Usually this will tend toward getting older people in the survey, retirees are home. It sometimes favors women, many women are home. The time of day the information is collected can be critical, too.
The pollsters use modeling to readjust the data. Sometimes they oversample to get a truer representation than merely using past averages. Minorities are often undercounted so some surveys oversample after the initial poll, incorporating the special information into the poll. There is a difficulty, though, when there isn't enough past statistical base to use for the models. This year in the Democratic primaries more people turmned out than expected. More minorities, young people and women turned out than the models would have predicted in some states. So the polls being taken and reported now, still using older data, may not be taking some changes into account. The "ground game" may give Obama several points more in some states than are being reported in polling. Just remember all this when evaluating what the polls are actually telling us.
I am not sure you are correct about the democratic primaries, Lionidze. Many states with a minority population of 5-15% went to Obama: Wisconsin, Colorado and Montana to name a few. Perhaps you meant states with a 5-15% African-american population but then there is Connecticut and Missouri.
I am not really sure if the Bradley effect still exists (if it ever did), and there didn't seem to be much evidence for it during the primaries. If you have found some evidence it does exist, I would be very interested to see it.
@Lionidze
First off, the Bradly Effect is and likely always a farce. Where it was said to be seen was more likely a reflection of bad exit polling, and we have certainly seen a lot of bad exit polling in the last two presidential elections. There is now plenty of study on this, and it clearly doesn't exist.
In fact, there is a contra condition that exists. Just like Hillary mobilized feminist women to over-perform historical trends, Obama mobilizes the AA vote. This was seen repeatedly in states with larger AA populations during the primaries. Obama often out-performed his polling advantage when the results were counted.
I can't say for sure what November 4th will show when the results are counted, but I believe there is about a 60% chance of Democrats outperforming their distribution from the last two presidential elections. I figure there is a 30% chance of things being roughly the same as 2004, and about a 10% chance of turnout going down. Naturally this doesn't take into account what might happen in the next 60 days which may influence this.
The reasons that I expect increased turnout by Democrats are as follows:
1) In 2006 this was definitely the case.
2) Obama mobilizes the AA segment of the Democratic party.
3) Obama enjoys an enthusiasm advantage over McCain supporters. That same enthusiasm advantage gave Obama his primary win as he won virtually every caucus contest due to the enthusiasm gap th
I want to try something. I'll do it too. For everyone who is going to pull out a statistic or something they call a fact, I want a link to a document or something that will show that what you said is true. It might be tiresome but it's better than lying like some people tend to do here. Opinions are fine, but if you're going to call something a fact or make a statement that needs facts, SHOW US THE FACTS!!!!
And no more "media bias" talk cause proclamations prove nothing. Right-wing, left-wing, argue facts not what you think is bias or not and if you think they're wrong or dishonest like when Stillow talked about the average unemployment rate, don't call them names or say it's left wing or right wing spin or whatever excuses you have. SHOW FACTS TO COUNTER THEIR CLAIM!!! If you can't then don't make a contribution cause from now on, I will not consider a "fact" credible until I see a source for it.
There's too much crap and false "facts" and media bias accusations and that gets us nowhere. If you think that our statements are bias or spin, prove it with facts and not proclamations.
GOD!!!!!
Posted on September 5, 2008 5:39 PM