and there's this on the methodology of the AP poll: A significant number of the interviews were conducted by dialing a randomly selected sample of cell phone numbers, and thus this poll had a chance to reach voters who were excluded from some other polls.
Dear god please let basso & the band get their hopes up over this. Signed HUGE ASS BARREL OF LMFAO LMFAO LMFAO
fit to be tied? meh...not so much... New flawed AP poll claims McCain and Obama are tied. The problem? In 2004, evangelicals/born-again Christians made up 23% of voters. But that same group makes up 44% of likely voters in AP's poll released today. That's almost double the number - it's totally implausible. In 2000 and 2004, there was a very aggressive push for the evangelical vote. In 2000, when the question was asked "Do you consider yourself part of the conservative Christian political movement," 14% of voters said "yes" in exit polls. In 2004, when the question was changed to "Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian?" - the very category AP uses in its current poll - 23% of voters said yes in exit polls. Did you get that? The percentage of evangelicals/born-agains voting in 2004 was 23%. The percentage of evangelicals/born-agains that AP included in their likely voters scenario is 44%. That's almost twice as many. Consider that 79% of evangelicals voted Republican in the 2004 presidential elections, and we can assume that anyone calling themselves "born-again" might be more prone to voter Republican. This means AP disproportionately skewed its polling towards the GOP base. So it's no surprise that the AP poll shows McCain doing better than in other polls. With such an outlier, one wonders why the brain trust at AP decided to move ahead releasing this poll. But, the AP brain trust loves McCain. It's not just Sidoti. Remember, AP's Washington bureau chief almost went to work for McCain. http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/new-flawed-ap-poll-claims-mccain-and.html
I'm glad you found this. I saw the poll on msnbc or somewhere today and it was troubling, though obviously it was an outlier.
First, I want to thank basso for pulling this thread back to the top. There are some noteworthy predictions in this thread, but this one is the best... Via GG, here's Gallup from yesterday... And according to the recent Q poll (also via GG), we see the Jewish breakdown for FL favors Obama by... So, in FL, Obama is doing better among Jews than he is nationally, where he is right on par with previous Dem candidates. Good call TJ.
Not the first time I predicted this, but still what I think will happen. All it takes is winning by a narrow margin in some of the swing states that are in play, thanks to the Dean/Obama strategy of trying to build the party and win nationwide. A brilliant move, I might add, owned more to Dean, IMO, than Obama, who, to his credit, grabbed ahold of the idea with both hands, a few hundred million bucks, and millions of supporters. Have I mentioned how much fun this has been for me lately? (and I needed it... thing have been very rough on the Home Front for the Deckard family the last month) I like the wilderness and all, enjoying visiting my expatriate buddy in BC, who lives in Kaslo... heaven on earth, as long as it's not Winter, but it's nice to make your way back, especially after 8 years of Dubya.
