Keep on believing that... Of the following: VA NC GA IN MO CO NV NM MT ND AZ FL OH PA I expect Obama will win at least half of these, if not more. I'd rank them in the following order: PA NM VA CO NC NV FL GA IN MT MO ND AZ But if it makes you feel better, I believe you'll get excited around 4 or 5pm on Tuesday when exit polls are released showing McCain closer than expected due to the fact that early voters aren't accounted for in exit polls.
There is much more going into the science of polling than I can claim to know. But these pollsters want to be right and they absolutely do take into consideration the likelihood someone will vote. But the 1.3 million new voters that ACORN registered. Ad the countless others that have registered are all thought to be strongly in favor of Barack and more likely to vote then ever and Obama's pledge (rhetoric if you will) to have a get out to vote drive like never before is part of their equation. And early voting so far indicates no difference than 2004.
well the dude basso is a true believer in one Ms. Sarah Palin, who thinks Jesus rode around on Dinosaurs and that Drosophila Melanogaster is something that elitists dreamed up to make REAL americans from REAL 43% of the country feel stupid. He's right about that. Unfortunately for McCain, it will be exactly like the Texas Sky Screamer at Astroworld.
I'm waiting for the party planner to call me back. Apparently they're having trouble locating an ice sculptor who's capable of chiseling a life sized statue of Obama.
I think it's an anomaly and don't really care. But for those interested, here are 538.com's comments. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/trick-or-treat.html Trick or Treat Do you spook easily? Judging by the response in my inbox, some of you do. Matt Drudge is touting the results of a one-day sample in a Zogby poll, which apparently showed John McCain ahead by 1 point. There are a couple of significant problems with this. Firstly, there is a reason that pollsters include multiple days of interviewing in their tracking polls; a one-day sample is extremely volatile, and have very high margins for error. Secondly, the Zogby polls have been particularly volatile, because he uses nonsensical party ID weightings, which mean that his weighting process involves making numbers doing naughty things that they usually don't like to do. Thirdly, Zogby polls are generally a lagging rather than a leading indicator. This is because he splits his interviewing period over two days; most of the interviews that were conducted in this sample took place on Thursday night, with a few this afternoon. The reason this is significant is because lots of other pollsters were in the field on Thursday night, and most of them evidently showed good numbers for Obama, as he improved his standing in 6 of the 7 non-Zogby trackers. Finally, there was no favorable news for McCain to drive these numbers. Polls don't move without a reason (or at least they don't move much). So go out to your Halloween parties and enjoy yourself, and we'll be back to covering the polls for you tomorrow.
Poor Repubs... they have to pretend it's close to keep their base engaged so they don't get wiped out down ballot, but every time they claim it's close, it just inspires wary, twice-bitten Dems to work harder. They can't win.
Somewhere there's a vintage '70s blaxploitation porno BBS with a detailed analysis of likely versus registered voter trends, the unreliability of youth voters, and the self-suppression of voter turnout among first-time voters when media reports predict a sure thing. Or, yeah,
The new Rovians have to spin it close to support all their local races. If the base gives up on McCain and stays home, they lose Judges, State Reps and Congressmen. The Dems will spin it as a landslide for the same reason. I feel pretty good about the lead but, I was shocked when Clinton beat Bush 41 (he won a war) and I was shocked when Bush 43 beat Gore ( he was an obvious sockpuppet) .... Bush/Kerry not so much. So I won't take victory for granted ever again.
I'm an independent who is proudly voting for neither of these guys. I dislike good liars and bad liars. Anyhow, I think Old Man Rock is making some legitimate points. Whether he is right or wrong should be discussed on its merits, not whether or not you like his politics. Everybody is spinning on both sides and Polls are not a pure science. The margin of error is correct 95% of the time in polls. So if it's 55 to 45 with a margin of error of 5, it could still end up 70 to 30 and not violate how polls are set up. And yes, to be clear, the latest up by 1 by McCain is not an official Zogby Poll...I haven't looked it up, but I was listening to Zogby in my car this morning live on NPR. From his mouth he said that it is just 1 day and it could be: an anomaly, a start of a trend, or something else I forgot. He was saying the 3 day stuff that some of y'all have already written here. Now as to the competing philosophies: whether the Republicans are right or wrong is yet to be seen, but they're going to war with the following philosophy and they believe it's their path to victory: The Republicans believe that the polls are reflecting massive bias towards the Democrats because the Obama campaign is registering people like crazy and the polls are surveying mostly Dems. The Republicans also believe that the new registrants won't vote like crazy, at least not reflective of their record registion. Lastly, they believe that for every action by an active new Democratic vote creates an equal reaction by getting a rural Republican who otherwise wouldn't vote to vote. Democrats believe that if all the people who they've registered and all the people who have showed support vote at a high rate, then they've won it. It's part art and part science, and I barely understand any of it. But it should be debatable without the poor attitudes. I've very excited to find out what will happen.
All that article shows is that you can't trust Gallup. They have a 11 point Party ID in favor of Dems. Pew is at 15 and CBS/NYT is somewhere in between. There has never been more than a 4 point Party ID 1 way or the other in recent History. Last election it was 4 and in 2000 it was 1. Zogby says he adjusts his party id skew if he sees a reason to. Well folks early voting all over the country is showing Obama is getting only 75% of the Dem vote at best. The PUMA's are leaving in droves. Where as the Reps or uniting. Zogby's poll may be slightly under skewed for the Dems but those Polsters with 8 point and higher party ID skews in favor of the Dems are a joke. The reality is there has never been an election like this before and it has never been harder to get people to respond to polls. Republicans are hanging up and Democrats for McCain are refusing to answer. No one is answering the polls which makes them all crap but AP/ got smart and found a way to indirectly get a response. In an AP/Yahoo report they asked... "Would you prefer that the next president be politically conservative, liberal, or moderate? Conservative 32 Liberal 18 Moderate 48 Then they asked "How liberal, moderate, or conservative do you think Barack Obama is?" ANswer: Extremely conservative 3 Moderately conservative 3 Slightly conservative 3 Moderate 17 Slightly liberal 16 Moderately liberal 26 Extremely liberal 29 Refused / Not Answered 3 80% of America want a Moderate-Conservative President and only 26% of the people polled think Obama fits that bill. Where as for McCain 85% thought he was the right choice. Wow that right there should show that these polls are mis-skewed badly. If that AP report is correct this could be a landslide and in fact there are reports that the GOP internal polls show New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and even California are in play and suggest exactly that a landslide for McCain. GOP Intenal polls That might all be hype but with more Terror ties and stories about Obama's Aunt being here illegally and Obama says he didn't know. One has to ask how is it that Barack Obama was not aware his Aunt was here illegally for more than 4 years, but his campaign in 1 week was able to illegally dig up dirt on Joe The Plumber in a few days. No One knows who Obama is that is why there ia an AP report that says 15% of the electorate is still undecided. Many believe the Undecides will strongly vote for McCain. I am obviously not predicting a landslide but I do think this is much closer than any poll is reporting. And if your poll is just asking who are you going to vote for than you will be hard pressed to get a true poll.
Ahh, a refreshing self-righteous breath of "I'm an independent and better than all this" - we don't get enough of that here. The Republicans can believe whatever they want, the fact of the matter is that they're going to get blown out of the water on Tuesday, that's simply the most rational outcome due to all available evidence and has ZERO to do with partisan spin.
There are two separate things here. I'm an idiot who is far from the most knowledgeable and can humbly change my opinion and give people credit when they are good. I like certain things about both candidates...but it is very fair to say that both live in the world of half-truths. It is the nature of the game. I'm not condemning either and I strongly believe that either would be better than Bush, but I just don't like the ugly game that is full of lies. That doesn't make me self-righteous...I don't think. I'm not hating the players as much as hating the game, and you have to be a liar to be in this game and I don't like that. I don't think participating as a voter is wrong...I just won't do it. I apologize if that comes out as self-righteousness. The second issue is the spin thing. I am more inclined to believe in the Democratic scenario because I'm seeing the enthusiasm on tv and the reading about the ground campaign stuff. Obama's campaign is very impressive in its outreach and the evidence is showing that. There's is still evidence on the Republican side though. They're not just making up lies when they say the difference in Democrat and Republican turnout is normally at 5% max. While early voting is showing Democrats representing big time, absentee voting is coming mostly from Republicans. That's why I call it spin. The evidence is not 100% proof, and there is evidence here to support how either side believes it's going to play out. Again, I personally think the evidence is heavier on the Dem side, but it's not a sure thing, and to call it a sure thing landslide is spin imo.
