[SPLASH] Obama gets his bounce, +15 in Newsweek poll

Completely agree. We're fixing to see the sea-change I predicted would come someday, two years ago. I'm stunned that it's happening this quickly.



Impeach Bush.

 

I feel bad for McCain. After George W i don't think any republican had a chance. I just hope obama acts a lot like clinton I.

 

I'm on record in one of those early Obama threads as saying we are a generation away from electing a black president.

Looks like I was really wrong... but this is probably the more likely historical dynamic... it happens all of sudden and then it is done.

 

Its still a long way to go before the election and we've seen how overconfidence can doom a campaign.

 

This is almost unbelievable but would explain some of the statewide polls that show a big move towards Obama. Because of the Gallup and Rasmussen daily polls that show a much closer contest, I doubt his lead is really 15%; it's probably closer to 10% (which is my definition of a landslide).

McCain and his handlers have been so pathetic so far they almost deserve this. I am very upset at how slow they've been out of the gate. For that matter, they didn't even get him out of the gate while Obama was still fighting Hillary.

If Newsweek's number are accurate, this election is out of McCain's hands now. All he can hope for is something out of the blue yonder to bring Obama down. While I don't underestimate the GOP mud machine, Obama's campaign is so much better than Dukakis' or Kerry's it isn't even funny. With his money, he can reply to anything.

Overconfidence could be a factor going forward, but that won't be enough to stop Obama.

By election time and assuming Obama wins, I think he will end up with no more than a 6-8% margin in the popular vote. Inertia will bring them closer together.

 

Couldn't agree more. I don't think Obama would argue with you, either.


Impeach Bush.

 

I want be happy until it's a 30 point lead.Very good start though, he still has a lot of work to do.

 

At one point in 1976, Jimmy Carter was up 33 points on Gerald Ford and it ended up being a nailbiter. If Ford hadn't had a couple of miscues late, he probably would have pulled it out.

 

Leave behind your sorrows
Let this day be the last
Tomorrow there'll be sunshine
And all this darkness past.

Big wheels roll through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams!

 

So Newsweek goes out and polls 1010 people, with 36% identifying themselves as Democrats and 22% as Republicans(a 14-point margin) and ends up with Obama leading by a 15-point margin. Gee, there's a shock.

Just goes to show you can get any poll results you want if you skew the numbers in favor of one party.

 

Just goes to show it's pretty hard to find people willing to identify themselves as Republicans these days.

Your analysis of the polling though is spot-on and in-depth. Like your scientific analysis of global warming.

 

Yeah, I'm sure Newsweek tried really hard to achieve an accurate picture of the electorate. That's why they have Obama leading by 15 points while every other poll has him up around 4-7 points.

At least I read the entire poll. Something tells me the vast majority of people posting in here stopped at "Barack Obama leads McCain by 15 points".

 

are you saying they stopped polling when they knew the person was republican? they polled x number of people not knowing if they were democrat or republican.. 55% were leaning democratic thus voting obama.. 36 were leaning republican thus voting mccain.. so how was the poll skewed again?

what if the poll had democrats and republicans evenly at 50-50? and obama won by 15%? won't that be more of an anomaly?

 

According to their breakdown on the last page of the poll, 36% of the 1010 people they surveyed were Democrats. 22% were Republicans. Sure there'll be some GOP voters who go for Obama, but when the poll starts out by sampling 64% more Democrats than Republicans, of course he'll come out of it with a huge lead.

No, I wouldn't want a 50/50 poll. I'd want one that accurately depicts the electorate. There are not 64% more Democrats in this country than Republicans. I haven't seen the breakdown of the rest of the polls that have Obama leading McCain by anywhere from 4-7 points, but I'd be willing to bet those have a much more realistic sampling.

 

Your analysis assumes that the polling agency actually tried to find a representative mix. I'm not saying that it didn't, but that appears to be an unknows factor.

 

this is newsweek. do you really think that they'd do a ****ty poll just to skew things in obama's favor?

i mean, journalistic credibility still has some worth, if you're not fox news.

 

They will normalize the results to be in line with the end make-up of the expected voting turnout. So they should correct for that factor. Most polls do this.

If like if you do a poll and you end up with response of 50% men and 50% women, you have to normalize that to the actual turnout of 60% women and 40% men. Of course, this is one reason polls can be inaccurate, because who knows who actually will turnout and vote.

 

keep on keepin' on