[alwaysconservative]

Oh, I agree with YOUR conclusions, not those of the media! Actually, the point I was trying to make (and apparently not doing a very good job of it!) was to question whether or not "push polls", which I consider to be invalid, should be included in this tally, since their purpose was NOT to measure a random voter response, but to push or telemarket a certain view. It was not a legitimate poll in the sense of what you are evaluating, even if it was accurate on a couple of points. It's the difference of "proving" something with anecdotal evidence or legitimate scientific methodology.

[Wolfstar]

You're doing fine. I enjoy our electronic conversations and hope you do to. Actually, I made no judgements about these 20 polls. I have no way of knowing if any were push polls or not. Just used the list from RealPolitics.com because it was easily available and accessible. And I took the pollsters at their word. Each of them said their result was accurate within a given MOE. So I took their numbers, compared them to the election outcome, looked at the MOE's and listed the results. Eitehr they were accurate or they were not. Not fancy, but a very straightforward, common man's test.

It's worth bearing in mind that this is a CASE study, not a broad, all-encompassing study. One of my concerns about polling is that few pollsters make their methodology public. That goes to the heart of your point about whether or not one is a push poll. Every single one of these organizations claimed to be accurate. As a member of the general public, I decided to use the tools available to me to test their claims.