Posted on 09/28/2004 1:34:36 PM PDT by jern
The ad text:
WHY DOES AMERICA’S TOP POLLSTER KEEP GETTING IT WRONG?
If John Kerry believed in the Gallup poll, he might as well give up. A couple of weeks ago,a highly publicized Gallup poll of “likely voters” showed President Bush with a staggering 14-point lead.
But wait a minute. Seven other polls of likely voters were released that same week. On average, they showed Bush with just a three-point lead. No one else came close to Gallup’s figures. And this isn’t the first time the prestigious Gallup survey has been out on a limb with pro-Bush findings.
What’s going on here? It’s not exactly that Gallup’s cooking the books. Rather, they are refusing to fix a longstanding problem with their likely voter methodology.
Simply put, Gallup’s methodology has predicted lately that Republican turnout on Election Day is likely to exceed Democrats’ by six to eight percentage point. But exit polls show otherwise: in each of the last two Presidential elections, Democratic turnout exceeded Republican by four to five points. That discrepancy alone can account for nearly all of Bush’s phantom 14-point lead.
This is more than just a numbers game. Poll results profoundly affect a campaign’s news coverage as well as the public’s perception of the candidates.
Two media outlets, CNN and USA Today, bear special responsibility for this problem. They pay for many of Gallup’s surveys, in exchange for the right to add their names to the polls and trumpet the results first. They wind up acting as unquestioning promotional partners, rather than as critical journalists. The public would be better served if journalists asked some tough questions, beginning with the Gallup Organization, which has been asked to select the audience for the Bush-Kerry “town meeting” debate on October 8.
George Gallup Jr., son of the poll’s founder, was the longtime head of the company and now directs its non-profit research center. Why hasn’t he pushed for an update of the company’s likely voter modeling, which his own father pioneered in the 1950s?
Gallup, who is a devout evangelical Christian, has been quoted as calling his polling “a kind of ministry.” And a few months ago, he said “the most profound purpose of polls is to see how people are responding to God.”
We thought the purpose is to faithfully and factually report public opinion.
To quote one of my favorite lines from the movie, "Gone With The Wind", Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Scarlett in the burning city of Atlanta ...
"Panic is such a pretty sight."
I can't answer your question. I generally don't follow the polls.
I wonder if they'd be so concerned if Kerry were up by 5-8 points?
LOL!!
"Move on's" denial mode!
Gallup had consistantly pulled in kerry's favor, but even THEY can't hide the real truth anymore!
MoveOn is just mad that that Bush won the 2000 Elections. What a bunch of whiny crybabies!
"Turn those machines back on!!!.....Turn those machines back on!!!!" Don Ameche in "Trading Places"...
ROTFLMAO!!!
What a weird-ass thing to do.... What is their point in attacking the Gallup poll? Whack-jobs, yes, but they must think they have a good reason for attacking Gallup....
***FROM GALLUP: Results based on likely voters are based on the subsample of 758 survey respondents deemed most likely to vote in the November 2004 general election, according to a series of questions measuring current voting intentions and past voting behavior.***
Now, if I'm reading this right, and I'd like to think I am, Gallup doesn't simply determine for themselves who they think is going to vote and who is not. Nobody would see that as fair or factual. They actually ASK the respondents about the likelihood they will be voting in November.
George Soros is their Sugar Daddy.
I find this anti-religion bigotry as offensive as I find someone using the "n"-bomb.
This is by far the most desperate move I have ever seen. These folks are freaking out. What they don't realize is that all they are doing is bringing more attention to the poll #s. Smart move dumbasses.
Looks like MoveOn has started their election meltdown. Don't like the polls? Just take out an ad in the paper denouncing the pollsters! Yea, that's the ticket. That'll change some more minds. /sarcasm
"Turn those machines back on!!!.....Turn those machines back on!!!!" Don Ameche in "Trading Places"...
ROTFLMAO!!!
Mortimer turn those machines back on.
"Don Ameche in "Trading Places"..."
Precisely the mental image I had when I wrote that. This same den of kooks blamed the Hurricanes on Bush last week.
It is sad indeed that these kooks think people are this stupid (based upon the people they associate with.)
Now you've got the pollsters colluding against Kerry. And the media's, CBS notwithstanding, failure to expose Bush's faults. They are all in Rove's pocket, you know.
The Bush Regime has its hands in everything. It's no wonder Kerry's campaign is in tatters. The Republican Smear Machine has made it impossible for the Dems candidate to have a fair shake.
Losers!
I love the way that guy says "HA ha"!
The polling services had been oversampling Democrats and nobody had an issue with it.
The only poll that counts is the one on election day.
"Mortimer, your brother"
Is what MoveOn claiming correct? That Gallup is basing their polls on Rep. turnout of 40%? If that is the case, I can see where MoveOn would have a point.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.