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.
George Soros, maybe?
Either way Republicans needs to Vote. Never assume that since Bush appears to have a large lead you can stay home and not vote !!!
Weegee to MoveOn: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
What a waste of money. The people reading the NYT are already voting in a Kerry majority.
It would have been wiser to run that ad in a Miami paper, or in a Cleveland paper, or even in the Milwaukee paper.
What a bunch of idiots.
Excellent observation. I didn't consider that point. Why else spend that kind of cash in the NYT, which leans heavily left and has a leftist readership?
If a liberal candidate wins, the people have spoken. If a conservative candidate wins, it must be decided by the courts.
This is hilarious. They are relying on the reader's ignorance to convince people that something is wrong with Gallup results. First of all, what the voter turnout in 2000 or 1996 was need not be correlated with the turnout in 2004 for their model to be valid. Second, the 'antiquated' model they have used has in the past been pretty reasonable as a predictor. Third, one has only to look at the model to see why it generates different results than the models used by other pollsters. They arrive at likely voter numbers by asking MORE DETAILED questions of the respondents regarding their interest in voting. Rather than simply asking whether or not they are likely to vote, they rate people based on a ten-point scale of interest AND in how they answer other, seemingly unrelated questions (which have been shown to correlate with likelihood of voting in the past). In other words, their picture of likely voters is FAR MORE COMPREHENSIVE AND REALISTIC. What is interesting in the results is that it indicates that a historically large conservative turnout may occur in this election. THAT's the REAL news.
It's based on voter/polling respondent self-identification. The real news is that more people polled are starting to identify themselves as GOP. This is contrary to past elections, but movements like this have taken place in this country's history.
My guess? The shrillness of the Dems and their surrogates are turning a lot of average Joe/Jane Democrats against the party. It's what happens when the kooks run any party. The silent majority starts to silently migrate somewhere else.
It is common that after a convention or a big news event to see such drastic changes from established levels. That is one reason to ignore the first round of polls taken after a convention.
It is not common for it to have endured, the way this has. Will it endure through the election? I do not know. Will it correspond with huge Republican pluralities turning out? I do not know.
But what I do know is that Gallup, ABC News/Washington Post, CBS News, Pew and others are measuring something. They are not making it up.
There was a poll done here in New Jersey a few weeks ago where something like 60% of democrats believed that George Bush was going to be re-elected. That translates into a large number of "my vote won't make a difference" democrats who might just stay home on Election Day. In a state like New Jersey, the Presidential contest is the only major item on the ticket. With all due respect to local and congressional races, they just don't bring out voters like a closely contested Presidential race does.
In MoveOn's case, "527" stands for "527 ways to creatively flush our contributor's money down the toilet." Anyone seens their ads showing weird people who claim they voted for Bush in 2000 but are now switching to Kerry? Those are some of the most unappealing political ads I've ever seen.
I have a sneaky feeling that MOVEON.ORGan is paying radio and TV broadcasters to interview Zogby.
Moron.org's logic is still based on this "oversampling" crap. If the sample is truly random, there is no such thing as "oversampling". If their results indicate more people identify Rep than Dem, so be it. Same for likelihood to vote. Separate survey data reinforce higher numbers for Reps. People who indicate they're voting for Bush indicate a MUCH higher level of enthusiasm than Kerry's voters. That would reflect in likely voter numbers.
As for their statement:
"...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."
Gallup just uses the latter to determine the former. The two are not mutually exclusive, except to an atheist.
George Soros today on WABC 770am NYC news on the half hour said he was going to spend another $15 million dollars to defeat President George W Bush.
That's the bad part.
So much for McCain-Feingold / Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform.
But the SwiftVets, Vets Against John Kerry, Free Republic, and various other groups and newsites will keep doing their part without the MSM and the voting public will reject John Kerry on November 2nd.
That's the good part.
So much more for America and freedom!
in each of the last two Presidential elections, Democratic turnout exceeded Republican by four to five points.
More stolen election bunk, if they did why didn't gore win?
Oh right , the Supreme Court. Bwhahahahahahaha!
This is just to set up the scenario for another "We actually
won but evil republicans and their idiot leader robbed us."
George Soros?
Tides Foundation?
It must really be bothering them. Otherwise, why even bother with a full page ad that was probably not cheap.
And where are they getting all these frantic fellow Freepers from?
"Bush’s phantom 14-point lead."
MoreOn better come up with some phantom crowds to start attending some of kerry and edwards' phantom rallies.
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