Posted on 11/03/2008 7:38:36 AM PST by MaverickElephant
Friends:
If you've been listening to the news and poll results this past week, you're probably thinking the election on Tuesday is a mere formality at this point, and that the outcome is all but pre-ordained.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Did you know, for instance, that pollster John Zogby predicted Barack Obama would beat Hillary Clinton in the California Presidential Primary by 13 points?
She won by 9.6 percent. That's nearly a TWENTY-THREE POINT DIFFERENCE (result vs. poll prediction). The same exact thing happened in many other States.
How can any "professional" pollster be off by TWENTY-THREE PERCENT? Answer: they can't - unless they are either grossly incompetent, or have an agenda to influence the outcome of a race. And, firms like Zogby have been doing this a very long time, so draw your own conclusions as to whether it is incompetence or "push polling" to influence the outcome of an election.
Also - did you know that most polls (Zobgy, Rasmussen, Pew Research, CBS and most of the others) 'OVERSAMPLE' (ie: poll more) DEMOCRATS BY 8 TO 15 PERCENT? For instance, the latest ABC poll (if you look at the "internals") shows D: 37, R: 28. (?!!) That is a NINE point "oversampling". And, guess what? Obama was "ahead" by nine points in this poll - which exactly matches the oversampling percentages.
Pew Research's latest poll is "weighted" 39% D, 24% R, 30% Independent and 2% "no preference". And, surprise - with a FIFTEEN PERCENT WEIGHTING to the Dems, Obama is ahead by 15. (What a coincidence!)
Survey USA just put out another "overweighted" poll last night, having Obama up by THREE in Minnesota (not a state expected to go McCain/Palin). Yet, they "oversampled" Dems by SEVEN (39D/32R/25I). Yet, in the 2004 election, the actual turnout was 38/35/27. So, how on earth can they justify this type of sample? Easy - they can't.
And the REAL kicker - out just today from Gallup..(you've probably heard it on the news) - "Obama is ahead by ELEVEN Percent!! Election is O-V-E-R!". What they unfortunately do NOT tell you is this: they oversampled Democrats by TEN PERCENT! So, "best case" - Obama is up by ONE percent - well within the "Margin Of Error (MOE)" nationally.
Now, here's where it gets really interesting - did you know that the Mason Dixon state-by-state poll (among the most accurate in previous elections) shows McCain/Palin UP in key battleground states, and that Obama is not even at 50% in ANY of them? They believe McCain/Palin are up by 2 in Ohio. Up 1 in Missouri. Up 3 in North Carolina. But, I'm guessing that you probably haven't heard about ANY of this on CBS, NBC, MSNBC or ABC.
Pollsters attempt to justify this, by saying they expect a larger Democrat turnout this time around. Yet, history does not bear that out. In both the 2000 and the 2004 elections, the turnout for Dems vs. Republicans was "essentially" even (perhaps one or two points in either direction). And, in "early voting" currently happening across the country, there is no evidence of huge Democrat margins, either.
So, what could be behind this "oversampling" phenomenon?
In my opinion, the answer is simple: the media, the pollsters, and the pundits are all completely committed to do WHATEVER they can to assure an Obama victory - even at the risk of their own personal and professional reputations. So, they are "spinning" the story the best they can (even using inflated, inaccurate data) to demoralize Republicans, in a completely transparent attempt to suppress voter turnout on Tuesday for our party. Don't let them get away with it!!
Most of you know that the media has long held an abject hatred for the Republican party and our "traditional" American beliefs and values. There's ample evidence to support this and their blatant bias, and documenting that is not the purpose of this message. But suffice it to say - the media and the pollsters in general HATE the Republicans, and will do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING to assure our complete destruction, defeat and humiliation. To them, this is not an election. It is a WAR for the soul and future direction of our country. (As a quick example, just watch Chris Matthews [MSNBC anchor] or Keith Olbermann [ditto], or Campbell Brown at CNN. Or Katie Couric at CBS. Or Brian Williams at NBC. Even the usually reliable Fox News Channel - outside of Bill O'Reilley and Sean Hannity (and a few others) have done everything they can to promote an Obama "win". [There's an excellent video on YouTube of MSNBC's Chris Matthews saying that Obama gives him a "tingle up his leg" - how's THAT for "objective reporting" from a supposedly "neutral" network?!]. NBC has been called "Obama campaign headquarters" by O'Reilley (and with good reason). And even the press core has turned on and publicly ridiculed MSNBC for their outrageously corrupt and laughable "reporting". Anyway, I digress..most agree that the media is "in the tank" for Obama - as are the pollsters. The point here is that YOU CANNOT TRUST THEM to report the 'truth' at this point, and the hard data bears this out).
PLEASE help us get the word out by forwarding to your friends, neighbors and anyone you know. This election is FAR from over and could easily go either way. Even here in XXX, where there are strong rumors that McCain/Palin are "within the margin of error". And PLEASE - BY ALL MEANS - GET TO THE POLLS ON TUESDAY!!
Hope you found this helpful, and that it's provided some insight. Thanks for listening.
I assume you’ve seen this “PUMA”-based analysis. One can never know when he/she is self-deluding, but given the KNOWN presence of 18 MM PUMAs, I find this analysis pretty credible. We need only about 1 MM of them, dispersed properly, of course. I find this a whole lot less far fetched than 0bama being ahead by ten and twelve points, which is utterly absurd.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2123087/posts
The polls do have meaning. I just can’t say what they mean without getting my post zotted.
The polls are pure communist propaganda to mislead the sheeple.
The polls are wrong every election and they ALWAYS favor communist democrats, never republican socialists.
If I understand the process correctly, those Republicans aren't allowed to switch back until the next election so the amount of registered Democrats is definitely overstated and this may be one of the factors in why the polls have been so favorable to Obama.
So it could be that this "Operation Chaos" ends up having an impact far greater than it's original intent, which was merely to disrupt the Democratic nomination process. I guess we'll find out tomorrow night.
As of Friday 31st October the early votes in Colorado:
Dems....%37.846....488,575
Rep.....%36.087....465,869
Ind.....%26.066.... 336,511
Total votes casted...1,290,955
So how does this match up with Rasmussen, Gallup, Survey USA, Red Star Tribune, ARG, CBS/New York Slimes, et al, party ID models? So where is that +10% spread?
Hard proof that the pollsters are playing with your minds.
http://www.elections.colorado.gov/WWW/default/GoVoteColorado/general_election_transaction_report.pdf
POLLS!...SMOLLS!
VOTE NO TO SOCIALISM TOMORROW!
So the polls you disagree with are nonsense and the polls you agree with are not? Does that pretty much sum it up?
Welcome to FR.
I hate to say this but for just about every national poll to finish on election eve with movement towards Obama is not good news. EVERYONE here said they would tighten up in the final days of this campaign and they have not. We have seen movement in the state polls towards McCain but I just cannot imagine that all of these national polls with Obama +5 and up are going to hang their reputations on the line just to TRY to help him get elected.
Get out and vote, drag everyone you know to the polls to vote for McCain/Palin because I think it’s gonna take a miracle now. We are in for 4 or more years of complete and utter poltical devastation the likes of which none of us have seen.
Welcome to FR.
Living in Britain at the time, I remember laughing my @$# off. :-)
WOW! I had forgotten about Peace Moonbeam! I was exchanging private emails w/ her a few years ago, after
seeing a link to her somewhere, (maybe here, on FR)and it’s great to see her site is still up and running, and everybit as funny as it was then.
Weekends were made for Michelob!
polling is a science. It’s only as reliable as the person applying the science.
The underlying assumptions on most of the polls are what skews it to Obama in numbers that are too large IMO.
When McCain pulls this out, a lot of pollsters will need to really evaluate how they weigh certain assumptions after all is said and done because they would have done a great disservice to the country because there will be riots, and people will die.
I worked with pollsters and most of them are egghead types, people that get too buried in numbers to actually see whats going on. There is also the agenda factor that’s in play too and there is no equation that can brush away personal bias.
Yes. Before, and during WW2, British intelligence infiltrated USA polling to influence the US public to get them into the war and keep them there.
I remember Rove saying many times that the polls *always* trend against the Republican after a weekend, because the weekend polls are always notoriously bad for Republicans.
Not saying McCain is ahead, or that he’ll win tomorrow (although my gut tells me he pulls this off by a larger margin than many of the hopefuls think), but for the polls to trend Democrat after a weekend is totally normal.
I’m sure Obama is ahead two points or three at most.
However, it’s within the MOE with a decent amount of undecided voters.
The exit polls showed a Kerry blowout around 2PM on election day four years ago.
ALL OF THEM showed it, and ALL OF THEM were wrong.
It’s happened before, and polls are not science.
Check it out here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2123557/posts
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
You have understated the effect of oversampling.
As explained in the post, How to Adjust for Oversampling, a one percent oversampling error results in a reduction of about 0.7 percent from one side (not every person counted will vote against the oversampled party) AND an addition of about 0.7 percent to the other side.
Therefore, in your example, if the ABC Poll has indeed oversampled the Democratic side by nine points, each side will change by about 6.3% -- for a total swing of 12.6%. In other words, Barry drops from an 8 point lead to a 4.6 point deficit.
Similarly, a ten point Gallup oversampling error results in a 14 point swing -- and Barry's eleven point lead drops to a 3 point deficit. Well withing the MOE of both polls.
You might find it interesting to adjust the polls for their oversampling bias and note they are actually pretty close when they don't try to cook the books, and they almost all favor McCain.
excellent post! ty!
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