The poll is meaningless, no matter what Rasmussen says about the margin. How can these numbers swing so wildly from one week or day to another?
The monthly poll is better, but just an average of the meaningless numbers we see every day.
I believe in the gut feeling of unrest I observe more and more in this society. The “glow” of the Øbamaphiles is long gone.
“The poll is meaningless, no matter what Rasmussen says about the margin. How can these numbers swing so wildly from one week or day to another?”
Um...because of what Rasmussen says about the margin. When any pollster says “within a 3% margin of error”, that actually means there is a 95% chance that the poll is within 3 points of the actual number. Since the “presidential approval rating” involves two poll results, the actual possible spread is 6 points at a 95% confidence level.
So, first of all the “real” number for this particular poll could be anywhere from -13 (-19 + 6) to -25 (-19 - 6)...and that is only within the 95% confidence interval. In fact, again since two quantities are involved, it is not an aggregate 95% confidence level, but instead (1 - (.95 * .95)) * 100, or 90.25% confidence level.
In other words, there is almost a 10% chance that the “real” number is even outside that range (-13 to -25). It is not “meaningless”, but it is “statistical”. What the poll does do is give an idea of the trends as Rasmussen conducts it day after day.
I hope this clears up “how can these numbers swing so wildly” though. ;-)