Posted on 09/21/2012 6:31:56 AM PDT by TonyInOhio
I reached out to Republican pollster John McLaughlin for yesterday’s piece on how undecided voters are likely to break, and he made some separate comments about polls, their impact on motivation for each side, and how the campaigns want to use skewed poll numbers to depress the opposition.
How he’s defining likely voters right now: “For the most part we’re polling likely voters. It’s a loose screen. We keep people who say they’re only somewhat likely to vote. But the vast majority say that they are definitely or very likely to vote. They’re voting.”
How campaigns try to sway polling results: “In a close race, the operatives are trying to manipulate the turnout through their paid and earned media. The earned media includes lobbying and trying to skew the public polls. Historically the most egregious case was the 2000 Gore campaign’s lobbying the networks’ exit pollsters for an early, and wrong, call in Florida. This suppressed the Florida Panhandle and Western state turnout.” (Polls close at different times in different parts of the state, because the state stretches into two time zones.) “In our post-election Florida poll, we found that thousands of Panhandle Floridians heard the call and although their polls were still open for an hour in a close national race decided not to vote. Panhandle voters went two-to-one for Bush. The CBS early wrong call nearly triggered a national crisis.”
On what a realistic partisan breakdown would look like: The 2004 national exit polls showed an even partisan turnout and Bush won 51-48. Had it been the +4 Democratic edge of 2000, John Kerry would have been President. 2008 was a Democratic wave that gave them a +7 partisan advantage. 2010 was a Republican edge. There’s no wave right now. There are about a dozen swing states where in total millions of voters who voted in 2008 for Obama are gone or have not voted since. There are also hundreds of thousands of voters in each of several swing states like Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, and others who voted from rural, exurban or suburban areas in 2004 for Bush who did not vote in 2008, because they were not excited by McCain or thought he would lose. They are currently planning to vote mainly as a vote against President Obama.”
What Obama and his allies are doing now: “The Democrats want to convince [these anti-Obama voters] falsely that Romney will lose to discourage them from voting. So they lobby the pollsters to weight their surveys to emulate the 2008 Democrat-heavy models. They are lobbying them now to affect early voting. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) polls are heavily weighted. You can weight to whatever result you want. Some polls have included sizable segments of voters who say they are “not enthusiastic” to vote or non voters to dilute Republicans. Major pollsters have samples with Republican affiliation in the 20 to 30 percent range, at such low levels not seen since the 1960s in states like Virginia, Florida, North Carolina and which then place Obama ahead. The intended effect is to suppress Republican turnout through media polling bias. We’ll see a lot more of this. Then there’s the debate between calling off a random digit dial of phone exchanges vs a known sample of actual registered voters. Most polls favoring Obama are random and not off the actual voter list. That’s too expensive” for some pollsters.
That is not reflected in current polling.
No need to panic. Also, giving, generally goes up for the incumbent after the convention, plus he wasted 2.8 million of the convention money to rent a stadium he didn't use. September is going to be an interesting number though.
I anticipate lots of ads after the October debate all the way to the end...it's going to be defining.....but mostly in the swing states. If you're in a solid Red or Blue state you won't be hearing much unless you're on the east side of the country that reports early on the voting totals on election night.
Both sides are going to try to run the table early....look for media shenanigans like 2000... to aid Obozo.
I'm watching here, and using FOX for background noise.....unless it becomes pretty obvious that Romney's going to win this then I'll be switching back and forth to the "Other" channels to watch the general meltdown just like in 1994.... pure schadenfreude!
Yes, you will be wrong on all three.
So come back in Nov and eat your crow.
I agree with you except for the word "landslide."
The "mudslide" will take 0kaka, his communist cabal and Hos down the sewer where they were spawned and belonged.
Freeper leaders even
and the tv media wants to keep a tight race in order to get lots of viewers
” I’ll go you one better than that FRiend, those ideological ‘conservative’ purists are the enemy within our own ranks. They fail to understand that the primary objective is to DEFEAT 0BAMA, nothing else matters than to get that filthy, jug-eared Communist pig out of the White House before he is able to finish his anti-American agenda over the next 4 years without anything holding him back or restraining him whatsoever. “
We already have maybe 10 years of misery just undoing the damage and debt Obama has ALREADY wreaked upon us. Four more years, and there will be only ashes. Does anybody want to wish this on our kids ?
Thanks for the ping. Yes, McLaughlin makes sense about the biased polling. I hope it doesn’t work.
Worse than Dole.
Do you have any more info about that? (Firm name, etc.) I’d like to do some research in order to intelligently bring the subject up again.
How is it 'pure' to do that which knowingly results in a greater evil? Voting for a third party always help the incumbent, in this case, the evil Marxist, Obama. Not voting is failing to participate in one's civil duty as an American and also helps the incumbent.
How is it 'principled' to refuse to take an action that would help reduce the likelihood of a mandate for an evil president, should he win, or, by numbers, ensure that an evil president cannot win?
I've posted this before, and it's on my profile:
This is directed to the 'PURIST PATRIOT CONSERVATIVES' with ‘impeccable CONSERVATIVE credentials’ who would NEVER vote for Romney because he's 'just as evil as Obama': Say what you want about Romney, but he isn't the one who would allow U.S. Navy Seals to be murdered, U. S. Ambassadors to be sodomized and murdered, American embassies to be besieged, refuse calls from Netanyahu, or participate in fundraising the day after these atrocities. Yes, certainly be 'pure' and stick to your 'principles' by voting THIRD PARTY resulting in an Obama re-election. If you think that God honors that kind of purity which results in Americans continuing to be literally screwed, you've got some twisted and impure 'spiritual' and logical reasoning.
IF this were the primaries, then an entirely different scenario exists.
IF this was about electing a leader of an evangelical, non-denominational, or other Christian church for the position of pastor, deacon or elder, or other such RELIGIOUS Christian position, then Christians must adhere to what the Scriptures state about the type of man who may fill those positions. And for those types of positions, Romney is unqualified according to my reading of the Apostle Paul's writings in the Scriptures. Not because he is a bad man, has a bad heart, or has displayed any bad examples. It would revolve around his religious theology.
HOWEVER, this is not a primary, and this is NOT the election of a CHURCH leader. This is about getting rid of a very evil man, who belongs to a party which has thrice denied God. This is about getting their leader out of office and as the head of our nation. Come January, there will ONLY be one of two people who have ANY possibility of winning, and that is either Romney or Obama. I'll take the RINO Mormon over the Evil Marxist Moron.
” IF this was about electing a leader of an evangelical, non-denominational, or other Christian church for the position of pastor, deacon or elder, or other such RELIGIOUS Christian position, then Christians must adhere to what the Scriptures state about the type of man who may fill those positions. And for those types of positions, Romney is unqualified according to my reading of the Apostle Paul’s writings in the Scriptures. Not because he is a bad man, has a bad heart, or has displayed any bad examples. It would revolve around his religious theology.
HOWEVER, this is not a primary, and this is NOT the election of a CHURCH leader. This is about getting rid of a very evil man, who belongs to a party which has thrice denied God. This is about getting their leader out of office and as the head of our nation. Come January, there will ONLY be one of two people who have ANY possibility of winning, and that is either Romney or Obama. I’ll take the RINO Mormon over the Evil Marxist Moron. “
This has been my argument all along. We aren’t voting for a minister, we are voting for a politician.
Exactly! And, on the flip side of the coin, against an evil Marxist.
[ Considering what I have seen so far in Iowa, Mitt has decided he can’t win ]
Funny, Rasmusen’s Iowa poll out today has Mitt up 47-44. Undecided voters will swing heavily to Mitt. If Romney is not in Iowa, it is because his campaign considers it safe at this point and is allocating the resources elsewhere.
[ I think this will all be overcome, but definitely was not good news to read this fundraising info today. ]
another goal of these BS polls—drive down Romney fundraising.
I remember that clearly. I would talk to doctors, executives, well educated people and business people. I’d tell them how bad things are in Cook County and they’d scoff. It was like a waking nightmare. Now, though, 100% of them are voting for Romney.
Nothing like the school of hard knocks to educate people.
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