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.
“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 ?”
Apparently some people do. Many of the ones I’ve seen are practically gleeful in contemplating what Obama is going to do to everyone else, and how much we’re going to suffer because we didn’t nominate their pet ‘pure’ conservative.
Yay! You’re back!
First of all, good morning!
Thank God for another day, and another chance to fight the evil that is staring us in the face.
I have been reading all the comments on this thread, and I thank you all for stating so clearly what we are up against in just 45 days.
In 1980, even though I was much younger, I could see that the future of America was at stake, and the road to that future diverged between Reagan and Carter.
I feel much more so today. It seems that the rest of America is slowly catching on to what we realized in 2007 and 2008—Obama hates this country, his Administration hates this country, and they are all Godless,radical, Israel-hating people, who are endangering the very survival of our country.
The time for arguing about the purity or conservatism of any Republican candidate is long past.Those battles were fought, but they no longer matter.
All that matters now is what you see when you gaze upon your children and grandchildren sleeping safely in their beds at night—and realizing there are evil forces afoot that wish to compromise their liberty and their future.
For some of us, the majority of our life is past, and it has been a terrific one, steeped in freedom and abundance, and safe from want and fear.
But for them, their tomorrows are ahead of them, and they are depending upon us to do what they cannot do—select a President who will guarantee their future.
In 2012, we face such a choice—where the diverging roads of the future and where each will lead is so clear that it is frightening.
The issue of who is the more perfect candidate is not even relevant, because there is not, nor has there ever been, a perfect candidate.
If morality is the measure, there is no one who can argue that Barack Obama is a more moral man than Mitt Romney.
If executive ability is the measure, there is no one who can argue that Barack Obama is more able than Mitt Romney.
If economic understanding is the measure, there is no one who can argue that Barack Obama is more able than Mitt Romney.
If love of America is the measure, there is no one who can argue that Barack Obama loves America period, and certainly not more than Mitt Romney.
If guaranteeing the freedoms that are our birthright is the measure, there is no one who can argue that Barack Obama will fight for those freedoms mmore than Mitt Romney.
If the care and respect of our military is the measure, there is no one who can argue that Barack Obama cares more about the military than Mitt Romney.
If defending Israel is the measure, there is no one who can argue that Barack Obama will defend Israel at all, let alone more than Mitt Romney.
In the primary season, Mitt Romney was no one’s choice here.
In the election, Mitt Romney is the only choice.
Romney is not the same as Obama, and anyone who says so is intellectually deficient.
Make no mistake, the fight of our lives is upon us. When it would cost you nothing but the time to go and vote for
Romney to save the country, how can any of us make a rational excuse to those sleeping innocents for not doing so, when by NOT doing so, the cost of defending their future rises to a height that can only be paid by tremendous sacrifice?
It's a scam. They start polling fairly right before the election.
Well said, e82. Well said!!
Prominent Members of Chicago Black Community: Those closest to Obama know there's no 2nd term
There will be no 2008 sort of turnout for Obozo. Not only is that one-time energy gone, gone too is the 2004 and 2000 Democrat voter energy, and the pro-Clinton energy from 1996 and 1992.
All the Democrats have working for them is an evaporating cesspool of hard-core gays, lesbians, union zombies, and social workers -- loud, nasty, vicious, but dwindling to minimal in actual numbers, and there's lots of overlap in those residual groups.
Another post showed an answering machine demonstrating how the dead-end call defaults to pro-Obama answers.
On and on, the main theme of this bizarre polling frenzy, the bizarre and weightless media complaints about anything Romney -- the commie media pukes are at Armegeddon-level desperation melt-down mode.
I'm predicting that Obozo loses 59% to 39% in the popular vote, with an electoral vote defeat worse than Carter in 1980.
Ok, I don’t understand the last statement, last sentence...
Call me stupid....but I can’t see how the 2010 win will cause Obozo to win...
I think the People wanted grid lock, voted in Tea Partiers in the House and will seal the deal by getting rid of Obozo....I hope.
Maybe I should just stay in Brazil.
” In the primary season, Mitt Romney was no one’s choice here.
In the election, Mitt Romney is the only choice.
Romney is not the same as Obama, and anyone who says so is intellectually deficient.”
Exactly. Your post covered it all!
” They’ll wake up and say “0BAMA WON! YAY US! YAY ‘PURE’ CONSERVATISM! YAY America’s gonna die now and prove our point!’”
Obama won’t advance conservatism while in office, but he might save the economy. It’s all we have. Our country would collapse under Obama, or at least it would never be the same again. Also, homosexuality and abortion will triumph under Obama, while the military (whats left of it) will be all but destroyed.
” In the primary season, Mitt Romney was no one’s choice here.
In the election, Mitt Romney is the only choice.
Romney is not the same as Obama, and anyone who says so is intellectually deficient.”
Exactly. Your post covered it all!
BTTT
I was wrong, there are just too many uninformed voters who believe silver tongued orators and their mpty promises.
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