"I'm voting for Obama because I know he's not finished yet."
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.
Wonderful post...thanks.
It confirms what I had heard after the 2008 debacle...new black voters for the “halfrican” but only 10% total of population made some difference but in the end, it was McLame as a horrible candidate and not supporting Sarah that kept true Pubbie base voters home, they too thinking Obummer may not be THAT bad.
They were wrong, they know it and they will turn out for Mitt to bury Obozo.
Well, Romney is worse than McCain. And Paul does not generate the same enthusiasm Palin did.
The only reason they are not losing by 10 is the economy. Maybe it will be enough to keep them within 2-3%, in which case the GOP can at least hold on to its House majority.
If Romney loses by 4-6%, the majority is gone as well.
And no, he is not going to win in November, McLaughlin’s bs notwithstanding.
2008 was a warning shot over the bow of the Republican party. “Stop acting like Democrats”. Obama gave rise to the largest political activism from conservatives that I’ve ever seen. The Republican party better wake up and get their noses out of the beltway media butt. The internet is our media not the MSM. I haven’t watched 5 minutes of any news show in years and always mute my radio at the top of the hour. There is a sleeping giant waking up and it’s Patriotic Americans who are sick of both political parties and want their country back NOW!
Totally agree...
And Obozo can’t get to 50% approval even with Lame Stream lying.
Me too....
Spot on. Unlike libs, conservatives are not out screaming, calling people names etc. Conservatives simply do what needs to be done. In this case, it means showing up in DROVES November 6th.
Stay focused, my FRiends and stay on message. We're less than 50 days from victory.
OBummo is going to lose big. Just get out there on Nov 6th and vote. No excuses.
We have a thread for this that has been going since early August:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2934352/posts
And I think of 2010. Those voters haven’t gone anywhere. If anything, we picked up a whole lot of new ones.
C'mon, tell us what you really think. :)
Disaffected Ron Paul guy? Fan of ex-Democrat Virgil Goode? Secret supporter of The Empty Chair?
You seem to be the proverbial Cult of One, at least so far on this thread.
I look at the numbers, instead of wishing them away. And concluding from that I like Obama is a big leap - in fact I detest him. But he is going to get his 2nd term, barring some miracle in the remaining six weeks.
In 2008 most Freepers were trying to put the spin on the polls, and in the end the RCP poll average was right on the money.
If it’s 50/5 at this stage, considering all the dirt the Obama campaign has heaped in Romney’s direction and the fact that the MSM is almost 100% behind Obama. it would seem that
Romney should win the election hands down. With the abysmal
record of Obama, 40+ million on food stamps, unemployment at
an “admitted” +8%, probably over 10+, the countries debt in the proverbial toilet, it is hard to understand that the country would want more of the same. Unfortunately there are far too many Americans not paying attention and listening only to the MSM that an Obama victory is certainly possible.
However, I am optimistic that enough is known about Obama and his socialistic direction “redistribution of wealth” that enough Americans will see through him and his ideoligy to vote him out of office. That is my biased opinion.
Yep. Our ticket was upside down. In fact, McCain shouldn't have even been in the number two slot.
Then, I thought they will never pass this idiotic health care bill and I was deeply disappointed again.
True, but again, polls at the time showed the public disapproved... and then the November 2010 proved historic, which seems to have faded from most people's memory. Remember, previously, Democrats controlled everything and by wide margins with a super-majority in the Senate.
This time I am not going to send my self into depression and try to avoid getting pulled into the emotions of this elections, It is a health issue
I completely understand.
I read a story in World Net Daily recently about financiers buying a huge house in Hawaii for Dear Leader since his internal polling shows that he cannot win in November. Move in time is January 2013. That could just be propaganda and is no excuse for not getting out to vote in November.
The thing to take away here: IGNORE the polls and GET OUT AND VOTE!! The future of our great Republic depends on it!
"I'm voting for Obama because I know he's not finished yet."
“But the vast majority say that they are definitely or very likely to vote. They’re voting.”
Hmmmm. That’s not so good — I thought we were counting on low enthusiasm on their side?
Funny thing to say in a thread that shows the numbers are lying to you. When was the last time you had a clue?
Traditional Democrat voting groups had lied to pollsters in spades out of fear of rebuke from Kool-Aid drinkers who held some power over them (union, dependence, etc.) but which Wirthlin's group was able to filter out with leading questions.
Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen this time around because the country is so much dumber than it was in 1980 and so demographically changed. At best, Romney barely breaks 300 electoral votes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.