poll.
Posted on 04/05/2008 10:42:58 AM PDT by atomic conspiracy
The CBS News/New York Times poll has both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton leading John McCain in head-to-head races by five points.
According to the poll, Obama leads McCain 47% to 42%, with Clinton leading McCain 48% to 43%.
As always, it is important to see how the poll's respondents break down by party -- a look which shows that those questioned self-identified 39% Dem, 28% Repub, and 33% independent in the unweighted sample. The weighted sample broke down 40% Dem, 26% Repub, and 34% independent.
The unweighted sample shows an 11-point margin for the Dems, while the weighted sample shows a 14-point margin.
Two ways to judge the accuracy of the poll's 11-point margin favoring Dem respondents might include some historical perspective of other presidential elections and how the CBS News/New York Times poll did forecasting the last national elections.
In the 27 elections since 1900, four Democratic Party presidential candidates won by more than 10% points: in 1912, Woodrow Wilson won by 14.4% over a split Repub ticket of Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft; in 1932, FDR beat President Hoover by 17.8%; in 1936, President Roosevelt beat Alf Landon by 24.3%; in 1964, President Johnson beat Barry Goldwater by 22.6%.
In the 2006 mid-term elections, when the Dems beat the Repubs by about 7.5% in the aggregate House vote, the last CBS News/New York Times poll before the 2006 mid-terms forecast a Dem margin of victory of 18%, missing by about 10 points.
Viewing the most recent CBS News/New York Times poll through those two historical prisms might give added perspective on the accuracy of this, most recent poll.
As I have said before, the media-industrial complex is not the free press of the Founding Fathers. It is an unelected and unaccountable shadow government whose policies and actions are determined solely by the prejudices, self-interest, and depraved value system of its elitist members.
This is also why I do not believe the left will push a revival of the Orwellian-named "fairness doctrine." Left-wing anti-free speech activists make a lot of noise about silencing Limbaugh et al, but that is window-dressing and hype for the Che t-shirt wearing, media-worshipping consumer units who make up the rank and file of the pop-left.
The last thing the real leaders of the left want is a court test of the fairness of their own media. That WILL happen if the "fairness doctrine" takes loyal Americans off the air.
poll.
Thanks for this. I remember CNN had generic Dems over Repubs by 20% last time, too. Where does someone go to sue for political malpractice? Missing by 5% is pathetic enough, but they missed by 12 or 13!
The article gives us reason not to believe what the author has to say.
How cruel of them Democrats to beat a poor old defenseless war veteran, shame on Clinton and Obama, though Obama may find the old fella a little tougher to beat then polls suggest.
When they call here, I hang up. Maybe there needs to be a poll on who is most likely to sit and answer poll questions - Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. But how could that be acomplished?
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Obama looks good to some only due to the intra-party opposition. But he's an empty suit with a thin resume, a dubious past, and friends who have serious Whitey issues. McCain will beat him like he owes him rent money. I have a strong feeling that a bloc of Klintonistas - petty and venomous as they are - will vote for McCain out of spite. Broomhillary will do Herself in if ol' Bat Ears falls victim to the Klinton & Ko. Korruption Machine - a lot of Obama moderates are going to take a hard look at her and realize there's no way in Hell they could pull the lever for eight more years of her and The Bent One.
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