Alas, a 9% response rate creates a condition where a group smaller than the entire population can, with little effort beyond calling each other on their cellphones, make sure that THEIR opinion is substituted for the TOTAL POPULATION sampled.
That's no longer a random sample ~ END OF STORY. That's when you must turn to other methods.
It doesn't surprise me at all to find political types ready to give up random selection ~ they never did really like it did they.
That's no longer a random sample ~ END OF STORY. That's when you must turn to other methods.
Yes, I get that this is your theory. The problem for you is your theory has been proven wrong. You only need look back to November to see that. There was more polling than ever before leading in to the 2012 election and it proved to be extremely accurate. You seem to be avoiding this fact. The state polling, in particular, was amazingly accurate - especially if you used an aggregate of the polls. I don't know how many times I have to say this. I think he's a snot nosed little liberal jerk, but Nate Silver (and others like him) who based their predictions on the polls got it right. In the case of 538 blog and others like it, they got all 50 states right. People like Dick Morris, Barone, etc, who rejected the polls got it wrong - and had to admit as much after the election.