Edwards leads in Alabama poll.

[madfloridian]

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/1177245923120270.xml&coll=1

"By STEVE CAMPBELL
Local gathering takes straw poll; Clinton is close 2nd, Obama 3rd

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was the top choice for president in 2008 at a gathering of Madison County Democrats Saturday.

With 33 percent of the votes in a 200-vote straw poll, Edwards outpolled U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who garnered 31 percent.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama received 20 percent. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson led a crowded field of single-digit vote-getters with 6 percent.

Democrats from several groups convened at Aunt Eunice's Museum Park on Church Street for the vote."

[Moloch]

1. Well.. stop the fucking presses..

A white male leads in Alabama........

[madfloridian]

2. Well, I had to post it.

Because another Alabama poll with 400 queried had Hillary first, Obama 2nd, and Edwards way back.

This poll has 200 approx.

[Hieronymus]

3. The winner must carry the South .. wake up.

[Moloch]

6. Ok...

but we will NEVER carry:

Alabama
Alaska
Mississippi
Utah
Idaho
Texas
Indiana
Louisiana
Kansas
Nebraska
North Dakota

Why even bother on a state we have zero chance of winning?

[Bicoastal]

4. Can you believe it?

And over a Hawaiian-born black man and a woman with the last name of "Clinton," too....whooda thunkit?

[Syrinx]

21. But he's a white male that Ann Coulter called a "faggot"

So, we are making progress. Right? :evilfrown:

[rhombus]

5. Poll is a straw poll -- Obama leads straw poll in Atlanta....

Straw polls at a particular gathering don't mean much at all.

Get the real Alabama Poll released yesterday that showed Edwards a distant third in Alabama overall.

http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/117723336159290.xml&coll=3

[madfloridian]

7. They mean to me what I want them to mean.

Thanks though.

I don't believe in any of the polls right now.

[rhombus]

12. And your title is misleading

You can do better.

[madfloridian]

13. I could do better.

So could other people here.

[madfloridian]

11. Why is everyone so angry about my poll?

Your poll is only 400.

"Taken between last Monday and Thursday, the statewide poll sampled 400 registered voters who said they are likely to vote in next year's Democratic presidential primary. A similar survey of likely Republican primary voters is under way; the Press-Register will publish the results next Sunday."

[rhombus]

14. Statewide poll is different from a barbeque straw poll

DU has standards you know.

[madfloridian]

15. 200 Democrats gathered together, aren't they important?

Straw polls are often very indicative.

[madfloridian]

24. Not today on some issues.

Sadly.

[MADem]

23. No one is angry. It's just not a real poll, is all.

Real polls are weighted. One person answering a set of questions is "equivalent" to a thousand people, if the pollster has done his work properly and screened for all sorts of factors. A straw poll, OTOH, usually consists of like people from a small universe.

For example, I could get four hundred people from Boston, on a trip to NYC to see Times Square, into a bar and take a vote as to the best team in baseball. Lo and behold, the results come in--in NYC, at Such-n-Such bar, Ninety five percent of the patrons prefer the RED SOX over the YANKEES.

See what it proves? Not much...at least not from NYC's perspective. And it isn't saying anything truthful about the support for the Yankees (the baaaaaastids) in NYC.

[MADem]

8. Edwards leads at a little party where everyone got to chime in, you mean.

That wasn't a real poll at all. The universe was two hundred people from a single county. Not representative of the state at all.

[madfloridian]

10. Is it ok for me to post it? 200 people ain't so little.

400 was the other poll count.

[MADem]

16. Sure, you can post the results of a chat in the washroom if you want!

The other poll was scientific, where they weighted as to demographics, geography, gender, age, what have you--the old "scientific sample."

It's just that the straw poll for such a small universe doesn't really mean much.

Frankly, it doesn't matter which Democrat gets the thumbs up, because it's an uphill climb for us in that state anyway. We'd have a chance if the candidate was, say, Giuliani on the other side.

I think we'll have a better sense of how things are going for all the candidates after the debates.

[madfloridian]

17. So you really believe in the authenticity of formal polls.

I don't. I think all polls can be skewed by the questions they ask, by the demographics.

I can't figure the anger.

[MADem]

20. Well, it depends on who is doing the polling, and your definition of

'authenticity.' If the poll follows scientific methods of data collection, it is authentic. If the questioners are rightwing assholes who dump the results they don't like in order to skew the poll, well, then they aren't so accurate. We pretty much know which polls trend left or right. Sometimes you're better off taking the average of several different pollsters going after the same data points.

Polls do show TRENDS. But trends change over time.

What do you mean by "I can't figure the anger?" I'm not angry. At ALL. Not even slightly. Not even annoyed or irritated. I can't get where you derived that, frankly.

You're projecting, maybe, because I am not showing a "pro-Edwards" stance, perhaps? For the record, I am not "anti-Edwards" either. I think he's just fine.

I'm waiting for the debates to make up my mind, and I happen to like ALL the candidates. Every single one of them is better than any on the GOP line-up, and could clean their clocks easily.

[madfloridian]

22. I like most of them.

We are supporting Edwards because we know he is the underdog in the race. We also know that the Republican members of our family who are in the vast majority...like Edwards very much.

My uncle, a staunch Republican, but no longer a Bush supporter...told me that Hillary Clinton is too obviously appealing to Republicans. He resents the friendship of Bill C. and Bush and thinks it is to get votes for Hillary.

So being from a Republican family, I see things from their view as well.

And if you are polling Democrats, having them meet and take a vote does not seem so bad to me.

[MADem]

25. There's nothing 'bad' about it. It's just not terribly useful to spot real trends.

Straw polls don't account for factors that can skew the results, is all.

[madfloridian]

9. A poll from January 2003.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/685

"The bottomline is this: these polls are all but meaningless. Perhaps nothing illustrates this point better than looking back at polls from this point in the last election cycle. For example, a Fox News poll conducted in January of 2003 (which was closer to the election than we are now) reported the following results:

Joe Lieberman……29%
Dick Gephardt……15%
John Kerry………..13%
John Edwards…….8%
Al Sharpton……….5%
Howard Dean……..2%

[madfloridian]

18. Hey, humor me instead of attacking.

Gotta take what we can get, right?

Anyway we all know who is going to be the nominee and who is going to be her VP. It is preordained. And hubby's friendship with the Bush's will coax a lot of Republicans over.

Don't worry, all is well.

[madfloridian]

19. There's all kinds of polls all over.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/779