Kerry making scant progress in crucial states (MSNBC poll)

[quaoar]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6038211/

WASHINGTON - New polling data suggest that Sen. John Kerry has made little headway with voters in a five states that President Bush narrowly won in 2000.

If Kerry wins only the states that Democrat Al Gore won in 2000, he will have 260 electoral votes, 10 shy of the number needed to win the White House.

In polling conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research for MSNBC in the five states — Arizona, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio and West Virginia — Kerry is statistically tied with Bush in only one state, West Virginia, and trails in the others.

Kerry is furthest behind in Arizona, where Bush leads him by 11 percentage points.

[leftchick]

1. fuck MSRNC.....

worthless....

[Skip Intro]

2. Didn't I just read in the last week that Kerry was ahead in Ohio?

These polls are going to give me an ulcer.

[IndianaGreen]

21. Bush leads Kerry in Ohio 50-42 (Plain dealer 9/14/04)

Posted on Sat, Sep. 18, 2004

Plain Dealer poll: Bush leads Kerry in Ohio 50-42

Associated Press

CLEVELAND - President Bush leads Sen. John Kerry by 50 percent to 42 percent in Ohio, a state considered crucial by both campaigns, a new poll indicates. Two percent of those surveyed supported Ralph Nader.

The poll commissioned by The Plain Dealer for its Sunday edition was conducted from Sept. 10 to Tuesday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research of Washington, D.C. It was based on interviews with 1,500 registered voters who plan to vote Nov. 2. The margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.

A May poll by the newspaper showed Bush leading 47 percent to 41 percent. Six percent in the most recent poll said they were undecided, down from 9 percent in May.

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/election2004/9700035.htm

[NWHarkness]

3. Bullshit

Every other poll has shown Kerry with a comfortable lead in New Hampshire.

[IndianaGreen]

22. NH is a slam dunk for Kerry

Kerry is leading from 6 to 7 points according to the polls.

[last_texas_dem]

36. I agree

I can't recall a poll where * was leading Kerry in NH. I consider NH safer for Kerry this year than a few of the Gore 2000 states.

[amber dog democrat]

4. This poll is bogus

but I take comfort in the source. I take it to mean the Chimp is stalled out as well.
Dead in the water, listing, and going down ever so slowly by the head.

[BrotherBuzz]

5. I have come to believe that "scant progress" is

codespeak for Bush* and Kerry tied, with Kerry slowly pulling ahead. Call me crazy! :)

[okieinpain]

6. yes, because if he wasn't catching up. they would say the he isn't making

any progress. if he was falling behind they would say that bush is opening a lead. scant prograss means he's closing in on bush, and that the race is getting tight.

[PATRICK]

7. Is it me or

does it seem that every time Kerry starts pulling relentlessly ahead these type of discouraging polls come out in ones or twos on LITTLE difference points to make grand negative statements about Kerry. These are suppressive efforts, not gauges.

It sounds to me like the first polling call they make is to Rove when W starts tanking as ALL sanity and reason and experience in the streets tell you he is and will be much more.

So where are all these NEW Bush voters so thrilled or scared that they will pour into the polls to show their love? What about the turned off old voters for Bush? Solve that mystery and I will even listen to these schmoes again.

It is simply a matter of Kerry presenting himself and his case then which the pollsters sometimes HINT at, though in discouraging fashion.

GOP polls. Finger in the dyke, waters rising, and no voters coming to the rescue.

As to legitimacy. As with any ballgazers, court astrologists or entrail readers of the past, they manipulate from afar and prophecy accurately in clear focus when the event is nearly upon them. Of course the latter proves the legitimacy of the former. An old con game. Real old, with a crackpot use of "science".

[BrotherBuzz]

13. LOL - YEP

That's the game!

[PCIntern]

8. Those bastards at MSGOP

didn't read the Nation this week where in-state polls show Kerry essentially tied with * in Arizona AND what's more, the drive is there to get that vote out.

I hate this media - it's Goebbles' dream come true...

[steely]

9. How do all of these polls play with the electoral predictions?

Does anyone here at DU have an opinion?
There is another thread with a similar topic - that the polls are bogus - that the apparent lead that the smirky asswipe has is all smoke and mirrors, yet when I go to http://www.electoral-vote.com/, everything is topsey turvey in favor of the frat boy king.

What gives? can some one filter this for me please?

[LisaL]

10. Well,

what do you think electoral-vote.com uses to make it's electoral vote predictions? The same polls.:eyes:
This guy doesn't conduct his own polls, he uses available polls.
:eyes:

[steely]

14. Guess that figures - that would go a long way to the...

exaggerated/lop-sided vote count - especially after the bounce blip disappeared.

[featherman]

11. No internals so hard to judge

I went to the Mason-Dixon site but it was all press release crap. I'd like to see the internals before making judgment.
That being said this could actually very good news from WV especially if the poll sample was disproportionally skewed GOP (or 2000 Bush voters) as some many have been lately. The elect/reelect and job approval ratings are not ones that incumbents survive.
But I need to see the internals. I'd like to accept these WV results but only if the methodology is skewed.
As of right now I still like NH for Kerry but give Bush the edge AZ and MO. WV and OH are too close to call.

[autorank]

12. To reiterate, 'fuck MSNBC'.

MSNBC is owned by General Electric. That's the company Jack Welch ran, wonder-boy executive of the decade. At the peak of the 2004 election returns, NBC was holding off calling the election. Welch ranted and raved until they capitulated and 'greatest generation' Brokaw went out in Powellesque style and gave it to Bush, legitimizing Faux and spelling the certain end of any chance for a continuation of peace and prosperity.

Nothing good comes from MSNBC. They are institutionally biased and work the news for the Republican Party. Shame on them. Do not pay attention to them. Fuck them!!!

[Mamma__T]

15. Let me get this straight....

The Polls show Kerry is losing, and you are just going to disbeleive them? You think you are going to click your ruby slippers three times and go back to Kansas too?

[Mamma__T]

16. Interesting....

Electoral Vote Predictor 2004: Kerry 211 Bush 327

[Voltaire99]

30. The ONLY site anybody needs for polling

Electoral-vote.com <--- Run by a Democrat, for what it's worth.

The color of the map is a measure of our failure as Americans to overcome the politics of rage. Alas, you can't say, "The President is doing a fine job in the war on terror" as Congressional Democrats stupidly did for over two years, *and* vote to give Bush freedom to invade a nation that hadn't harmed us, and still somehow expect the people to rally to you at the end of it all. Surrender and acquiescence do not go unnoticed by the public.

[Psephos]

37. WTF happened to the Delta I used to know?

OK, I looked at this site that's run by a Democrat (electoral-vote.com), as suggested by Voltaire99. The headline at this moment is "Electoral Vote Predictor 2004: Kerry 207 Bush 331." What it shows me is that for whatever reason, Democratic messages are not resonating successfully with a big chunk of the populace. Either a) the messages are not being disseminated (i.e., marketed) successfully, or b) the messages themselves are not attractive.

It's way more useful to Democrats to look at these numbers and figure out what to do about them, than to slam every poll that doesn't show a Kerry lead as biased. Ahem, EVERY poll is biased, it's part of the nature of measurement, but there is still useful information to be gotten from the aggregate of them. For that matter, the "poll" we'll take on November 2 will be biased, too. Very. But that won't mean it can be ignored.

Moaning/pretending/denying are all strategies that college students use when credit card bills come in the mail. "If I just don't open the envelope, the problem will go away." Riiiiiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhttttttt.

I've seen a lot posts here that say when DUers mention uncomfortable news, it's hurting the donk cause by deflating everyone's emotion. Quite the opposite: it's when the chips are down that the human spirit can be rallied to its finest effort. There is a lot of work to be done between now and November 2.

Have a laugh; it's certainly better than all this hand-wringing.

D-Day : War's over, man. Wormer dropped the big one.
Bluto : Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Otter : Germans?
Boon : Forget it, he's rolling.
Bluto : And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough...
(thinks hard)
Bluto : the tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go!
(runs out, alone; then returns)
Bluto : What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer...
Otter : Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.
Bluto : We're just the guys to do it.
D-Day : Let's do it.
Bluto : LET'S DO IT!

[sadiesworld]

19. Kerry is fine.

People are so desperate to get rid of the disaster monkey, they will turn out in droves on election day.

Most voters don't even pay attention to this shit. They'll ask themselves if they are better off now than they were four years ago. Not a question that Bush wants people asking themselves...

Really, I hate to see you get yourself worked up over this.

[JackDragna]

23. I disagree. People are not desperate..

..at all to get rid of him. Bush now represents the views of the majority of people in America who regularly vote. We have lost the war for people's conscience and sense of human decency. If he can get a pass on Iraq, have people ignore the economy, generate massive campaign funds and have the media in his pocket, just like he always has, he's going to run away with this.

[sadiesworld]

24. BS.

You're buying into some crappy, biased polls. Bush's numbers are TERRIBLE for an incumbent.

I live in a solid red state. The Kerry/Edwards yard signs are multiplying like rabbits. My mother couldn't even get a spot working at the polls b/c dems were volunteering at such an overwhelming rate. I've searched high and low for a 2000 Gore voter who will be voting for Bush--none to be found.

Anecdotal? Sure. But I'm at the point where I have a hell of a lot more faith in my own observations than some RW whore polls. The teevee also tells me the economy is doing nicely...I'll stick with my own observations on that one too.

But hey, if the handwringing makes you happy--have at it. And by all means, feed lots of goodies to the trolls while you're at it. I'm sure Mama T appreciates it, s/he thinks we should just throw in the towel and try again with Hillary in 2008--perhaps you agree. :shrug:

[JackDragna]

26. You keep dregding up bias..

..but where's the evidence? DU has turned into one big "Poisoning the well" fallacy, by which people try to dismiss information by saying it comes from bad sources. If the sources are biased, that's something to consider, but it does not prima facie make what they're saying untrue.

Kerry is sliding in the polls because he's running an incompetent campaign. If the media were so intent on ruining Kerry by putting out bogus poll numbers, why wait until now? When the polls were going Kerry's way, people couldn't put enough of them up here. Now that Kerry is losing because he's always letting Bush dictate the tempo of the campaign, there's this "mass conspiracy" to make Kerry's position worse than it already is.

Your anecdotal evidence about "Well, I see lots of signs and know all kinds of new Dem voters" is just that, anecdotal. If you know it's useless information, why suggest it? For every example like yours, there's an example like one I can draw upon, here in Baton Rouge. I find as many Kerry stickers here in B.R. as I do flying saucers. Based on the people I know from people around the country, this isn't an uncommon phenomena, either. Bush is the people's man now, the beneficiary of a campaign that has effectively scared the electorate into supporting him. His campaign is surging: ours is not. I agree not to believe crap like the economy is surging, but there's at least observable, independent data to corroborate such an observation. I see no independent corroboration that the Kerry slide is fictitious or even a temporary thing.

As for your "feeding the trolls" and "handwringing" comments, that's a debating fallacy known as "ad hominem." You disagree with me, so you take a shot at me. That kind of rancor feeds trolls a lot more than I ever could. I'll go ahead and add that fallacy to your poisoning the well. :)

[sadiesworld]

27. Take a look at some of the independent polls.

Take a look at some of the state polls. How about the recent Minneapolis Star Tribune poll which had Kerry far ahead of where Gallup had him in Minnesota during the same period? Take a look at some of these same polls from 2000 and judge just how accurate they were then. There is plenty of independent, observable data showing that many of these polls are biased crap.

The corporate media has shilled for * on Iraq, 9/11, the economy, etc. What makes you think they (and their pollsters) won't shill for him on poll results?

I think they've been trying to prop him up all along but the whoring will increase in these final weeks.

I'll really have to think about how my rebutting your negativity "feeds trolls".

Oh and gee, thanks for all the info on these neat new terms like "poisoned well" and "ad hominem". You explained to me how they're used and everything. :silly:

[Voltaire99]

31. Yes, methodology is the weak link...

in polling, but that only matters in close races such as the one in Minnesota. And that the race is even close in Minnesota is phenomenal in and of itself.

The simple fact is that most states aren't close at all. The majority sit in Bush's camp. And the leads there--Jesus, they're enormous.

Given the inequities of our electoral college system, the only races that really matter are in the swing states. And the data there are very, very discouraging.

Kerry has to change--if he can change--or this election's toast.

[JackDragna]

34. Okay, there's a diversity of polls..

..but why call the ones that don't jibe with how we want things inaccurate? Not so long ago, when pretty much every national poll was showing Kerry ahead, people couldn't wait to post them. I'd have to go back and check to be sure, but not once did I ever see anyone respond to those polls by saying "These are normally right-wing pieces of trash. We shouldn't listen to them. They're setting us up for something, etc." Instead, people lined up to cheerlead. And these were many of the same polls people now excoriate..Gallup, Rasmussen, Zogby, USA Today, you name it.

Now, it's like a miracle happened. The polls show Bush ahead and now all these polls are suspect. The media is now just "shilling" for Bush, as you put it. The media does shill for Bush, but when an independent polling company conducts a poll, it's not enough to merely dismiss its results because it might be biased. If you can tell me about polling company X and how X asks leading questions, only polls people in a certain area or otherwise intentionally skews their results, then fine. If, however, a company tries to be as impartial as possible and comes up with results that show Kerry behind, then don't tell me the poll is flawed just because Fox News breaks the story first. It does us all an injustice if we ignore potentially true information merely because of the source. I am deeply concerned about Mr. Kerry's election chances and think the polls represent a general dissatisfaction with his campaign.

[Voltaire99]

29. Losing the war "for people's conscience and sense of human decency."

I agree with Jack's assessment. I'd go further: the roots of our miserably position in this election predate the choice of Kerry.

The campaign surely should have been fought on different terms--on those of conscience and decency--indeed as early as 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11. But the pass Bush was given then, and up to and through the invasion of Iraq, has normalized the politics of rage, and we are all in trouble now.

[JackDragna]

35. A very prescient observation.

We dug ourselves a hole when we went along with all of Bush's rhetoric and his drumbeat to war. We had a chance to reverse things with Clark or Dean, but the people in the primary states ended up supporting the "safe" choice. Safe doesn't win elections.

[autorank]

33. The polls are an ass!

Ms. T: The problem with news consumers in this country is they simply consume without looking at the label. The label of General Electric, long and documented history, is Republican. It's important to move forward and simply dismiss the hacks. I saw a poll from a Dayton paper two days ago that has Kerry even in Ohio. Try that one on for size and stop swallowing anything they dish out. If you've giving money/time, great. If not, at least try to have a critical perspective.

[OzarkDem]

17. Mason Dixon is bogus

They're the same results for hire pollster who put out bogus polls in Ohio in 2000 showing Bush with a double digit lead over Gore. Gore pulled out of Ohio and ended up losing by only 3 points.

Ignore them.

[MasonJar]

18. You want disgust. Did any of you watch NBC News tonight. That

was the biggest pro-Bush spin ever. Showing Bush and his speech and touting his big numbers; then they went to Kerry's campaign and talked about how bad his numbers were in CBS poll, etc. I was so peeved that I called them immediately (even before the show was over.) I told them that they were losing half of their audience and that we were going to start letting their advertisers know our disapproval. I felt much better.

[Carolab]

20. They're just setting us up

For the theft. If they can make it look like Bush is a clear leader in the polls, then they can screw with the numbers and make it appear credible, right?

Which of these states have electronic voting machines? Anyone know?

[AndyTiedye]

28. Here is an Interactive Map

with a lot of data, including voting systems by county

http://www.electionline.org/interactiveMap.jsp?page=Interactive+Map

Looking at the map, Maryland, New Jersey, and New Mexico are nearly
all-paperless, so any of them can be stolen easily. The media has
set expectations already such that a Boosh win would not be regarded
with any suspicion in any of these states except possibly Maryland,
and they're working on that one.

The machinez are also ready to snuff out any upset by Kerry
(and any Democratic Congressional candidates)
in the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky or Tennassee.

We all saw how they performed in Georgia in 2002.
16-point swings in favor of the ReThuglicans,
and the media explained it away with "angry white men".
This year it will be "angry homophobes".

DRE = Diebold Republican Electing Machinez

[tedzbear]

25. I guess this means Microsoft and General Electric are Republican.

We know News Corp. is Repug.
Evidently Disney is Repug (although their employee insurance program insures gay partners).
Viacom is a toss-up. Mr. Redstone might be Democrat. He sure lets CBS go after *.

[progressivebydesign]

32. New voters...

Are not counted in these polls. I have spoken with an incredible amount of people who have NOT voted before, and WILL vote, and are voting for Kerry. They are not counted.. trust me. The 20-somethings are NOT being polled... Kerry will win Arizona.. and New Hampshire and Missourri and Ohio.. (I sound like Howard Dean doing the state yell)