http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=36ee8fde-58bf-4027-a75b-b29d86b66b92According to this new poll, Palin received a hefty bump from her speech last night. However, one must look into the workings of the poll, and it becomes blatantly obvious that this poll is erroneous and invalid.
When asking about the Presidential candidates, the poll asked "If you were placing a bet today, would you bet that Barack Obama will be elected president? Or, John McCain will be elected president?"
It is completely inappropriate polling to use the terms "betting" when asking whom one favors in the election. In order to maintain accuracy, pollsters must ask "who will you vote for?" Betting takes away individual choice, and asks the pollee to speculate.
Accordingly, those polled felt that they knew MORE about Palin and her affect on McCain's chances than they did about Biden. Are you fucking kidding me? How can 22% of those polled not know enough about Biden and Obama to make a decision?
Thirdly, I call major BULLSHIT that over 75% of polled register voters heard Palin's speech. To correlate that to the general populus (as polls are wont to do), is irresponsible. According to MSNBC, Palin's speech received 37 million total viewers last night. There are 225 million eligible voters in this country, and 65 millions registered voters. So, according to the poll, nearly 49 million people watched Palin's speech.
Finally, to tack the last nail in this freeper coffin, the poll statistics showed 36% republican affiliation, compared to 33% Democratic affiliation. This flies in the face of not only conventional wisdom, but statistical data and models this year. I find it to be extremely unlikely that republican percentage is higher than democratic percentage.
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Why is this poll blatantly inaccurate?
1. Possible push polling --> the pollsters failed to frame questions in a neutral stance, with high perceived bias towards McCain/Palin
2. Improper participant selection process --> a truly random dispersion of pollees should be evident in accurate party identification percentages. Since only land lines are used, this excludes many millions of wireless only Americans from polling eligibility, the majority of which lean Democratic.
3. Intentional neglect/malice --> SurveyUSA has tended to provide wildly divergent data on Obama, and the true motivations of the pollsters cannot be determined. This poll is likely intended to provide a perceived and growing support, however fraudulent, for McCain/Palin
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As has become evident, the polls are not our friends. The media is not our friend (as any and all attacks against Palin are immediately sexist). We must fight this at the grassroots level, and hope to God that sheer numbers can defeat the GOP machine (and their vote rigging).