Polls are all Smoke and Mirrors

[goclark]

They have got to make sure that we think that we are in close races.

If we sit back and believe the polls ----Diebold will win.

Rove will win --- again. Do you think he is sitting back crying about not being in the WH?! Hell no! He is a busy fat bee messing with the voting process.

The Republicans in CA have NOT given up their dirty trick to change the Electoral process. If we sit back and think it won't happen,we are crazy.

They own the MEDIA - why else would Tweety,Russet and Tucker be all over Cable 24/7 telling us what to believe. They throw in Lou Dobbs to make us think that he is "Independent."

This is not "Good Night and Good Luck!" We have only one truly honest journalist and he is on Cable. Why can't they find a Keith for Prime Time?

They won't do it because they can keep him on Cable for about an hour a day to make us think it's "Balanced."

But slime Tweety,Glenn,Tucker and Company are on 24/7 telling you what they believe.

They are all working for Karl!

All the cards and the Supreme Court are wrapped up tight with their greedy hands.

If we think for one second that we have the issues and the candidates on our side we are CRAZY.

They are in total control of the Polls/Media/Voting/Supreme Court/Lower Courts.

Wake Up America! Wake Up!

[Captain Hilts]

1. No. Pollsters want to make headlines w/something different. They're competitive, not cooperative.

[goclark]

2. Yes, they want to see the races close

and they want to be the one that picks the winner.

However, Kerry was in a "very close race" and he just conveniently lost by just enough votes to give Bush a "miracle."

There are still many Americans, even Democrats, that truly believe that Bush Won.

[ellenfl]

3. i agree that a close race is a repug win. the only way we will

win the wh is with a blow out, imo. i do not trust the polls or 99% of the pundits. we are being pushed to vote for hillary because that is for whom the corporate media wants us to vote. it's just that simple, again, imo.

we CANNOT let down our guard with k-k-k-karl and his minions still out there. forewarned is forearmed.

ellen fl

[goclark]

6. I totally agree with you

They are trying to make it look like a Horse Race and it is a Fake Race.

[monmouth]

4. I agree about polls. Sen. Bidens' numbers are much higher than what

is reflected in current polls I'm sure. The media and the pugs are scared to death of him. The media does NOT want to reflect his growing popularity and numbers, it doesn't play well with their "plans." He could mean trouble because he tells it like it is and has the ability to call out the disingenuous. Joe Biden is liked and respected by too many, both in the beltway and mainstream. He will not be controlled and that doesn't work well for the pundits. The day Chris Matthews has Joe Biden on as a guest, exclusively, I will change my opinion of Chris Matthews. Until such time, he and Russert will always be "Tweety" and "whatsisname" to me.

[Captain Hilts]

15. Folks, polling is a science, and you find out on election day how accurate you are.

Word gets out which ones are not accurate.

Question wording can skew some questioning about issues, but just for 'for whom do you plan to vote', 'if the election were held today', questions, that issue is moot. The same wording has been used since the 30s.

[goclark]

20. Rove was not around and neither was Diebold

these p
They know that if they don't fix this election they will be in the tubes and they are not going to let that happen.

They will win this election By Any Means Necessary.

[lame54]

5. He said "smoke polls" huuh huuh

[bemildred]

7. Polls are easily manipulated, and pollsters sell a product, like any other business.

You should trust poll results just about as far as you would trust Enron.

[goclark]

8. Bingo! nt

[Hosnon]

9. What is the best way to ensure that the polls with the most accurate data are the most profitable?

I tend to believe that they are important, but their importance decreases with their accuracy.

[bemildred]

10. It ought to be obvious ...

1.) The most profitable polls are going to be ones that serve the interests of those who pay for them. Why would you pay for a poll that thwarts your interests, as you see them, when you could keep your money and leave the matter moot?

2.) The other type of poll that will pay well is one that contradicts the results of polls that the payee finds unpleasant.

3.) "Accurate" polls do have their place, but they are closely held secrets, not to be bandied about in public where they might influence events in the "wrong" way.

4.) ALL polls are merely statistical samples from a population that only exists in a speculative sense, and polls tend to find what they look for, like any other sort of inquiry. In fact the preferred way to manipulate poll results is by the clever use of loaded questions.

5.) (Edit) The use of polls in politics is mostly an example of the "Third-party testimonial" PR technique. The pollster is posited as a "independent" and "objective" third party who tells you what "everybody else" thinks. The fundamental underlying assumption is that humans are social beings that can be herded around by manipulating perceptions of what "everybody thinks". On the evidence, this seems to work quite well.

[Hosnon]

11. So the best way is to have a public interest group, such as VoteSmart, pay for them.

An organization that can only survive by providing accurate information has an interest in accurate polls.

[bemildred]

12. I tend to give more creedence to polls from NFP sources.

But they too are subject to political and financial pressures. I also tend to have small faith in polls results that are bandied about in the media. I always assume that stories in the MSM are there to tell me what to think rather than just to keep me well informed. But mostly, I tend to view all polls and statistical methods in general with robust skepticism.

[Hosnon]

13. I don't mind them. But wordsmiths should be heavily involved.

And I think the margin of error should be expressed in the poll. In a poll asking, "who do you think would win?", with HRC getting 30%, Obama getting 25% and Edwards getting 20%, the numbers should be expressed as follows (assuming a 6% margin of error):

Hillary: 27% to 33%
Obama: 22% to 28%
Edwards: 17% to 23%

with an accompanying graph helping to show the overlap.

[bemildred]

14. That helps, it looks less like pontificating.

But even there, depending on the confidence levels used, five or ten percent of the time they admit they are not even inside the confidence interval, and you KNOW that some of the time, in the statistical sense, they are going to be just flat wrong. And how many polls are we subjected to every day? It is easier and better to assume they are all tripe. It makes no sense to be trying to "estimate" how voters are going to vote a year from now in any "real" way, it is all story telling and public relations blather, "perception shaping". So if you don't want your perceptions shaped, you are best to ignore them all until the election gets close, and then to be very selective.

[goclark]

21. They should be important but who owns the polling companies

Didn't I read that Gallup was a distant cousin of GW's?

[Perry Logan]

16. They're not totally bogus. But I believe the polls are all systematically biased toward the right.

[shadowknows69]

17. Thank you K+R

Fuck the polls.

[ellenfl]

18. imo, polls this early on are meant to influence my vote.

polls done at election time will be much closer to the true positions of the voters. by then, anyone who would be influenced by polls will be too far gone anyway. i can only hope that few voters fall for this.

ellen fl

[goclark]

19. And this time they are going all out to influence

our votes and make us fight each other over our candidates.

Meanwhile they keep their hands clean and Romney sweeps in...watch.

[Odin2005]

22. All these conspiracy theories cliaming all polls are made up are stupid.

:banghead:

[Captain Hilts]

23. Yes. Because it is not in the best interest of the firm to be proven wrong when the voting starts.

[Odin2005]

24. Exactly.

Oh course the tin-foil hatters will just respond with some made up some crap about "all polling companies are paid hacks of the Bush Family Evil Empire" or similar nonsense.

[ellenfl]

25. when the voting starts, they will make corrections in their

polling. right now they only have to convince us to vote for whoever they chose. i suppose you believe that proprietary voting software is a good thing too?

sorry, you can call me tinfoil-hatted all you want but i don't trust the corporatists as far as i can throw them.

ellen fl

[Captain Hilts]

26. Take off the collander. Do you have any idea how much work it would take to go back and recreate..

polling data?

No, you don't.

[ellenfl]

27. i'm not talking about going back. i am talking about correcting

to reflect the reality at election time.

ellen fl

[Captain Hilts]

28. You just don't understand the mechanics of polling. nt

[ellenfl]

29. so what you are saying is that the polls never change. eom

[Captain Hilts]

30. Legitimate polling firms publish the details of how the survey is conducted...

how the sample is balanced, etc. In what way the survey reflects the demographics of the people that vote.

It is a specific, technical process that does not leave room for much discretion. The way questions are worded? Sure. But you can't change that. But the mechanics of polling are very specific. Sometimes, after an election firms will note that they guessed the demographics of turnout incorrectly, such as 2% too high on Democrats because it rained and they did not show up to vote in predicted numbers. Stuff like that.

But, go back and look at the major firms and see how closely they often get it. I know in 1996 Zogby had it spot on with the results. Gallup's numbers in 2000 varied greatly because they let the partisan breakdown in their daily tracking poll vary too widely, so their Bush-Gore numbers lurched by a great deal from day to day. But, when you read their numbers and 'how we conducted the survey' information, you could see why it varied so much. Not dishonest, just lazy and incompetent.

Your suggestion of changing numbers to reflect turnout on election day just doesn't make sense.

[ellenfl]

31. so we just take their word for it? sure, and there's wmd in iraq.

been there, done that. the fact that you cannot imagine the numbers being fudged is troubling. i think i will remain sceptical.

ellen fl