The Vastly Underimproved Poll Thread

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The only chance the Dems had was to take Romney out before he had a chance to mount his general election campaign against Obama, and they are now down to their last 3 weeks, and have made no measurable dent in Romney's poll numbers at all. That's what the $100 million ad buy in swing states was supposed to do -- make Romney radioactive -- and thus unacceptable, before he had a chance to respond in force.

Except they are advertising to the very people who already think the Obamahole is not only radioactive, but chemically toxic, biologically contaminated, and, speaking plainly, an irredeemable asshole!

What fools!!

At first blush, it does seem really dumb to blow money preaching to their own choir.... but as was pointed out recently (I forget by whom) the Obama campaign has a three-pronged campaign strategy:

1. make Romney radioactive/toxic

2. suppress GOP turnout but convincing them that they are going to lose anyway

3. fire up the far Left base and maximize turnout of the faithful

To the extent that their ad buy attacking Romney energized their base, it could be argued that it was worth while. But, AFAIK, the polling data still show a huge enthusiasm gap that inures to Romney's benefit.

So, in theory, it might have worked; so far, there's no evidence it is, and according to Morris's account of the polling he seeing, it shows things moving in Romney's direction in the majority of the swing states.

And 4., suppress GOP turnout by persuading Conservatives that a President Romney would be worse than a President Obama (perhaps by appealing to Conservative Victimhood).

True; we'll call that one "2b." (Or "1.b")

Dick Morris pees rose-tinted rainbows and sneezes clouds of glitters. I'll believe one way or another when we do see battleground polls converging with the national polls one way or another.

But, here's a good one:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/156446/2008- ... Sides.aspx

Basically, 5% of McCain voters are switching to Obama, and 9% of Obama voters are switching to Romney.

In 2008, the popular vote was 69,456,897 to 59,934,814. 9% and 5% of that, respectively, is 6251121 and 2996741.

Assuming 2008 numbers hold:
69456897 - 6251121 + 2996741 = 66202517 Obama
59934814 + 6251121 - 2996741 = 63189194 Romney

Of course, this is a pretty big assumption to make... but either way, we should still behave like we're tied or slightly behind.

Dick Morris pees rose-tinted rainbows and sneezes clouds of glitters. I'll believe one way or another when we do see battleground polls converging with the national polls one way or another.

It's true that Morris is partisan (in the sense that he's always in favor of anything that lines his pockets.)

That said, this is different in the following way: it's not his poll. He's talking about polls he's seen done by somebody else, and that somebody else has paid a lot of money to get 13 swing state state polls of 600 LIKELY voters in each state done in eight days. That's not cheap.

And that leads me to an interesting point: there are only three types of organizations that are going to pay for polls like that: a presidential campaign, a political party, or a Super PAC. (News orgs just want polls to generate headlines, they don't care about accurate polling at this point in the campaign.)

If a campaign or political party paid for these polls, they wouldn't be showing them to blabbermouth Morris. They'd be held close to the vest. That leaves a Super PAC. Now, why would a Super PAC pay big bucks for this type of polling? 1) to compare to last month's polls, to see what effect their ads had on the race in the swings states, and or 2) to figure what states are in play, and where it would be best to spend their money.

In either case, the Super PAC needs ACCURATE polls, not bullshit polls that make them feel good about their preferred candidate. They are looking at spending tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on this campaign, and they need to know what is really going on in the race in each swing state so they maximize the benefit of the money they are going to spend.

And that's why even if Morris is the messenger, I believe the polling data -- because the people paying for the poll can't afford to have crap polls. So, unless Morris is pulling a Harry Reid and is making it up out of whole cloth, I tend to believe what he's reporting of these polls. It also fits everything else I'm seeing and hearing outside of the MSM filterbox. It fits Rasmussen's slow modest trend toward Romney in the past week as well in his national polling, and the behavior of the MSM fits what he's saying as well -- see the thread about the bogus poll last week that had Obama +10 -- they had to resort to a poll of ADULTS to do it, and even then they had to oversample Dems by some enormous margin.

The smell of desperation is in the air, Harry Reid is acting like it's the end of the world as he knows it. Obama's revealing unguarded remarks about "you didn't build that" are going to haunt him all the way to election day.

I'd say what Morris is saying is more likely true than not..... well, most of it, anyway. When he told Hannity tonight that if the election were held today, Romney would get 350 electoral votes, he was being overly optimistic just a wee bit.

;-)

Dick Morris pees rose-tinted rainbows and sneezes clouds of glitters. I'll believe one way or another when we do see battleground polls converging with the national polls one way or another.

It's true that Morris is partisan (in the sense that he's always in favor of anything that lines his pockets.)

That said, this is different in the following way: it's not his poll. He's talking about polls he's seen done by somebody else, and that somebody else has paid a lot of money to get 13 swing state state polls of 600 LIKELY voters in each state done in eight days. That's not cheap.

And that leads me to an interesting point: there are only three types of organizations that are going to pay for polls like that: a presidential campaign, a political party, or a Super PAC. (News orgs just want polls to generate headlines, they don't care about accurate polling at this point in the campaign.)

If a campaign or political party paid for these polls, they wouldn't be showing them to blabbermouth Morris. They'd be held close to the vest. That leaves a Super PAC. Now, why would a Super PAC pay big bucks for this type of polling? 1) to compare to last month's polls, to see what effect their ads had on the race in the swings states, and or 2) to figure what states are in play, and where it would be best to spend their money.

In either case, the Super PAC needs ACCURATE polls, not bullshit polls that make them feel good about their preferred candidate. They are looking at spending tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on this campaign, and they need to know what is really going on in the race in each swing state so they maximize the benefit of the money they are going to spend.

And that's why even if Morris is the messenger, I believe the polling data -- because the people paying for the poll can't afford to have crap polls. So, unless Morris is pulling a Harry Reid and is making it up out of whole cloth, I tend to believe what he's reporting of these polls. It also fits everything else I'm seeing and hearing outside of the MSM filterbox. It fits Rasmussen's slow modest trend toward Romney in the past week as well in his national polling, and the behavior of the MSM fits what he's saying as well -- see the thread about the bogus poll last week that had Obama +10 -- they had to resort to a poll of ADULTS to do it, and even then they had to oversample Dems by some enormous margin.

The smell of desperation is in the air, Harry Reid is acting like it's the end of the world as he knows it. Obama's revealing unguarded remarks about "you didn't build that" are going to haunt him all the way to election day.

I'd say what Morris is saying is more likely true than not..... well, most of it, anyway. When he told Hannity tonight that if the election were held today, Romney would get 350 electoral votes, he was being overly optimistic just a wee bit.

Morris says that this "somebody else" has been in operation for what, 40+ years, doing polls? Is there any Super-PAC this old? Indeed, it has to be either a political party of Gallup.

All well and good; but we should never under-estimate the power of O'Bammy's Praetorian guard ...

PrartorianGuard.jpg

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Dick Morris pees rose-tinted rainbows and sneezes clouds of glitters. I'll believe one way or another when we do see battleground polls converging with the national polls one way or another.

It's true that Morris is partisan (in the sense that he's always in favor of anything that lines his pockets.)

That said, this is different in the following way: it's not his poll. He's talking about polls he's seen done by somebody else, and that somebody else has paid a lot of money to get 13 swing state state polls of 600 LIKELY voters in each state done in eight days. That's not cheap.

And that leads me to an interesting point: there are only three types of organizations that are going to pay for polls like that: a presidential campaign, a political party, or a Super PAC. (News orgs just want polls to generate headlines, they don't care about accurate polling at this point in the campaign.)

If a campaign or political party paid for these polls, they wouldn't be showing them to blabbermouth Morris. They'd be held close to the vest. That leaves a Super PAC. Now, why would a Super PAC pay big bucks for this type of polling? 1) to compare to last month's polls, to see what effect their ads had on the race in the swings states, and or 2) to figure what states are in play, and where it would be best to spend their money.

In either case, the Super PAC needs ACCURATE polls, not bullshit polls that make them feel good about their preferred candidate. They are looking at spending tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on this campaign, and they need to know what is really going on in the race in each swing state so they maximize the benefit of the money they are going to spend.

And that's why even if Morris is the messenger, I believe the polling data -- because the people paying for the poll can't afford to have crap polls. So, unless Morris is pulling a Harry Reid and is making it up out of whole cloth, I tend to believe what he's reporting of these polls. It also fits everything else I'm seeing and hearing outside of the MSM filterbox. It fits Rasmussen's slow modest trend toward Romney in the past week as well in his national polling, and the behavior of the MSM fits what he's saying as well -- see the thread about the bogus poll last week that had Obama +10 -- they had to resort to a poll of ADULTS to do it, and even then they had to oversample Dems by some enormous margin.

The smell of desperation is in the air, Harry Reid is acting like it's the end of the world as he knows it. Obama's revealing unguarded remarks about "you didn't build that" are going to haunt him all the way to election day.

I'd say what Morris is saying is more likely true than not..... well, most of it, anyway. When he told Hannity tonight that if the election were held today, Romney would get 350 electoral votes, he was being overly optimistic just a wee bit.

Morris says that this "somebody else" has been in operation for what, 40+ years, doing polls? Is there any Super-PAC this old? Indeed, it has to be either a political party of Gallup.

I assume when Morris says "in operation for 40+ years" he's referring to the polling firm, not the organization purchasing the poll.

A nuts and bolts comment here. I will let this thread wallow along until the Conventions and then I will start a new one. At that time the polls will become critical with the future of our Republic at stake.

Suggestions are welcome.

A nuts and bolts comment here. I will let this thread wallow along until the Conventions and then I will start a new one. At that time the polls will become critical with the future of our Republic at stake.

Suggestions are welcome.

Perhaps after the Mittster names his VP?

It fits Rasmussen's slow modest trend toward Romney in the past week as well in his national polling

Bit of a jump for Obama yesterday in Rasmussen where he took a 2-3 point lead, from a 2-3 point deficit, in a single day. But today he's down to a 1 point lead. Noise or shift to Obama??

Dick Morris pees rose-tinted rainbows and sneezes clouds of glitters. I'll believe one way or another when we do see battleground polls converging with the national polls one way or another.

It's true that Morris is partisan (in the sense that he's always in favor of anything that lines his pockets.)

That said, this is different in the following way: it's not his poll. He's talking about polls he's seen done by somebody else, and that somebody else has paid a lot of money to get 13 swing state state polls of 600 LIKELY voters in each state done in eight days. That's not cheap.

And that leads me to an interesting point: there are only three types of organizations that are going to pay for polls like that: a presidential campaign, a political party, or a Super PAC. (News orgs just want polls to generate headlines, they don't care about accurate polling at this point in the campaign.)

If a campaign or political party paid for these polls, they wouldn't be showing them to blabbermouth Morris. They'd be held close to the vest. That leaves a Super PAC. Now, why would a Super PAC pay big bucks for this type of polling? 1) to compare to last month's polls, to see what effect their ads had on the race in the swings states, and or 2) to figure what states are in play, and where it would be best to spend their money.

In either case, the Super PAC needs ACCURATE polls, not bullshit polls that make them feel good about their preferred candidate. They are looking at spending tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on this campaign, and they need to know what is really going on in the race in each swing state so they maximize the benefit of the money they are going to spend.

And that's why even if Morris is the messenger, I believe the polling data -- because the people paying for the poll can't afford to have crap polls. So, unless Morris is pulling a Harry Reid and is making it up out of whole cloth, I tend to believe what he's reporting of these polls. It also fits everything else I'm seeing and hearing outside of the MSM filterbox. It fits Rasmussen's slow modest trend toward Romney in the past week as well in his national polling, and the behavior of the MSM fits what he's saying as well -- see the thread about the bogus poll last week that had Obama +10 -- they had to resort to a poll of ADULTS to do it, and even then they had to oversample Dems by some enormous margin.

The smell of desperation is in the air, Harry Reid is acting like it's the end of the world as he knows it. Obama's revealing unguarded remarks about "you didn't build that" are going to haunt him all the way to election day.

I'd say what Morris is saying is more likely true than not..... well, most of it, anyway. When he told Hannity tonight that if the election were held today, Romney would get 350 electoral votes, he was being overly optimistic just a wee bit.

I hope you're right, Elmo. I agree that there is a positive trend to Romney, and what you said about Morris seeing Romney's polls makes sense.

The fact that Morris said Romney will win 350 EV today when the very polling data he's fapping over says Romney is behind 1 or 2 points in the 3 states he needs to capture is just... headscratching.

May the polls continue even more towards Romney's direction.

I don't see any slide toward Romney. In fact, if there is an ooze it's to Nero:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls ... e_map.html

MI and WI have slipped back to Nero. The only state that seems to be moving to Romney is MO (and probably NC). All the other tossup states typically poll with Nero a small plus. I am concerned, but I won't really get worked up until after the conventions, when the people wake up and the money really begins to flow. But if, at that time, there is no movement to Romney, we are toast. As things stand right now, we are toast.

I don't want to be toast.

It fits Rasmussen's slow modest trend toward Romney in the past week as well in his national polling

Bit of a jump for Obama yesterday in Rasmussen where he took a 2-3 point lead, from a 2-3 point deficit, in a single day. But today he's down to a 1 point lead. Noise or shift to Obama??

Just saw that. There a big shift there, and I don't know of any news event that it corresponds with. It's not like he killed bin Laden a day ago. ;-)


Rasmussen is a three day rolling average; I'd watch it and see if he still up after 4 days -- if he is, it real, if not, it's probably noise.

Rasmussen is a three day rolling average; I'd watch it and see if he still up after 4 days -- if he is, it real, if not, it's probably noise.

I wouldn't go so far as to say 4 days makes something real. Noise is typically a single day event, but it can be longer -- it's all probabilities.

I check out Morris's web site regularly and watch his lunch time video series. Now I don't trust his predictions as much more than wishful thinking, but he has access to a lot of data. He concludes based on polls that the GOP will comfortably take the Senate. He also thinks that Romney will win most all of the states in which Obama is polling under 50% even if Obama currently leads Romney there. In this best case scenario Romney wins nearly 350 electoral votes (269 needed.) In his more conservative prediction, Romney wins with around 288 electoral votes.

As long as Romney is leading nationals with Obama comfortably sweeping every battleground state, and as long as the Republicans in this nation didn't have a mass exodus to Wyoming since the last census, I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that polling methodology is seriously, seriously off this year. Who is off, by how much, and why they are off is speculation. I've not really been paying attention to polling this year for that reason.

Remember the WI recalls exit polling saying that the election was a tie? That was an unprecedented methodology flaw, and it was never rigorously identified or corrected, IIRC.

As long as Romney is leading nationals with Obama comfortably sweeping every battleground state, and as long as the Republicans in this nation didn't have a mass exodus to Wyoming since the last census, I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that polling methodology is seriously, seriously off this year. Who is off, by how much, and why they are off is speculation. I've not really been paying attention to polling this year for that reason.

Remember the WI recalls exit polling saying that the election was a tie? That was an unprecedented methodology flaw, and it was never rigorously identified or corrected, IIRC.

And don't forget the Cruz pools in Texas, showed him losing, and yet he won by 13 percent....

The pollsters are playing with their numbers, they are either protecting Obama, or just tryin to keep the interest, because Romney is going to slam Obaa in November, and taking the Senate is a REAL possibility. there are quite a few brain dead, and actual socialists out there that will vote for Obaa, but the conservatives and blue dogs are riled up. Obaa is gonna lose, and badly, and the race riots afterwards are going to be something else.....

As long as Romney is leading nationals with Obama comfortably sweeping every battleground state, and as long as the Republicans in this nation didn't have a mass exodus to Wyoming since the last census, I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that polling methodology is seriously, seriously off this year. Who is off, by how much, and why they are off is speculation. I've not really been paying attention to polling this year for that reason.

Remember the WI recalls exit polling saying that the election was a tie? That was an unprecedented methodology flaw, and it was never rigorously identified or corrected, IIRC.

And don't forget the Cruz pools in Texas, showed him losing, and yet he won by 13 percent....

The pollsters are playing with their numbers, they are either protecting Obama, or just tryin to keep the interest, because Romney is going to slam Obaa in November, and taking the Senate is a REAL possibility. there are quite a few brain dead, and actual socialists out there that will vote for Obaa, but the conservatives and blue dogs are riled up. Obaa is gonna lose, and badly, and the race riots afterwards are going to be something else.....

Every poll on the radio during the last two weeks before the runoff had Cruz leading by at least 10%.

As long as Romney is leading nationals with Obama comfortably sweeping every battleground state, and as long as the Republicans in this nation didn't have a mass exodus to Wyoming since the last census, I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that polling methodology is seriously, seriously off this year. Who is off, by how much, and why they are off is speculation. I've not really been paying attention to polling this year for that reason.

Remember the WI recalls exit polling saying that the election was a tie? That was an unprecedented methodology flaw, and it was never rigorously identified or corrected, IIRC.

And don't forget the Cruz pools in Texas, showed him losing, and yet he won by 13 percent....

The pollsters are playing with their numbers, they are either protecting Obama, or just tryin to keep the interest, because Romney is going to slam Obaa in November, and taking the Senate is a REAL possibility. there are quite a few brain dead, and actual socialists out there that will vote for Obaa, but the conservatives and blue dogs are riled up. Obaa is gonna lose, and badly, and the race riots afterwards are going to be something else.....

Every poll on the radio during the last two weeks before the runoff had Cruz leading by at least 10%.

And in Wisconsin, the polls were pretty accurate (Walker was consistently up by 5-7 pts).

I know it seems crazy, but this election is going to be very close. If Romney manages a win it wont be by much.

If it is close, my respect for the American people has a whole, will go down BIG time, and when it is all said and done... Ah hell, who knows, but WTF happened to my country, that a socialist asshole can even come close, let alone WIN the presidency in the first place?

And in Wisconsin, the polls were pretty accurate (Walker was consistently up by 5-7 pts).

I know it seems crazy, but this election is going to be very close. If Romney manages a win it wont be by much.

But when were the polls close? We're 90 days from the election -- time for poll movement. In fact the polls will swing after the conventions, both sides usually get a convention bounce.

I wonder how much of the polling right now simply reflects name recognition.

If it is close, my respect for the American people has a whole, will go down BIG time, and when it is all said and done... Ah hell, who knows, but WTF happened to my country, that a socialist asshole can even come close, let alone WIN the presidency in the first place?

I agree. But realize that 45% of the country wants European-style democratic socialism.

And in Wisconsin, the polls were pretty accurate (Walker was consistently up by 5-7 pts).

I know it seems crazy, but this election is going to be very close. If Romney manages a win it wont be by much.

But when were the polls close? We're 90 days from the election -- time for poll movement. In fact the polls will swing after the conventions, both sides usually get a convention bounce.

The fact that the polls are close now reflects the reality that 45% of the country has no problem with Obama shoving socialism down our collective throats. That is the only point I was trying to make wrt polling data.

If it is close, my respect for the American people has a whole, will go down BIG time, and when it is all said and done... Ah hell, who knows, but WTF happened to my country, that a socialist asshole can even come close, let alone WIN the presidency in the first place?

I agree. But realize that 45% of the country wants European-style democratic socialism.

The Democratic base definitely does - or at least is not bothered by it due to other factors (the race card, etc.).

Obama must have had a VERY good Saturday, but he's fallen off since. Will be interesting to see tomorrow's Rasmussen, because after all he's thrown. to only be up by 1 is a problem.

Rasmussen today has them tied.