Whottt, I don't disregard much of what you say but you ignore much of what works against her. Her record is mixed and if you campaign on opposing the bridge to nowhere then it doesn't help you when it comes out that she did support it before. It also looks like extreme pandering given the situation with the Democrats and their indecisive women voters. That can have a backlash. Then you have the ridiculous way the McCain campaign ran Troopergate this week along with the way she's ducked reporters greatly.
She's generating most of the excitement for the ticket right now. And without her McCain probably has no chance. The people saying he would have been better off with a Romney pick are forgetting she brought him into the race to begin with. Romney may have helped now, but he'd still be 8-9 points behind so wtf would the difference be?
Its really important to note that no one is excited about McCain though. No one. People are coming out in droves to see Palin, and then leaving as soon as McCain steps on the stage. And in the end people have never voted for the bottom of the ticket. They vote for the top.
Your entrance into this thread has been utter . I find it laughable that you think executive experience is that big of an indicator. Go ahead and look up the presidential history of those with "executive experience".
I'll be here waiting for your detailed findings.
Regardless of what people who don't like her think, most of us conservatives love her and were not going to vote for McCain other than the lesser of two evils. Myself, I was going to vote Bob Barr, knowing it to be a spoiler vote.
Whott is dead on. McCain does not appeal to the base of people who traditionally get republicans elected. Obama was in my view going to be president for certain, until Palin was picked. This is the first time in history that I know of that a president will win because of his VP pick. I find it rather ignorant for anyone to think she was a poor choice for VP. I think any intelligent person will acknowledge she is a good pick when you separate your personal political likes and dislikes out of the equation.
She was a great political pick, no doubt. But to claim she would be a good VP or President is ludicrous.
Now we are in an area of opinion. We at least agree she was a great political pick. I simply find it laughable that Obama would be a better president than Palin.
Obviously that is a matter of opinion. I find it laughable anyone who has no record of any stance on foreign issues can be ready to be vice president or president. We'll see how she does in the debate. I have a feeling that Palin "bump" is gonna be a pock mark on October 3rd.
Let me give this little historical tidbit.
The economy is in the ter. There have really only been two other times when the economy has been this bad in modern history.
1932
1980
Tell me what happened to the party in office during each of those elections. The only different variable is that the in bant isnt running this time.
So McCain is also fighting history, unless some major miracle happens in the next month.
Here's a guy talking about the poll weights and I agree with a lot of what he said.
Just to diffuse any distractions before they get started...yes he's a conservative. Nontheless...he makes a valid point about the way polls swing. And I don't agree with most of the points he is making BTW...but the ones on the poll weights I do agree with.
People aren't just changing their mind on who they are going to vote for based on every bit of news as the polls seem to indicate. It's the weights that are responsible for those swings.
http://wizbangblog.com/content/2008/...-president.php
Let's start with the latest poll numbers. Yep, Obama back on top, is the headline for many of them, though it's a bit tight. I guess we should worry on the Right? Hmmmm, well maybe not so much, just as those on the Left did not have that much to worry about when McCain got the 'Palin Bounce' earlier this month. I said when the first bumps came out that I did not think Palin's effect would really be that immediate, and I have always said that the reader should go well past the headline to find out what a poll says. So, taking my own advice, let's see what Gallup has to say.
The Gallup Organization is as clean and straight-arrow a polling group as I have ever found. Their methodology is consistent and transparent, their questions are the same and they have a longer history than anyone else in the business. But even Gallup has a few odd quirks, and when you see them it might change how you look at their poll releases. For this article, I am looking at the Gallup 'Daily Tracking Poll' for the Presidential election. For the five most recent weekly reports, here's where Gallup says the candidates stood:
Aug 21: Obama 45, McCain 44
Aug 28: Obama 48, McCain 41
Sep 04: Obama 49, McCain 42
Sep 11: McCain 48, Obama 44
Sep 18: Obama 48, McCain 44
From that, it appears that a tight race opened up first for Obama, then McCain, then Obama again, with each candidate sitting anywhere from 41 to 49 percent support (not counting margin of error) during that time. Fair enough, but let's look at their support by party identification, first by Obama:
- continued -
Liberal Democrat support for Obama - 88% Aug 21, 91% Aug 28, 93% Sep 4 through Sep 18.
Moderate Democrat support for Obama - 78% Aug 21 and 28, 81% Sep 4 through Sep 18.
Conservative Democrat support for Obama - 68% Aug 21, 63% Aug 28, 77% Sep 4, 70% Sep 11, 66% Sep 18
Hmmm. Obama's support goes up and down, but the Liberal and Moderate Democrat support for Obama has been steady all of September. Odd, isn't it? And support for Obama among Conservative Democrats went down four points in the last week, even though his overall support is supposed to have gone up four points. How to figure that?
Perhaps it's in the Independents. After all, if Obama started winning them over, he'd not only be making gains overall but gaining support where he wants it the most.
Independent support for Obama - 24% Aug 21, 29% Aug 28, 23% Sep 4, 29% Sep 11, and 27% Sep 18
Hmmm, again. Obama gained support among Independents in the last month, but he actually lost two points among Independents in the last week. So that 4 point gain overall is still a mystery.
Nothing to do, then, but look at the Republicans. It would really be something if he's improving support from GOP voters:
Liberal/Moderate Republican support for Obama - 16% Aug 21, 13% Aug 28, 14% Sep 4, 16% Sep 11, 10% Sep 18
Ouch. Obama lost six points among Liberal and Moderate Republicans in the past week.
Conservative Republican support for Obama - 6% Aug 21, 5% Aug 28, 4% Sep 4, 3% Sep 11 and 18
No change there in the past week.
Taken altogether, there is no group of political identification where Obama's support has increased in the past week. Mathematically, therefore, there is only one way in which Gallup could show an increase in Obama's overall support, when none of the party identification groups showed improvement for him. I will come back to that in a moment, but the reader should think about it, because it's very important, that only possible way this could happen.
Before I explain that possibility, I want to look at John McCain's support by specific party identification groups. The man, according to Gallup, lost four points of overall support in the past week,
Conservative Republican support for McCain - 89% Aug 21, 91% Aug 28, 94% Sep 4 and 11, 95% Sept 18
Interesting. McCain's support among Conservative Republicans went up a point in the last week. Well, let's move on:
Liberal/Moderate Republican support for McCain - 75% Aug 21, 77% Aug 28, 78% Sep 4 and 11, 85% Sep 18
Wow, McCain's support from Liberal and Moderate Republicans climbed by seven points in the past week, and yet we are told his overall support fell by four points? That is very odd, wouldn't you say? It must have been the Independents, perhaps?
Independent support for McCain - 34% Aug 21, 31% Aug 28, 29% Sep 4, 28% Sep 11, and 32% Sep 18
Stranger and stranger, McCain's support among Independents went up by four points in the past week, just as his support from Republicans increased, yet we are told his overall support went down by four. Very hard to explain that using the math most of us learned in school, isn't it? Well, there's just one place left to look. Maybe somehow McCain used to have significant support among Democrats, but lost it? Let's find out:
Conservative Democrat support for McCain - 23% Aug 21, 26% Aug 28, 15% Sep 4, 21% Sep 11, 24% Sep 18
Hmpf. Once again, a group where support for McCain went up, but the overall says he went down.
Moderate Democrat support for McCain - 14% Aug 21, 13% August 28, 11% Sep 4, 12% Sep 11 and 18.
Steady there, so that one does not explain it.
Liberal Democrat support for McCain - 6% Aug 21, 6% Aug 28, 4% Sep 4 and 11, 5% Sep 18.
It's only a point, but again we see McCain's numbers in this group went up.
So, put it all together, and in the past week Obama has stayed steady or lost support in every party identification group, yet Gallup says his overall support went up four points. And McCain stayed steady or went up in every party identification group, yet we are supposed to accept the claim that his overall support went down by four points? Anyone have an answer for how that is even possible?
Well, actually I do. There is one, and only one, possible way that such a thing can happen mathematically. And that way, is that Gallup made major changes to the political affiliation weighting from the last week to now. Gallup has significantly increased the proportional weight of Democrat response and reduced the weight of Republican response. Bear in mind that this assumes that people change the foundation of their political opinion like a showgirl changes costumes, which has no scientific basis or historical support whatsoever. As I said earlier, the Gallup Organization is very much a professional polling agency, who tries their level best to gauge the national mood. That, after all, is why I chose to use their poll for my examination. I could do the same thing with any other of the major published polls, and I can tell you straight-up that I would find the same practice going on everywhere. But just because something is popular, does not validate it as a scientific method. Rather than report the rising and falling levels of support for Obama and McCain with constant party identification weighting, the Gallup and other polls are shifting the party weights over time, which pretty explains how the 'bounce' happens for each convention. When the Democrats held their convention, the polls increased the weight of Democrats and lowered the Republican response, and when the Republicans had their convention, the polls gave the Republicans more weight. That's why Palin made such an immediate difference in the polls; the Liberals were not all that impressed with her, but the Republicans were happy and with a bigger share of the weight their response was magnified. I can't prove it, since the Gallup people do not invite me into their strategy meetings, but I think somewhere they are weighting the party ID by the mood as they see it. The problem there, is that such weighting is still very subjective, and what's more it fails to consider that someone may consider themselves a member of one party with respect to the House and Senate races, but something else entirely when it comes to voting for the President. The state of Oklahoma, for example, is a very Democratic place, but it's pretty solid for McCain, just as it was for Bush. So weighting a presidential poll for party identification on the basis of how they think someone will vote for Congress, is going to miss the mark.
Anyway, going back to my earlier piece on party weighting, if we go back and look at the historical track record for the last ten years in terms of self-identified party affiliation from actual exit polls, we see a clear standard of weights; 38.4% Democrat, 35.8% Republican, 26.0% Independent. If we then work them out to fill the liberal/moderate/conservative slots used by Gallup, the following weights have historical validity and may be used as a constant for poll responses:
Liberal Democrat 9%
Moderate Democrat 16%
Conservative Democrat 13%
Independent 26%
Liberal/Moderate Republican 23%
Conservative Republican 13%
If we apply those weights to the poll response, here is what happens to the Gallup polling responses:
August 21: Obama 39.94%, McCain 43.43%, Undecided 16.63%
August 28: Obama 40.04%, McCain 43.60%, Undecided 16.36%
September 4: Obama 41.06%, McCain 41.77%, Undecided 17.17%
September 11: Obama 42.04%, McCain 42.45%, Undecided 15.51%
September 18: Obama 39.62%, McCain 45.71%, Undecided 14.67%
Movement still happens in both sides' support, but it is more gradual and is consistent with events in both parties. Frankly, it is only reasonable to expect that Democrats largely support Obama while Republicans largely support McCain, and even now there is a significant amount of indecision; between one of six and one of seven voters are not sure who they want. Most of that doubt is with independents, whose support may make all the difference in the key states. Further, the stated levels of support are within the statistical margin of error. It is also interesting to note that both Obama and McCain, in general, are gaining support incrementally, with gains gradually reducing the undecided portion (at the present pace, however, the undecided portion of the vote would still exceed ten percent of the total vote). The latest support level for Obama, statistically, appears to be an outlier, so his next poll may be expected to reflect stronger support. If Obama is in fact losing support, some specific reason would have to be found - it is not reasonable to expect support to diminish without a clear cause.
The sum effect of all this, is that both Barack Obama and John McCain are gaining support, shoring up their party support and looking for persuadable independents. But McCain is gaining support faster than is Obama, and one might wonder why.
Sure, Sarah Palin was a great choice, but as the Democrats have said, she is after all only the Vice-presidential nominee, a position which ordinarily does little to decide elections. It is reasonable to think that she helped with Republican support, but it would not explain much of a jump in independent support on its own, but there the trolls have helped out.
You see, a political campaign is a matter of building support. A candidate goes on all kinds of trips, pays for all kinds of advertisements, attends conferences and debates and makes appearances all over the place, in hopes of gaining a few voters along the way. When I wrote yesterday that at first I liked Obama and disliked McCain, I was being honest, and trying to explain that they each made their case over time, one gradually losing my interest and the other gaining my support. OK, so it's no news flash that a life-long Republican comes around to cheering for the GOP candidate, but it does bear mention that there have been a lot of folks waiting all year for a candidate to convince them that he deserves their support. There really is not that much that Obama or McCain have said, which changes either of their initial platforms very much, so it would make sense to see each platform grow gradually, and about to the same degree, though with more people identifying themselves as Democrats, Obama frankly should be doing better than he is seeing in hard numbers. And that brings us to what, precisely, would be dragging him back. And that is where the trolls come in.
People plain do not like trolls. Some of us work for trolls, like the caveman who steals your work for his own credit, or the sadist who likes abusing his staff as far as he can get away with it. Some of us see them in traffic, the guys who cut you off in traffic while signaling a gesture that most parents would not want to have to explain to their kids. And of course, there are the political trolls. And like all trolls, people react to them adversely, but what sets them apart is that they also tend to damage their patron at times. And so it is, that Barack Obama's pet trolls have been chewing away at support he needs in the election, weighing him down and making his message look, well, like he's lying through his teeth. It's one thing for The Obama campaign to examine Governor Palin's record as an executive, but out of line to attack her family as their trolls have done so gleefully. And since Obama has not made much of an effort to rein them in, the implicit approval of their attacks has attached him to the stench of their conduct. So too, the smear attempts by trolls to deny John McCain's heroic service in Vietnam has come back to make people wonder about why Barack Obama has not tried much at all to make clear that he respects John McCain's service. Barack Obama has been a little too cute the past month, with monsters who - if not under his direction, they have certainly not been condemned by his campaign - have tried to damaged the public perception of John McCain and Sarah Palin, but have instead provided each a stage to defend their records (which they have done well) and to make regular folks question why a man like Obama, Mister 'Above the Rancor', would let his people act like thugs. While Obama has tried to distance himself from the dirty tricks, they are very similar to tactics he used to defeat Hillary Clinton in the primary season, further staining the image he tried to paint for himself.
It is true that Barack Obama can win this election. But he has a big problem with the trolls he set out to trip up his opponent. They are working, instead and with great energy, at tearing apart the underpinnings of Obama's own character and judgment, and at the moment, trolls like Brian are creating an increasing momentum - for the McCain campaign.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
What do you think polls are based on?
And before anyone chalks this up to simple bias...I am one of the people who has changed their mind. Or at least made up his mind in recent weeks. It's not something you do more than once IMO. My mind won't be changing again barring McCain and Palin being behind September 11th.
How many others in this thread have changed their mind about who they are voting for? How many people do you know that have changed their minds?
What's with the dumb excuses? All this over-analyzing of polls is hilarious. Obama had a good week and just leave it at that. Morons (I won't name any names) that thought McCain had this sewn up because of Palin's "Elvis Presley" statuswere obviously wrong.
I'm sorry but it's moronic to think people change their minds on every bit of news. It is the weights that are responsible...not people changing their minds every day.
Are you seriously attempting to claim the economy is as bad now as it was in 1932? That's a ridiculous statement and is pure alarmism.
Tell me what happened to the party in office during each of those elections. The only different variable is that the in bant isnt running this time.
Obama would have been dealt a horrible defeat had he been on the winning side of the ticket in either of those elections...and not that much has changed. And I'm not talking entirely about skin color either.
We just elected W in 2004.
The Democratic Congress is even less popular than W is...So McCain is also fighting history, unless some major miracle happens in the next month.
And these weights are important and always have been...I can't find the page right now but I believe that no Democrat with under a 15pt lead in polling going into the election week has ever won the Presidency. Something like that. And Obama polled high in the primaries, he lost states in which he had a double digit lead in polling.
Whottt, I'm sorry but the guy you quoted loses so much credibility for a few different reasons.
1, he's using one polling source for this information when there are several available. Sure Gallup is great, but to act as though they are the only transparent polling outfit is false. I'd probably not even mark them as the best. SUSA is pretty damn good and is better, IMO. Anyway, why take a look at one groups polls and focus only on those results instead of looking at them all?
2. He's using internals and trying to use them to make a point. Internals are ok, but when you have a poll that has a margin of error of maybe +/- 3%, those internals have a much great MOE because they have even smaller sample sizes and allow for incredible inconsistencies. I kept saying this when the media was pointing at the supposed McCain gain of 20% with white women. The MOE may be 20% in itself for those internals, so why they were they throwing that around as fact?
Its really sad to see someone try to make points with internals from ONE pollster. Its just not going to be very accurate.
Well the main reason he didn't use Survey USA is that they don't do many National Polls...at least that's my guess. This is definitely an examination of the National Polls...and his point is that Gallup's overall results don't match up with their internals. He's right...they don't.
And technically...if you are going by 2004, Rasmussen was the best state pollster. They were way off sometimes...but they weren't off on who was going to win in each state...they were perfect on that.
What this tells me for example...is when I see multiple polls showing Obama with a 2-5 point lead in states like New Jersey, Minn, Washington or even NY, and then Rasmussen shows Obama up by 15 or something...I tend to think yes Obama is in the lead in those states, no he's not in the lead by as much as Rasmussen claims. Just for example.
But go ahead and go by Survey USA...if you do, Obama's in some serious trouble.
Suvey USA may be showing you what you want to see in Iowa and New Mexico...maybe VA, and they are showing Obama to be in some serious in many other areas, including Washington and Minnesota...and they've shown Obama to be in serious in Minnesota pretty much consistently.
I think he was mainly examining the National Polls...the State Polls aren't reflective individually of good news for Obama...that's the point I've been making for 2 or 3 pages now. Yes he's showing headway in states he needs to flip...and yes he's losing ground everywhere in states he was expected to win.Anyway, why take a look at one groups polls and focus only on those results instead of looking at them all?
Well I think the point he was making was that if the standard can be that off...so can all the others.2. He's using internals and trying to use them to make a point. Internals are ok, but when you have a poll that has a margin of error of maybe +/- 3%, those internals have a much great MOE because they have even smaller sample sizes and allow for incredible inconsistencies. I kept saying this when the media was pointing at the supposed McCain gain of 20% with white women. The MOE may be 20% in itself for those internals, so why they were they throwing that around as fact?
Its really sad to see someone try to make points with internals from ONE pollster. Its just not going to be very accurate.
Personally, I look at Rasmussen to see who's actually winning a state and then I try to fine tune the margin using other polls. But I know in my gut Rasmussen is off on the margins in some of these states...as I've said, watching them they tend to be the slowest to react...When they say he's a conservative pollster, they mean it literally.
I never said it was as bad.
I'm simply stating that the economy today is horrible. The only other two times in modern history it has really been this bad is 1932 and 1980.
I did like how you ignored completely my mention of 1980. That was brilliant.
And if not for the measures put in place after 1929, what happened then would have already happened this year or would be happening in the next 6-8 weeks or less.
Guaranteed. The same that essentially lead to that has lead to this.
Widespread speculation especially in real estate.
Sometimes I wish people would actually study more history, it does repeat itself often.
Yeah um...unemployment was 33% in 1932, it's a ridiculous comparison to 1980, or now.
If unemployment was 33% right now, Usama Bin Laden could get elected against the in bent.
It's 6.1% right now, a figure 95% of the countries in the world would love to have.
1980 is a fair comparison to right now(although 1980 was definitely worse)...1932 isn't a fair comparison to anything.
And FDR ran on a platform of repealing prohibition as well...that was a huge reason he got elected.
And if not for the measures put in place after 1929, what happened then would have already happened this year or would be happening in the next 6-8 weeks or less.
Guaranteed. The same that essentially lead to that has lead to this.
Not the same at all...
Widespread speculation especially in real estate.
Sometimes I wish people would actually study more history, it does repeat itself often.
History also said there was no way W should have been re-elected, however history wasn't aware that the Democrats were going to put John Kerry up against him. I'd just like to point out that the Democrats in 1932 and the Republicans in 1980, were both viewed as much more competent than their opposition...that isn't the case with the Democrats in this election, check the approval ratings of congress.
It's not the same and you are frankly blind to the lack of appeal of the Democratic Party right now. Yes the Republicans are unpopular...but so are the Democrats.
PS: In both of the examples you listed the Presidential victor came from the out of power party in congress. Guess who that is this time around? Americans aren't stupid...that's why the parties in power change.
Last edited by whottt; 09-21-2008 at 03:17 AM.
Whottt we came a lot closer to 1932 this week than many people realize. We came within 24 hours of the collapse of our financial markets and I'm not convinced we staved it off at all.
Sure, the government says its going to bail these ers out but where is it going to get them money? Tbills of course, but what happens when governments stop buying those tbills because they saw how fragile our is this week? It then devalues the dollar of course.
We're in some deep right now, and when it does finally spiral out of control its going to happen so much faster than anyone realizes. Its going to be 1932 much faster than people can imagine when the does hit the fan.
Eh...it's the housing market. People have been talking about the housing bubble for years...it's really not that much of a surprise.
Sometimes you don't have a choice. Sometimes the economy is going to take a downturn.Sure, the government says its going to bail these ers out but where is it going to get them money? Tbills of course, but what happens when governments stop buying those tbills because they saw how fragile our is this week? It then devalues the dollar of course.
We're in some deep right now, and when it does finally spiral out of control its going to happen so much faster than anyone realizes. Its going to be 1932 much faster than people can imagine when the does hit the fan.
Well I hate to break it to you guys, but FDR didn't fix the economy...he made it worse....it finally got fixed 9 years later when we entered into WWII.
Here's a link to some unemployment figures that shows W to be one of the greatest Presidents in history in terms of creating jobs...he's actually done a better job of it than Clinton, without the benefit of a technological revolution.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html
Sometimes, it is the best of all possible worlds.
Its the housing market eh?
You do realize that this past week banks completely stopped lending money in an economy where if businesses don't get loans they have no capital on hand, right? If they have no capital on hand they have to sell off assets in order to get that capital but if no one has capital how are they going to buy? If no one is able to get capital how are they going to pay their employees?
This is sooooooooooooooo ing deep right now.
BUT this is an entirely different thread.
I'll say this, I've been glued to political news for months now. I took some time over the past few days to read about what this whole mess actually is in order to get a better understanding of it. Well, for the first time in months I think political news may not matter.
I'm worried. Really really really worried. This is so much deeper than 99% of this country realizes right now.
I think it very well could become 1932 again, except without all the apples.
All depends on how deep the rabbit hole goes. Nobody knows.
Are you just trolling, whot? America almost never throws out wartime in bents. That Bush barely beat another yacht-riding, wine-sipping Dukakis despite being a wartime in bent says a lot.
I'm still wondering why anyone bothers responding to whottt.
The Republican party should be proud though. They really can brain-wash people.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
