Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Poll Vaulting

Unbiased Pole Vaulter

The latest New York Times/Quinnipiac/CBS poll came out this morning and it basically tells the Romney campaign to hang up its sneakers … because they are behind in the Boston Marathon by twenty minutes. According to this poll, President Obama is leading Romney in three key battleground states by the following margins: Ohio (+10), Florida (+9), and Pennsylvania (+12). And it is generally conceded that, if Romney loses Ohio and/or Florida, he has no chance of ousting the current resident of the White House. To see these results go to: Politico Story and also note therein that Washington Post polling seems somewhat to confirm these results.

Skeptic that I am, I then went to the Rasmussen Reports site to verify these results (see: Rasmussen Reports ... since Rasmussen is generally conceded to do the most accurate and unbiased polling.)  Here, not willing to subscribe to the detail state-by state results, I do see that: “In the 11 swing states, the president earns 46% of the vote, and Mitt Romney is supported by 45%. Four percent (4%) are not sure, and five percent (5%) are undecided.” Or, to say it another way, the latest New York Times/Quinnipiac/CBS poll is just so much smoke designed to discourage the Right and hype the Left.

If you want to see how some media outlets try to massage the American voter’s psyche, may I suggest that you read one or more of the following analyses on how such polling is conducted and reported: Breitbart Big-JournalismBreitbart Big-Government, and PJMedia Story. I wish that I had invented this term, but the New York Times/Quinnipiac/CBS type of sampling-skewed polling and poll reporting surely needs to be labeled “journalistic malpractice.”

4 comments:

DEN said...

The theory that fraudulent polling results is a strategy to convince the opposition to stay home on election day is just silly.
However, I would consider bar hopping with the babe in the caption photo :-)

George W. Potts said...

What then, please sir, is the real benefit of spending all these polling resources on producing such misleading results? (I assume you read the hyperlinks that explained how such fiction is produced.)

DEN said...

Well, since your hyperlinks are cherry-picked to support your twisted view of reality, so no, I did not need to read them.
I see zero benefit to reporting inaccurate or falsified poll data. Most eligible voters have already made up their minds and will vote accordingly. (Do you honestly think that conservative voters would be so discouraged that they would stay home? ) The polls may instill a sense of joy or sadness, but they will not make people switch their voting preference. You insist on ascribing conspiratorial intent to published data that you disagree with.

George W. Potts said...

"None are so blind as those who will not see ..."