With the public and the pundits hungry for more information about the election, the focus on polling seems to be greater than ever. Unfortunately for the pollsters, so has skepticism about their results. Part of that lies in the natural unwillingness of partisans to accept that their side is losing. Thus, Republicans take polls that show their side winning as truthful while scoffing at those that show Democrats ahead; Democrats play the same game. We’ve seen a lot of this during this election cycle. But as much as we should guard against the partisan knee-jerk when reacting to certain polls, that doesn’t mean that they must all be taken at face value. Case in point is the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll of the presidential race published today. It gives President Obama some much-needed good news by showing that he leads Mitt Romney 49-46 percent. That three-point margin is an improvement by one point over the last Post poll taken two weeks ago.
But the problem with the Post poll is revealed in the paper’s story about its findings:
Partisan identification fluctuates from poll to poll as basic orientations shift and with the sampling variability that accompanies each randomly selected sample of voters. In the current poll, Democrats outnumber Republicans by nine percentage points among likely voters; the previous three Post-ABC polls had three-, six- and five-percentage-point edges for Democrats. The presidential contest would now be neck and neck nationally with any of these margins.
In other words, the pollsters know this is a bad poll but went ahead and published it anyway.
It’s true that partisan identification isn’t set in stone. But do the pollsters or the editors at the Post who were presented with this survey for publication really believe the electorate is that heavily skewed in favor of the Democrats? If that were true, that would mean America is leaning even more heavily toward President Obama’s party that it did in November 2008 when his “hope and change” fever was at its height. Getting such a result at a moment when every other poll indicates that Romney has made up the ground he lost in September to tie up the race, if not go ahead, should have alerted the pollsters that their sample was badly skewed. Adjust the figures to the level where other polls show party affiliation and the result would have been a lead for Romney, not Obama. It should have told the Post and ABC that this poll was not worth publishing.
We won’t know just how much those who vote in this election will lean toward one party or the other until after November. But the notion that an election as close as this one will produce a plus-nine result for the Democrats is ludicrous.
There will be those who will simply charge the pollsters — and their sponsors — with political bias and claim that they deliberately sought to cook the poll so as to give a win to President Obama at a time when other polls and the public’s mood has shifted against him and toward Romney. In reply, the pollsters will simply say that their sample was random and that they merely transcribed the choices of their respondents. I’ll take them at the word about that. Random is random, and perhaps that’s just the numbers they got. But not all random samples are kosher. The party identification numbers should have made it clear to them that this was a bad survey and that they needed to try again, if only as a control to see that they didn’t produce a glaringly inaccurate survey. That they didn’t do that is an indication of a lack of seriousness, if not bias. Just noting a margin of error (in this case of 3.5 percent) isn’t enough.
The skewed sample means that the Post/ABC poll is an outlier and will be dismissed as such by serious observers. But it raises serious questions about the willingness of major news organizations to publish material that they already know is tainted and almost certainly inaccurate. Stories like this make it clear why the public views journalists with such disdain.
The villain here is academia. Before Watergate made journalism popular, j-schools were empty. Today, journalism is a hot career choice and every college has a journalism department. What is taught in journalism school? How to write? How to use a telephone and an internet search engine? n nThe main teaching of journalism school is journalistic ethics. Those "ethics" are glaringly evident in the current election coverage. Ordinary Americans plainly recognize that that contemporary journalists hold America and Americans in contempt. Hence broad public opinion that journalists are morally inferior to whores, dope dealers and lawyers. n nThe solution? Shut down the Columbia School of Journalism and every other money grubbing university journalism department where would be dentists, accountants and social workers are taught to concoct newsfeed. Demolish the vermin infested slum that calls itself the Fourth Estate. Journalists don't deserve the constitutional protections they enjoy. n nWhile we're at it, let's shut down half the law schools and most of the colleges and universities in America. Academia is a largely taxpayer funded hogwallow for talentless leftist pseudo-scholars. Leftist sedition is the academy's stock in trade. Modern higher education is a detriment to American democracy. Taxpayer funding should be limited to core curricula. Propagandist academics should to be forced to earn an honest living like the rest of us. n n
Pretty strong opinions you got there. n nI agree with you, with one exception. n nI believe most journalism students could not hack it as dentists, accountants and social workers.
What means "strong?" Don't you like the smell of napalm in the morning?
Why should anyone be surprised that a Washington Post poll would gleefully be presented as front page material, even if, as they admit, it might have been an outlier. I don't doubt that Romney's debate bounce may be weakening. This is a very close race and that's exactly why these polls and their sponsors must be very careful to explain them and not to tout results when one sample is clearly askew. Having said that, as Jonathan admonished, we conservatives should not spend our time searching for a poll that will show Romney in the lead. That is why,in my opinion, the RCP averages are probably the best, though far from perfect, way to get a feel where we are nationally. Also, we must remember that presidential elections are won in the electoral college; in other words, the states.
I nearly always agree with Jonathan, but I think he and the others commenting may be missing the subtle but depressing truth: Obama's policies since 2008 have been aimed to minting more Democrats. His policies fail if you assume he wants "success" in the sense of lowering unemployment, enhancing American power and improving the economy. But, keeping in mind FDR won reelection despite much higher unemployment, Obama policies create dependency, create people who need him, and create more constituencies bribed by or addicted to his policies. Your typical unemployed worker is not going to vote against Obama–he wants those benefits to continue forever. Obama has created many other constituencies–ObamaCare is doing it too. So, if you add up 4 years of Obama policies, he has been wildly successful if you realize all he ever really wanted was to create more people who would feel a need to vote for him. Disgusting, yes, but that is what he is all about.
Obama is aiming for an America filled with Julia's and Sandra Flukes. And Holder wants to make sure they date Black Panthers. n
BDZ, you are absolutely correct, but there's more. Today, dependency reaches into many professional and educated groups. The university staff who look for grants; workers at government subsidized industries such as "green" energies and now the auto business; people in consulting businesses who get government contracts. I could go on….. All good citizens and all fearful that Republicans will take away their subsidies and support. This is exactly why Obama can do so well in the affluent suburbs of Virginia, Colorado, Ohio; in other words, all suburbs of the swing states. One of the arguments Romney supporters used during the primaries was that he, alone among the Republican candidates, could change this dynamic. He may, but clearly it hasn't been the easy lay-up they argued it would be.
Those have been the policies of the Demokrat Party since FDR; Obama is just either more blatant about it, or less capable of hiding it.
It is simply disgraceful. For a while, I would kinda laugh at their bias, but now I take personal offense that they believe I am so stupid. I encourage others who feel insulted and taken advantage of as I do to vote today with your money. Do not watch programs on ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBC. I would encourage you not to buy newspapwers and magazines, but they are already becoming dinosaurs. I shall always miss the feel of newsprint in my hands, but I am learning to embrace the new media, the internet.
G0d help this country if Obama is elected to a second term. We would have the Post and leftist rags like them to thank. n nA mind is a terrible thing to waste. And there are too many of them wasted already. Ganja is great. ganja is good. let us thank … well, you know the rest. n n n n
I regret that Obama is using our money to fly all over the U.S. to further his Socialism take over of the U.S. Why can't the citizens that are suppose to be proud of our country and want to do what is best for the country NOT for self gain. We have a lot of good people out of work that really want a job and we should not insult them as part of the worthless,live off the government slime that is out there. Obama and his Chicago crooks and liars are weaving a dead end road for our country. n Obama is not from our culture and he and his wife have never known the real pride of being an American citizen.
One think I would like to see factored into the polls is leftwing voter fraud. Maybe we can get the pollsters to ask respondents how many states or times have you voted.