I turned on Good Morning America this morning to listen to the Barbara Walters interview of Sarah Palin, and what did I hear as soon as the show began? New poll results which show Obama's favorability/unfavorability at 56/42. That startled me and I immediately began to wonder how they fudged those numbers. I knew these results couldn't be accurate because I check out the Rasmussen poll numbers on a daily basis.
Now I know how they got the numbers to work in Obama's favor. Read from Hot Air:
WaPo/ABC poll: The 14-point partisan gap
"After a while, it gets to be a broken record, but we still have to ask: does anyone know how to poll out there? Despite every indication that the partisan split among Americans has narrowed considerably since the last Presidential election, won by the Democrat by seven points while garnering considerable independent and Republican cross-over votes, the new Washington Post/ABC poll uses a sample in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by fourteen points. Moreover, the WaPo/ABC poll has progressively widened that gap over the last four monthly polls:
•11/15/09: 35/21/39 (D/R/I)
•10/18/09: 33/20/42
•9/12/09: 32/21/43
•8/17/09: 35/25/34
Let’s have a reality check here. In the last four months, which party would have lost ~20% of its representation in the polls and had them shift to the independent column? With both Gallup and Rasmussen showing the Democrats losing the generic Congressional ballot for the first time in several years, it’s not the Republicans losing voters. And yet the Post and ABC conduct their public-opinion polls based on samples that not only wildly oversample Democrats but show the opposite trend of partisan identification.
Even while increasing the sample to the point of farce, Barack Obama and Democratic policies lost ground in this poll:
•Approval on health care: 47/49, was 48/48 in October
•Approval on deficit: 42/53, was 45/51 in October
•Approval on the economy: 51/47, was 50/48
•Support ObamaCare: 48/49, was 45/48
•Public option: Up 10 (53/43), was up 17 in October (57/40)
Maybe WaPo/ABC should use a 25-point gap the next time between Democrats and Republicans. That way they can get the results they want on the issues."
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4 comments:
Polls are for the weak minded and easely manipulated.
Not only can the media and partisans cherry-pick polls which suit their purposes (to move conformist voters towards an “ideal” mean) but also the polls themselves are clearly vulnerable to political manipulation.
You may have a 10-1 liberal advantage if you look at the demographics of some polls, you can see some polls where black "adults" are 2-1 vs. white "adults." And like you said the over sampling of Democrats and under count Independents which gives a 2-1 weight to Democrats over Republicans.
Manipulation of polls is a perception, Give me something and you look good, take something and you look bad. The perception for many is that the check is in the mail; the reality is the tax bill is in the mail.
If Obama thinks his approval is any higher than congress’s approval he is sorely mistaken.
My guess is he doesn't care. It only matters to him what he thinks of himself.
The only poll that matters takes place every four years in November. And Obama did OK in that one.
Diogenes: yea, that’s before Americans knew what an incompetent clown he is.
Look at the democrat’s loss in VA and NJ for future things coming the Rats way in 2010&2012.
Keep telling yourself that Virginia and Joisey elected Republican governors simply because of their dissatisfaction with Obama. Please, underestimate him again.
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