I Stand with President Bush

There are some folks who seem to have a perfect hand at internet writing. Some, like Victor Davis Hanson, hold impressive academic qualifications, while others, like Hugh Hewitt, used radio and blogging together to become major forces in the blogosphere. Then there is Glenn Reynolds, who simply wrote so much so well and so succinctly about so many things, that he simply became a site everyone read. The rest of us have succeeded to minor degrees, myself included, although I have a habit of picking fights with people. I was going to say it was an ‘unfortunate’ habit, except that I believe that most of those fights needed to be had. Hence I receive precious few Christmas cards, though fortunately I am taken seriously by so few people, that almost no one regards me as a serious threat to their political ambitions. I am annoying, nothing more.

But I am the sort to stand up for causes, especially when I see good men left deserted by those who once claimed to be loyal. In this case, I got into a disagreement regarding the – now common – habit of heaping blame onto President Bush by republicans, who not only believe the lies from the Left but forget that the President was one of very few people to warn the nation years ago that this sort of crisis was coming. I am an accountant, and while I cannot claim to be the equal of Bernanke or Paulson, I have been following the events which brought about this crisis for three + years now, and my MBA studies have reinforced understanding of the economic pressures at work. Bush was and is right, and the many who are howling outrage against him now are completely, utterly, shamefully wrong.

As is the case with so many important issues, President Bush was dead on from the start. But his supporters deserted him, questioned his judgment when they themselves did not have a clue, and they cut his legs out from under him. This disintegrated the GOP unity, along with other extremely foolish defections by people with large egos and no sense of duty.

I will not question the President in this case for even a moment, because he was left totally abandoned. Not a single House or Senate republican went along with President Bush, even though none of them had a background which qualified them as well as Bush to understand the forces at work and none of them (except McCain) had lifted a finger to stop this crisis from happening, much less carried the issue to the public the way Bush did. At the point where he was presented with the bill, Bush had two choices, neither of them palatable. He could either sign a bill loaded with things he would never have chosen to support, or he could allow a bad situation to become a catastrophe.

You may either believe me or not, but if this bill had not passed, the Dow and the Dollar would each lose at least 25% of their value before the year's end. By election day, things would be so bad that nearly every House and Senate seat would go to the Democrats because of the way the media has falsely laid blame, and you would see 2009 usher in an era of Socialism such as you would not have believed possible, unless - like me - you have studied similar crises in England, Japan, Russia, and Italy. Confidence was already fragile, and I do not think many people understand what was happening in European and Asian markets. To be blunt, a number of major nations were about to dump US Treasury notes, and the projections of consumer confidence would mean the worst economic collapse since 1932. Bush, as always, did the right thing, and as usual even the people who wanted him to do it, needed him to do it, made sure all the blame and none of the credit was laid at his name. Many republicans have believed the lies of evil men and deserted a good and honorable President, who also happened to be right again. The President has earned better than that from people who claim to be his friends. My loyalty is not so timid, nor my judgment so capricious that I believe men I know to be liars, rather than a proven friend and defender of the nation.

The Sordid Business of Opinion Polls

As I was riding the Park n Ride to work one morning last week, the bus passed a fortune-teller’s store, which had gone out of business. The place had been doing poorly for a very long time. As I pondered the painted word ‘psychic’ on the side of the building, I wondered why the medium did not know this was going to happen. For all of that, there are many fortune-tellers who make good money, telling folks stories which sound good, which is what the customers really want. Of course, there are many people who won’t be taken in by horoscopes and fortune-tellers; they know better than that. Yet, many of those fine people read the poll reports in the papers and watch the polls in television, so they will know who’s going to win the election. They believe the claims of people they do not know about what will happen in the future, just because they like the story.

I have followed opinion polls for some years now, and I have great respect for a poll which is properly done, and properly reported. Unfortunately, there are a lot of polls which get published without providing readers or viewer with the proper context, and worse there are a number of major polls which hide vital parts of their internal data. The media, it must be remembered, is not and never has been in the business of reporting facts. Instead, they want to sell a story, in order to claim lots of attention which will increase readership or ratings. And in this election, the media has overwhelmingly been biased in favor of Obama.

Before I continue, I need to go back and say again how a poll should be properly done. There are two major authoritative poll accreditation bodies;

The National Council on Public Polling (NCPP), and
the American Association for Public Opinion Research(AAPOR). Any valid poll should include a disclosure that it complies with NCPP or AAPOR standards of methodology, but most do not do so.

The NCPP has published a guide for journalists to use when discussing the report from an opinion poll. Some of the questions they say a journalist should ask include

Who did the poll?
Who paid for the poll and why was it done?
How many people were interviewed for the poll? (This, by the way, is why the state polls are less statistically valid than the nation polls. They usually involve a much smaller poll of respondents than the national polls use)
How were the people chosen to take part in the poll?
What area were those people from?
What was the response rate to contact attempts? (almost no one answers that one)
How does the poll describe the results?
What questions were asked, and how were they worded?
What order was used for questions? (this is an old, old trick – if a controversial issue is asked just before a certain candidate is named, often this creates a false connection between the candidate and the controversy in the mind of respondents)
What events are likely to have impacted the poll results?

The plain fact is, that almost no media outlet or polling group reveals the answers to all of these kinds of questions. And that damages their credibility as valid reflections of the public’s opinion.

The AAPOR warns that polls almost always fall into one of seven categories of sponsorship:

1. Academic institutions
2. Federal, State and Local Governments
3. Media Organizations
4. Non-profit groups or Foundations
5. Special interest groups
6. Businesses and Corporations
7. Political campaigns, consultants, and candidates

They also warn about many of the same problems in poll reporting as the NCPP, and the AAPOR goes further to warn that many of these sponsors may be biased, even when they claim to be objective. The first question, in any poll result, is 'who benefits’?

This brings me to Rasmussen. In an earlier article, I rather harshly said that Rasmussen was in it for the money. I have always asked the questions recommended by the NPCC/AAPOR, and in doing so I have noticed how some major polls refuse to answer important questions. I learned a long time ago that if you had enough information, you could work out the mechanics of most major conclusions. I found Gallup, AP-Ipsos, and CBS News very open about their methodology and the internal data of their polls. But I have always been disappointed in the secretive and sometimes disingenuous behavior of Zogby, NBC, ABC, and Rasmussen. As it happens, Scott Rasmussen has enjoyed a lot of success at his business, but if you want internals it will cost you, and if you want to reverse-engineer his polls to test for bias, he simply won’t allow you a way to have all the information needed. That, again being blunt, strikes me as both mercenary and essentially dishonest. And therefore, no matter what his polls say I will always see a little red flag next to his published claims. My rule of thumb is very simple – it does not matter whether the poll says what I’d like to hear, it matters whether all the supporting data is available.

Another thing that is troubling, is the desire for instant gratification. For example, Sarah Palin clearly beat Joe Biden in the debate they had last week (although ardent democrats are just as sure Biden triumphed), and so there are people on both sides looking at the current polls for signs of their guys big win. But there are two reasons why you will not see that, at least right now. First, even the invalid daily tracking polls take their results from three days of polling, which means the first poll with full post-debate reaction will not be released until Monday. And I have to warn you that the polls will not reflect an immediate valid effect – if they show a sudden jump for either side it is far more likely to mean that the polls have – once again – changed the party affiliation weights, a practice as dishonest as putting one foot on the floor while you weigh yourself. The reason is because while people do change their minds, historically it has always been a few people at a time and in small steps. One proof of that is that as popular as Presidents Reagan and Clinton were, neither saw a major shift in party identification during his Administration. People supported the man, not necessarily the party, and in this election it would foolish indeed to imagine that people who supported Biden were also becoming more pro-democrat than before, or that those who supported Palin were becoming more pro-republican than before. After all, the biggest statistical group of undecideds consider themselves to be independents, and while they will come over to one candidate or the other, that does not lock them in with the whole party. Party identification should be a static measure for the duration of a campaign, and manipulating party affiliation is simply cheating the results to create a story out of imagination.

Those State Polls ... preface

The Left is getting very happy with itself. Seems that some of the battleground state polls are going Obama's way, and they figure to win big on November 4.

Maybe. But maybe not.

I will admit that I got a little depressed when I saw some of the recent polls, but then I remembered that state polls are, statistically and historically, far less accurate than the national polls, which is one reason the major poll groups generally do not try to do both. An exception is Rasmussen, which is chasing money, and media groups like CNN/Time, which are so biased as to make me question their raw data. More to the point, if you look at all the polls done in a state for a range of time, you see sharp differences in how some of them report things. And as I have always said, an aggregate of polls is actually less statistically valid than any one poll performed under consistent application of NCPP rules. Also, any poll predicting a result which is strongly at odds with the historical results from past elections, is questionable unless a rational explanation is made to explain the sudden change. To be sure, I am not rejecting the polls out of hand, but neither am I so naive, that I forget how many of the 2000 and 2004 state polls were wrong.

So, I have been chewing on the numbers. The thing is, there are 49 different polling groups doing state polls, and so it will take a while to work out the bias in the polls. Once I have something which confirms or dispels the claims being made, I will post it. But for now, keep in mind that most of these polling groups are people you have never heard before, who have a financial interest in the way their polls are reported, and many of whom have hidden their internal data. Treat 'em like used car salesmen until you have better reason to trust them.

On a personal note, though. I would love to hear from someone as to just why McCain would pull out of Michigan, when that state is so winnable and he has gotten a lot without much effort so far. I have made it clear that we cannot lose if we do not give up, but that depends on our candidate staying in the fight himself. Someone needs to remind John what an Obama Administration would do to this country, and why he cannot slack off now or concede anything to that Chicago crook.

The Right Target

All the talk this morning is about the VP debate last night. There’s all kinds of places where you can get details on what was said, how many times Biden lied through his painted teeth, and what the ‘instant poll’ or ‘focus group’ said immediately afterward, so you don’t need me for that. What I am writing about today, is something a bit more intricate, and yet I think important to the race remaining.

My wife wanted to see the debate on CBS, so we got to hear what Ms. Couric thought of it. I don’t usually have much respect for the opinion of Ms. Couric, but she made a good observation, though she did not carry it through to its significant conclusion. Kouric said that Governor Palin was speaking to Senator Biden, the moderator, the audience, and the television viewers, while Senator Biden, in Couric’s words, was “speaking as if Palin was not even there”. That is, Biden was trying to drive home attacks on McCain and pressing his points about the Obama campaign directly to the home viewers. Biden and Palin were going after different target audiences. My hunch is that both nominees accomplished their tactical goals, but only one of them chose the right target.

It’s easy to get caught up in minute details of the election, but it’s critically important to understand how a candidate builds up support. It does not, despite what you may have read or seen or heard, happen in great waves or sudden bursts of enthusiasm. And most people who have made up their mind to support a candidate, do not quickly or casually change their mind. The publicly released polls are not accurate in the image created, that the voters are flighty and chaotic. Quite the opposite, if history is considered.

With firmer facts in hand, we can simply say that the race remains in doubt, because a portion of the voters have not made up their mind. They may well lean towards McCain or to Obama, but there is a portion which has decided and cannot easily be convinced to change their opinion, and there is a small portion which will not make a choice and so will sit out this election, but there is also a significant portion remaining, who are still waiting for a candidate to convince them to give their vote to that candidate. And so it is happening, small pieces at a time, and along the way the candidates may well not be certain themselves about just how much support they have in certain key places. This is true in many states, where the race is close enough that a well-focused effort could make all the difference.

Without overdoing the numbers, it is safe to say that most Democrats are supporting or will support Obama, and that most Republicans are supporting or will support McCain. There are, in the end, just three groups in play:

Republicans unsure about McCain-Palin, and Independents leaning towards McCain, but still not locked in, a group of about 2.9% of voters;

Democrats still uncomfortable with Obama-Biden (including the PUMAs), and Independents leaning towards Obama, but still not committed, a group of about 3.6% of voters; and

The pure Independants, who will not vote or who will go for a minor candidate unless McCain or Obama convinces them they deserve their vote, a group of about 8.0% of voters.

Palin spoke to the undecideds, while Biden spoke to his base. Guess which mission was more important to this election?




UPDATE – How the Math Was Done

Some folks are curious as to how I got my numbers for undecideds. I got them from the internal party affiliation results from the three major polls in the past month which have published them.

Gallup, CBS, and Fox News all publish the internal party-identified support in their internal data. When you take out the support for Obama, McCain, and ‘Other’, what’s left is your undecideds. When you consider that the poll starts with registered or ‘likely’ voters, that’s pretty significant. When you plug the undecideds back in for each group, multiplying by their proportion of the population, the result is that undecided sub-group’s portion of the total voting population. So, taking the numbers from each of the three polls, and averaging them together, I get the numbers I used for today’s article.

Now, I have to admit that the actual number could be a little higher or lower than I claimed, for three reasons. First, since the three polls differed in their numbers (though not greatly), averaging them may lessen the accuracy of the analysis. Of course, I have no way to say which of the three is the ‘most reliable’, so averaging them is the best course to acknowledging all of them to an equal degree. Second, folks who do not make up their mind by the election may just not vote at all. I do not think this is very likely, however, because at a minimum these are voters who have registered, and who show some interest in the election as evidenced by their participation in the poll. So I believe these people are valid respondents, representing an actual demographic whose importance to the election is growing as we move ahead. And third, while I do try to be objective in analysis, as a human being I impose some subjectivity into my opinions, even when I try to avoid it, and certain assumptions were made in developing the template. On the other hand, while we all have biases, awareness of such bias, open acknowledgement of the bias and attempts to test for and correct against material flaws in the work, and the evidence from past tests using similar assumptions lead me to believe that I have produced a valid model.

The Fourth Quarter

I generally don’t like sports analogies when discussing politics, because 1 – it’s more important than any game, and 2 – the analogy usually misses by a bit. But in this case, the analogy is close enough to be useful, and the point is important.

Back when I was younger, I was an official in several sports, including high school football here in Texas. Some games were tough, hard-fought matters, and when the last quarter started, both teams were tired and hurt. It came down in those contests, to who was willing to stick it out for twelve more minutes on the clock, maybe a couple or three dozen plays of bruising tackles, hard hits, and fighting your own body to go a little farther, carry the play through to the end, keeping up your block or running your route all the way through. Because you knew that the game was still anyone’s to have, even if you or they were ahead. Sometimes you could beat a big lead, if you were tough enough and refused to give up.

The media is completely in the tank for Obama, we know that. So it should not surprise anyone that the polls they publish all show him in the lead. Numbers can be fudged, and the polls have done that. The funny thing is, if we give up and don’t vote, if we sit on our butts and whine about the world and do not get our neighbors, friends and citizens motivated to support John McCain, then those weasels will have succeeded in getting us to quit and they will get the lopsided party turnout they are predicting. Make no mistake, though, if Obama wins it will be because too many good men did nothing.

I explained yesterday that when the polls are reweighted to historically valid norms, McCain leads Obama. It’s tight but very real, and if we just fight through to the end the way we have through August, then we will certainly win.

Want more? There’s a lot of folks still undecided out there. Taking the levels of support by party from four major polls which published their internals, here are the portions of undecided voters as of October 1:

GALLUP: 15.52% of voters are still undecided

CBS NEWS: 9.70% of voters are still undecided

FOX NEWS: 15.56% of voters are still undecided

Franklin & Marshall: 17.19% of voters are still undecided

When you add that information to the margin of error and correct for the historically invalid weighting the polls are using, it becomes absolutely clear that this race has a long way to go. Trusting the MSM is like believing what the other team’s cheerleaders tell you.

Gut it up, this one’s no where near over, we’re just starting the fourth quarter. Now is where we find out who’s got what it takes.

The Secret Poll, October 1 Edition

I have been working through the poll numbers for quite a while now, sorting out valid patterns from the fakes. I held off posting the true state of things for a long time, for a number of reasons, but I notice that some on the Right have begun to lose hope and make sounds of giving up. So I will tell you plainly, that

We Are Winning

and can only fall in this election if you give up. It's been a long road and the enemy has been his usual foul self, with lies and smears and everything we have learned to expect from people who put power above any moral or honorable precepts. It's close, but here's where we have been, and where we are:

August 31: McCain 41.77%, Obama 41.06%

September 7: McCain 42.45%, Obama 42.04%

September 14: McCain 45.71%, Obama 39.62%

September 21: McCain 44.48%, Obama 42.06%

September 28: McCain 42.73%, Obama 41.62%

And based on the demographic responses, once the undecideds shake out if we work as hard as we can and continue to keep faith, the final popular vote will be

McCain 51.59%

Obama 48.41%

Keys to remember:

This is not a football game or a baseball game, it's politics. Support is built up gradually and won bits at a time. Also, some of the best gains are not obvious at first, because some significant actions take time to develop. McCain and Obama both fell back a bit the last week of September, McCain because Republican support fell off a bit, Obama lost independents' support. This is a salient factor in where the candidates' opportunities and weaknesses lay.

State Polls and the Shadow States

Many readers have observed that the election of our next president will be decided not by a national popular vote, but by the states and the District of Columbia in the Electoral tally. The problem with the states as they relate to opinion polling, is that while the national polls have some points of concern, the state polls are relatively even less certain. The folks at Real Clear Politics show forty-nine different polling groups which have published results for states since the end of August, and few of these have publicly-released verification of their methodology, let alone access to their internal data. Caveat Emptor indeed , in these waters!

Even so, such information as has been presented can serve a purpose, to address curiosity if nothing else. I have reviewed and collated the information presented by RCP, and once again it is all here at the link if you want to do the same yourself. I would warn the reader that an average of polls is not statistically valid, but it does satisfy a certain curiosity. More, while there is a range of opinion among the pollsters, it is interesting to see how many polls were done for a given state. So, in the interest of public service, I am posting here a reference for the current polling average, along with the historical average since 1988, and the statistical trend for the state over the last 20 years. Please also note the columns for undecided, “Clear” and “Polls”, which will be explained below the report:

State (historical adv, trend adv) poll avg. (undecided) Clear? # polls
Alabama (h R+15, t R+32) 59.7-36.0 McCain (4.3 und) Clear, 3 polls
Alaska (h R+22, t R + 20) 57.7-35.0 McCain (7.3 und) Clear, 3 polls
Delaware (h D + 7, t D + 4) 43.3-56.0 Obama (0.7 und) Clear, 3 polls
Illinois (h D + 10, t D + 9) 37.7-55.0 Obama (7.3 und) Clear, 3 polls
Kentucky (h R + 8, t R + 21) 55.0-38.7 McCain (6.3 und) Clear, 3 polls


Michigan (h D + 4, t D + 2) 43.9-47.9 Obama (8.3 und) Unclear, 14 polls
Ohio (h R + 2, t R + 1) 46.4-45.4 Mccain (8.1 und) Unclear, 14 polls
Florida (h R + 5, t R + 9) 46.8-45.6 McCain (7.5 und) Unclear, 13 polls
Pennsylvania (h D + 6, t D + 2) 43.2-48.6 Obama (8.2 und) Unclear, 11 polls
Virginia (h R + 9, t R + 9) 47.0-46.7 McCain (6.3 und) Unclear, 10 polls
New Hampshire (h R + 3, t D + 2) 45.4-47.3 Obama (7.4 und) Unclear, 8 polls
New Jersey (h D + 6, t 0.0) 42.0-49.6 Obama (8.4 und) Unclear, 8 polls
Colorado (h R + 4, t R + 2) 45.1-48.9 Obama (6.0 und) Unclear, 7 poll
Indiana (h R + 14, t R + 21) 47.3-45.0 McCain (7.7 und) Unclear, 6 polls
Iowa (h D + 5, t R + 1) 41.8-51.0 Obama (7.2 und) Unclear, 6 polls
Minnesota (h D + 8, t D + 5) 44.5-48.8 Obama (6.7 und) Unclear, 6 polls
North Carolina (h R + 9, t R + 11) 49.3-45.2 McCain (5.5 und) Unclear, 6 polls
Oregon (h D + 5, t D + 7) 40.5-48.2 Obama (11.3 und) Unclear, 6 polls
Wisconsin (h D + 4, t D + 3) 44.2-47.8 Obama (8.0 und) Unclear, 6 polls
California (h D + 9, t D + 9) 39.4-51.8 Obama (8.8 und) Unclear, 5 polls
Georgia (h R + 10, t R + 17) 52.3-42.3 McCain (5.5 und) Unclear, 4 polls
Missouri (h R+ 2, t R + 9) 49.0-45.8 McCain (5.3 und) Unclear, 4 polls
Nevada (h R + 5, t R + 1) 46.3-46.3 tie (7.5 und) Unclear, 4 polls
New Mexico (h D + 2, t R + 1) 43.8-50.3 Obama (6.0 und) Unclear, 4 polls
Washington (h D + 8, t D + 9) 42.8-48.8 Obama (8.5 und) Unclear, 4 polls
Maine (h D + 8, t D + 18) 42.7-50.3 Obama (7.0 und) Unclear, 3 polls
New York (h D + 18, t D + 13) 40.3-52.7 Obama (7.0 und) Unclear, 3 polls
North Dakota (h R + 18, t R + 25) 49.3-41.3 McCain (9.3 und) Unclear, 3 polls
West Virginia (h D + 3, t R + 14) 48.0-42.3 McCain (9.7 und) Unclear, 3 polls
Connecticut (h D + 9, t D + 4) 39.5-53.5 Obama (7.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Idaho (h R + 27, t R + 35) 60.0-29.0 McCain (11.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Kansas (h R + 16, t R + 26) 55.5-39.5 McCain (5.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Montana (h R + 12, t R + 14) 53.0-41.0 McCain (6.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Oklahoma (h R + 15, t R + 35) 64.0-32.0 McCain (4.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Rhode Island (h D + 19, t D + 13) 34.5-54.5 Obama (11.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
South Carolina (h R + 12, t R + 17) 54.5-42.0 McCain (3.5 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Utah (h R + 32, t R + 46) 63.0-28.0 McCain (9.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Vermont (h D + 13, t D + 26) 36.0-57.5 Obama (6.5 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Wyoming ( h R + 25, t R + 36) 57.5-37.5 McCain (5.0 und) Unclear, 2 polls
Arizona (h R + 8, t R + 14) 59.0-38.0 McCain (3.0 und) Unclear, 1 poll
Hawaii (h D + 15, t D + 3) 27.0-68.0 Obama (5.0 und), Unclear, 1 poll
Louisiana (h R + 3, t R + 17) 55.0-40.0 McCain (5.0 und) Unclear, 1 poll
Maryland (h D + 11, t D + 10) 37.0-60.0 Obama (3.0 und) Unclear, 1 poll
Massachusetts (h D + 23, t D + 23) 39.0-55.0 Obama (6.0 und) Unclear, 1 poll
Mississippi (h R + 14, t R + 19) 55.0-37.0 McCain (8.0 und) Unclear, 1 poll
South Dakota (h R + 13, t R + 20) 54.0-37.0 McCain (9.0 und) Unclear, 1 poll
Tennessee (h R + 5, t R+ 19) 55.0-39.0 McCain (6.0 und) Unclear, 1 poll
Arkansas (h D + 1, t R + 11) no polls, Unclear
Nebraska (h R + 24, t R + 34) no polls, Unclear
Texas (h R + 13, t R + 22) no polls, Unclear
District of Columbia (h D + 75, t D + 82) no polls, Unclear

Only five states are statistically clear at this time. The reason is what I call ‘the shadow’. That is, given the number of people interviewed for each of these state polls, the statistical margin of error is about +/- 4.0 percent. That means that McCain or Obama could each be as much as 4.0 points higher or 4.0 points lower in support than the results of the poll indicate, assuming the poll is valid as defined by the NCPP. This creates an 8.0 point range of uncertainty. The 8 points for the margin of error, when added to the undecided portion of the vote, gives the range of shadow. If the leader does not have a lead greater than the range of shadow, the poll is unclear. Also, if there are fewer than three polls performed on a state, the stated results are inconclusive, which is why some states with large leads for one candidate are still statistically “unclear”.

This is what I mean by the state polls not being very helpful. And to make matters worse, this aggregation does not remove outliers, and of course when there are only two or three polls for a state, it’s impossible to know which numbers would be outliers for a state.

Is There a “Good” Poll?

Looking at Real Clear Politics this morning, I noticed that there is still a range of opinion about the presidential race. Obama supporters will be glad to hear that Rasmussen Tracking, Hotline/FD Tracking, and Gallup Tracking all say Obama is leading McCain by 5 points or more. McCain supporters can be consoled by the fact that Battleground Tracking says McCain is still leading by 2 points. Neither would be happy to hear that trusting the headlines from a “tracking” poll would be about as good an idea as eating a sandwich made in Galveston 17 days ago. The short version of tracking polls is that they are trendy ways for polling groups to get a headline and maybe some attention, but they are simply unproven as empirical analysis. Tracking polls are volatile, depend on rough methodology which tends to oversample some demographics in the interest of speed, and have never been peer-reviewed the way more traditional polling is done. These guys even get cute, and try to put these hash polls together to imitate a real effort to get a sense of the national opinion. And, as I have warned many times before, when a poll does not release its internal data to the public, and conceals any significant part of its methodology and weighting, you should treat the pollster like a Bear Stearns banker. Having said this so long, I hear a lot of people say that they will ignore all polls, while others want to know which poll I think is “best”. That, however, is not so easy to answer.

First off, almost all polls have some validity. With very few exceptions, I do believe that polling groups with more than four years of experience in the business will try to follow a standardized methodology, and I also believe that most polls make a determined effort to avoid bias as much as possible. When I say that a poll has bias, therefore, what I mean is that the poll may be accepted for its findings, provided the reader is aware of the poll’s history and tendencies. If the poll is consistent, you can compensate for bias and get a generally objective idea of the situation. What’s more, if a poll is consistent in its methodology and weightings, then movement by a candidate over time within the same poll can be considered valid to show growing or diminishing strength of support.

So, you don’t care about all the details, you just want to know who’s winning? Good luck with that, the national polls may not be much real help. That’s due to a number of things. First, you should know that the polls taken before the last week of the campaign have no statistical value in predicting the election winner. Also, as I said there is always bias present, so the fact that one poll or many says something does not make it necessarily so (just one reason that both Obama and Mccain have hired private firms to poll for them). And then there is a crucial fact to consider about the election; it’s not one race, actually, it’s fifty-one races to decide the matter. As Mister Gore realized a bit late in the 2000 election, it is the Electoral vote which determines the presidency.

So, as several people have asked, how do the state polls look? Well, that’s a tougher question. First off, you know how I am about transparency in poll internal data, but very few polls make that information public (and some, like Rasmussen, will provide it but only if you pay a fee, which goes against my principles – if you want the publicity of announcing your poll results to the media, you have the moral duty to provide all the supporting data). A significant exception is Survey USA, which is the best of the state polls in following clear NCPP rules. Also, I should warn the reader that in 2004, a lot of state polls were well off the mark. During the last month of the 2004 election, for example, I remember some polls which gave President Bush leads in Michigan and Oregon, and Kerry leads in West Virginia and Florida, none of which turned out to be correct in the actual election. State polls, it should be understood, are smaller budget than the national polls, and often have a much smaller base, which creates a much greater margin of error.

Con Poll Alert

First off, if you are reading this to get a review of what happened Friday night, you’re in the wrong place. I presume that everyone interested enough to read about the debate after the fact, will have had enough interest to watch the debate for themselves, or at least chase down the details from a few of the many places which did offer detailed accounts. Wizbang, for example, has five different threads about what was said, as well as the tone and pace of the event. What I am writing here is a heads-up on what to expect this week, or more accurately, what not to expect.

For me, the most significant observation during last night’s debate came when John McCain said ”I'm afraid Senator Obama does not understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy". Besides the obvious reference at the time to military operations, it was a significant observation as to how Barack Obama misunderstood the strategic purpose of the debate. Chew on that, and I will come back to it in a later piece.

During this week to come, there will be even more frothy expectation of glorious poll results by those addicted to bumper stickers and headlines for their news. But unless the pollsters twiddle with the party-affiliation numbers again, they will not be likely to change much. First off, that’s the historical model. By the way, the National Council on Public Polls says you should pretty much ignore those “instant polls” which come out right after a debate. Why? Here’s why:

“Keep in mind that the instant post-debate poll: (1) measures only top-of-head reaction to the debates, (2) does not measure the debate's effect on candidate preference, and (3) applies only to those viewers who were contacted and participated. Remember that who won the debate may have little or no influence on candidate preference.”


Bet no one at Fox, CBS, CNN, or any of the other stations and networks bothered to note that, but as I said in an earlier post, the media is in the business of selling a story, not giving you facts.

The Fox News/Opinion Dynamic Polls: Independence Days

A few readers asked me to look into the Fox News polls, since Fox is commonly thought to lean right (they do not, actually, they simply do not engage in the orgy of Obambast that is commonly seen at other networks), yet their most recent poll has Obama leading McCain by six points. So, I had a look-see into the FN/OD polls.

Before I go into that, I suggest the reader observe some of the other polls released this week. RealClearPolitics shows Obama up by 5 in Rasmussen, up by 6 in Fox, up by 7 in “Hotline/FD Tracking”, down by 2 in Battleground, and tied in Gallup.

So there is a fairly broad range of opinion reflected there, and as I have said before, you should never take the headline for the whole story. I also think it’s best to look at movement in support within the context of a single poll; this aggregation stuff is popular for the 3rd-grade intellects at CNN, but it’s simply not valid for any empirical analysis.

The “Fox News” poll is really a poll performed for Fox news by a company called Opinion Dynamics. Just something to remember, when considering the bias source and degree. Looking at the record, it turns out that there have been only four FN/OD polls which provide useful information for the Obama/McCain comparison; one released September 24, one released September 10, one released August 21, and one released July 24 (which included data from April 30 and June 19 polls).



Looking at these, I found the following lines of support, going from April 30 to June 19 to July 24 to August 21 to September 10 to September 24:

Obama, support from Democrats:
67%, 81%, 75%, 78%, 79%, 84%

Note the sharp jump in June, the fall-off and recovery and how it has steadily increased to its 84% high


Obama, support from Republicans:
13%, 11%, 5%, 8%, 5%, 6%

Note the steady drop of support, although it’s interesting to see a little recovery in the last poll. Too soon to say if that’s significant or an outlier.


Obama, support from Independents:
37%, 30%, 34%, 31%, 31%, 36%

This is the most interesting category, since we see Obama drop support from independents, then recover it, although again the recovery is so recent and singular that it could be an outlier rather than a new trend.


Now, with those in mind, look at FN/OD’s overall support for Obama, with weighting noted for each (Dem-Rep-Ind)

April 30: 43% (44-30-21)
June 19: 45% (42-35-16)
July 24: 41% (42-33-19)
August 21: 42% (42-35-20)
September 10: 42% (41-34-21)
September 24: 45% (41-34-21)

Note how Obama increased his overall numbers for June 19, even with the weighting going against him.

There are two significant demographic movements within the FN/OD poll; the sharp jump in democrat support after April, and the sharp improvement in support from independents in the last poll.

Now, look at McCain the same way:

McCain, support from Republicans:
81%, 81%, 86%, 82%, 88%, 86%

McCain has had pretty steady support from republicans, note though that he’s had trouble getting it to increase since July.


McCain, support from Democrats:
22%, 10%, 10%, 8%, 9%, 5%

Not surprising, but it looks like McCain lost a lot of the Hillary supporters about June.


McCain, support from independents:
47%, 38%, 32%, 30%, 46%, 31%

As the race became more partisan, McCain appears to have lost independents, but what was going on during the first week of September, when he gained 16% from the previous poll? If it’s not an outlier, the September 10 poll may show an opportunity for McCain.


Now, with those in mind, look at FN/OD’s overall support for McCain, with weighting noted for each (Dem-Rep-Ind)

April 30: 46% (44-30-21)
June 19: 41% (42-35-16)
July 24: 40% (42-33-19)
August 21: 39% (42-35-20)
September 10: 45% (41-34-21)
September 24: 39% (41-34-21)


There’s some interesting movement in the FN/OD poll. It includes what may be outliers, but could also be significant trend indicators. What else is interesting, is how unstable support from independents seems to be, a factor which could put a lot of states in play.

For comparison, I went back to recheck Gallup’s demographic group support, and while they posted only between August 24 and September 21, the five weeks cited showed the following supports from independents:

Barack Obama: 29%, 23%, 29%, 27%, 24%
John McCain: 31%, 29%, 28%, 32%, 38%

Those numbers do not shift much, and with one small exception they have all favored McCain. It is impossible on the available information to say whether the Gallup or FN/OD poll is more accurate in gauging the mood of independents, but from what I can see, it would appear that this year the independents are likely to decide a number of battleground states.

Finally, it is worth noting how much of FN/OD’s respondent pool remains undecided. For each poll, look at the portion of undecided voters:

UNDECIDED
April 30: D 11%, R 06%, I 16%, overall 11%
June 19: D 09%, R 08%, I 32%, overall 14%
July 24: D 15%, R 09%, I 34%, overall 19%
August 21: D 14%, R 10%, I 39%, overall 19%
September 10: D 12%, R 07%, I 23%, overall 13%
September 24: D 11%, R 08%, I 33%, overall 16%

There is a double-digit percentage of ‘undecideds’ reported not only overall for every poll, but for both democrats and independents. FN/OD reports that effectively one in three independents have not decided between Obama and McCain.

Protecting The Economy

The news has been scary lately. I worried about it for a while, but the grey cells kicked in after a bit and reminded me that the source of most of the noise was from people in the business of trying to scare folks. A lot of folks forget that whether it’s broadcast news, cable, or even an internet outlet, they are looking for ratings and the most popular way to do that is do a variation of Chicken Little. The media is – basically – dishonest in its priorities and focus, and always has been. This does not mean that you should not pay attention to the media, but you should keep in mind that they always have an ulterior motive, one which often skews how the present information.

So how big a deal is the present financial mess? Big enough that Democrats and Republicans are seriously talking about spending $700,000,000,000 of your money and mine to face it, with a minimum of narcissistic posturing. Big enough, that all the other markets in the world are affected by what happens here. Big enough that Barack Obama and John McCain actually say pretty much the same thing about what needs to be done. Big enough, that John McCain has suspended his campaign for a while to put his full attention on resolving the crisis. Big enough that even people with decades of experience in Economics are warning that we’d better be serious in how we fix this one.

Unfortunately, a lot of folks, some with advanced degrees, even including some who are in charge of fixing the mess, do not understand how we got here, and therefore they are pretty much clueless about what we do to straighten things out. Of course, I am no Nobel Prize-winner (in either the authentic or Goric sense), so my opinion is subject to a healthy skepticism as well, but I’d like to try to put this in some proper context. What has happened is essentially the combination of three significant causes, each of which would be serious on its own, but which together have caused a crisis of confidence in the United States economy.

The first point is the housing market correction. What basically happened there, was a series of goofs. First goof, the idea that everyone should be able to buy a house, regardless of whether they can pay for it or not. The plain fact is that some folks are lousy with budgeting their money, and some just do not have the fortunate situation that they can afford a big, new, expensive house. In years gone by, such people either saved up until they had enough, worked out how to pay for the house they wanted, or just made do on what they could afford, but about fifteen years ago, suddenly it’s “unfair” to pay attention to how much someone really makes, or even to pay too close attention to how they have handled their money and debts in the past. So, the rules got changed to make it easier for folks to buy a house, who have no business doing so, and to make it easier for folks to get a loan they cannot possibly pay off under ordinary conditions. The question of what would happen to the risk caused by such changes was frankly ignored; everyone just assumed someone else would take care of it. Look, I’m an accountant which means I know numbers but I’m not very tactful or diplomatic sometimes. The new laws were passed by politicians, who are very good at saying things in a way that most people like, but all too often they do not have a clue about the real financial effects of what they are doing. But of course we’re not done yet.
Making it possible for a lot more people to buy houses, meant of course that a lot more people did buy houses, and that old Supply and Demand law kicked in; more people to buy homes meant the price shot up, way way up in some places. That, of course, made it difficult for people with lower incomes to buy houses, including that group which should not have been buying them in the first place, since they could not afford the lower, original price. This time the mortgage people jumped in, offering all sorts of ways to deal with the payments, most notably the Adjustable Rate Mortgage (or ARM), the balloon-payment loan (where you pay a large amount later on the term), and the interest-only loan (where you can pay the principal amount at any time, even waiting until you sell your home). The problem with most of these devices, however, is that they were pretty much all built on the assumption that house prices would always keep rising, and rising faster than the inflation rate, something so absurd that one wonders how so many people bought into it. But of course, we are talking about salesmen and marketing people, whose role in life is so often to take care of their commissions, and let someone else clean up the messes they leave behind. As I said, I am an accountant, and I have a long and unpleasant history of conflicts with marketing people, who not only assume the best-case scenario is the one which will play out, they get angry and abusive if you even mention that there is a worst-case scenario which is bound to happen sooner or later. For years now, accountants have been warning folks that everything has to be paid for, that tricks with money do not change the way things work, that sooner or later the bill comes due, and we’d better be ready for that day.

That day is here.

One of the companies being bailed out is AIG, the giant insurance company. I noticed that earlier this year, AIG got into trouble for what are euphemistically called “irregularities” in accounting. Let’s be clear, irregularity in accounting is not like constipation irregularity, it’s like an irregular heartbeat, serious stuff. Basically, AIG started losing money and tried to hide it. Hide it, I note, without doing anything to find and address the cause. Freaking brilliant. And now the FBI and SEC are looking at more than two dozen companies for possible accounting fraud in connection with sub-prime mortgage lending.

So here’s the second point – John McCain was right when he said the economy’s fundamentals are sound. What happened was a mix of ignoring the accountants, trying to force feel-good policies onto banks without accepting that risk never goes away, and a roller-coaster media which feeds off fear and panic like the monster in Stephen King’s story, “It”. The accountants have been screaming warnings since before Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted (and I have a feeling that Sections 302 and 404 have not been properly enacted at many of these banks, which will trigger certain provisions of Section 1104), and the politicians have only lately begun to recognize that their ‘make everyone happy’ mortgage plan is somewhat less than ideal, but on the whole most businesses will survive the mess with little long-term damage.

So why do we need a bailout? Well, to start with the remedy is not really a “bailout” for most companies. The remedy is actually pretty simple, but it won’t be easy or pleasant:

[] The Housing market will continue to correct – the blunt truth is that houses are overvalued in some parts of the country, and some folks who cannot pay their mortgages will lose their homes to foreclosure. This is always painful, but in the overwhelming majority of foreclosures, the buyer was told about the risks and went ahead anyway. Where possible, loans will be reviewed and adjustments made, ideally to ordinary fixed-rate mortgages, but to do this there needs to be bank participation with willingness to accept reasonable risk. Congress, through Mr. Paulson’s office and requested authority, must decide which high-risk securities to take on itself.

[] The credit policies of banks and lenders must be internally examined for strength of infrastructure. At a minimum, this will cause a number of those companies to significantly delay or restate earnings, in order to clear bad debt. There must be protection against financial failure of the credit system, which includes not only the risks of bankruptcy and default of notes, but also protection of nominal credit access and liquidity instruments. The present fear has reached the point where even money market accounts have been impacted.

[] Despite the desire to look like Robin Hood, any money provisioned for this crisis must be applied to purchase of high-risk commodities and instruments (in a manner similar to the RTC actions of the 1980s), and to provide lines of credit for banks to use in making normal loans and conventional mortgages. The objective is to make money available in the short term which will be repaid as much as possible, not given away and never seen again.

[] Perhaps because it has come up so quickly and appears to be so serious, there has been remarkably and mercifully few attempts to play politics with the crisis. With that said, someone needs to sit the media down and teach them the fundamentals of economics, finance, and accounting. Education about the situation and the reasons for the actions taken would be helpful in preventing panic and advancing an effective resolution of the crisis. Katie Couric in particular should be prohibited from discussing the issue at all.

[] President Bush was correct last night, when he observed that if this deal is not approved there is a risk of panic about the economy as a whole. Public confidence is the most significant factor in addressing the mortgage lender situation. This is the time to restore calm, to work together to handle the issues, and to make clear that the resolution is being built. The answer is present, simple, and time-critical, and we must not waste time, energy, or focus.

UPDATE - I don't know if I believe everything it says, but THIS is a must-read.

Obama's Weight Problem

The ABC News/Washington Post released a poll today, which claims that Barack Obama is leading John McCain for President by 9 points. If that is so, just why is Obama so angry and short-tempered these days? A number of possibilities come to mind, but the most likely answer for me is that he knows those numbers are bunk. As Kim Priestap noted, the people running the poll weighted the responses by a 38-28 margin, with 29% listed as independent(question 901). But when they ask whether folks lean more towards the republican or democrat parties, it becomes a 54-38-07 weight (question 904). This is critical to the poll’s meaning, because the 52-43 Obama lead (Question 3) was extrapolated from the “net leaned vote”; in other words 54% of the response used was from democrats, versus 38% from republicans, and only 7% from independents.

The ABC/WP poll also did not break down support by party ideology, depriving the curious a simple way to see what folks really though within internal demographics. They also neglected to break down support by any other demographics, something which further degrades any claim to validity in the poll. I used the internal supports from the Gallup and Pew polls to reverse the calculations and found an interesting revision which shows what I consider a clearer picture, but for here I will just say that the ABC News/Washington Post poll shows what kind of problem Barack Obama really faces; the reality does not match the poll projections. Obama has a serious weight problem, and I don’t mean his cholesterol levels.

Every opinion poll taken this year has been weighted to show more democrats than republicans. There is some historical justification for that, but only to granting the democrats about 3 more percent of any respondent group. The weighting in polls produced by media sponsors, however, has at times been much heavier in democrat proportions, the ABC/WP poll being an egregious example. There is simply no rational basis for presuming that one party would be overwhelming in its representation. As an example, in 1984 Ronald Reagan absolutely crushed Walter Mondale, yet the republicans only represented 35% of the voters in that election. There have been minor fluctuations, but for more than three decades, party affiliation has been largely stable and predictable. There is simply no rational basis for claiming that either major party would have more than 39% of voters, or less than 32%.

Barack Obama is certainly capable of winning this election. He has a ton of money, the media is a team of Obama cheerleaders, and the public mood is desperate. But the polls released to the public do not reflect the actual level of Obama’s or McCain’s support, nor do they show an accurate pattern of support growth over time, or properly relay the time and source of momentum shifts and changes in support. When the polls are reverse-engineered and nominal weighting restored, it becomes clear that Barack Obama is depending on a three-tier plan for the election:

1. Barack Obama must collect at least 90% support from democrats nationwide; or
2. Democrats must make up at least 43% of the voters with present aligned support levels; or
3. Obama must collect at least 55% of independents’ support with present aligned support levels.

At this time, there is no evidence that any of the three conditions exist in fact. This is a serious problem for Obama with just the election a little over a month away.

For John McCain, the following conditions may result in victory, using the Obama plan as a template:

1. John McCain must collect at least 92% support from republicans nationwide; or
2. Republicans must make up at least 37% of the voters with present aligned support levels; or
3. McCain must collect at least 55% of independents’ support with present aligned support levels.

From the internal support reported by the polls, Barack Obama is presently 6 points below the 90% support level, while John McCain is presently 3 points below the 92% support level. Democrats historically represent 38-39% (4 below what Obama needs) of the voter pool, while republicans represent between 35-36% (1 below what McCain needs) of the voter pool. And depending on the poll, Obama enjoys between 42 and 48 percent support among independents (7 to 13 below his need), while McCain enjoys between 45 and 56 percent support among independents (he may need as much as 10 percent, or he may have what he needs right now).

There are several significant events between now and the election. The debates between Obama and McCain are yet to come, and the fallout from the financial crisis could well affect voter opinion. But right now, Obama has a weight problem, in that the election proportion of democrats in the actual election is not going to nearly match what the media is pretending it will be. While some believe the spin on these polls is meant to dismay McCain supporters and encourage Obama supporters, in the actual case this distortion could well come back and hurt Obama’s campaign.

There Is No Alternate Universe

People throw out a lot of strange ideas at times. Some of that is because people can believe some very silly things, and some of that I blame on television and comic books. But it really gets strange when we see fantasy and illusion play out in politics, in the guise of fact. CBS tried to smear President Bush with documents they admitted were fakes, the claimed inexperience of a Vice-Presidential candidate is loudly harangued, while the weaker resume of the other major party’s Presidential nominee is ignored, and biased opinion polls are touted as objective sources of news. Truly Alice-in-Wonderland stuff, except that this is the real world, and we dare not risk trusting the Mad Hatter.

Opinion polling is fun in many ways, useful in certain aspects, but in the end should not be trusted as a guide or counselor for course decisions any more than one might trust a Ouija board. The bias is often missed, even though it is obvious once you know where to look. I have shown before that every poll is biased to some degree, and I have repeatedly made clear what you should expect from a valid poll:

• public access to internal data
• a consistent, publicly reported methodology
• weighting according to Census norms or reasonable objective standard
• archive data available for comparison to current polls

Alas, there are areas where even the best of opinion polls cannot meet the standard of true objectivity. The most common stumbling block comes when a poll weights its political party affiliation. Polling groups understand that a truly random system of contacting poll respondents will produce results which are, to some degree, at odds with the true opinion of the public as a whole. To correct for this, respondents are asked certain questions to determine key demographic data, and their responses are categorized according to those demographic keys and the overall results weighted so that the response pool model is in line with demographic norms. The demographic standard used is almost always based on the most recent US Census data, for reasons that this data is considered the most unbiased and reliable demographic data available. So, Census data is used for gender, race, age, education, employment, and economic strata norm determination. This makes a lot of sense, and I applaud the pollsters for that standard and diligence in its application. The same polls who are so careful to avoid bias in most demographic norms, however, get completely squirrelly when it comes to party identification.

Political party identification is a stronger factor in candidate support than any other cited demographic category. It is no shock, after all, that democrats overwhelmingly support the democrats’ nominee, while republicans overwhelmingly support the republicans’ nominee. The problem comes in, when the poll weights the response pool to match a desired party identification standard. I noticed four years ago when I looked at the opinion polls, that the polling groups changed their party identification weights, some every week! When I contacted the polls about this practice, most just ignored me, but a few did respond. I found their explanations troublesome, however. Pew, Gallup, and Rasmussen, for example, choose their party weighting by examining the self-reported party affiliation of respondents from a prior period, usually a month (the ones who change each week generally use a rolling average of respondents from the period reviewed). Unfortunately, the reasoning behind such weighting is directly contrary to the whole purpose of weighting in the first place. To see what I mean, let’s apply that logic to other demographic groups.

South Texas was hit hard by Hurricane Ike, and it is very unlikely that any polling group had much success calling anyone down here in the past week; those who had phone service restored had a lot to do, and no time for answering polls. But even as phone and power service was restored, this was done according to critical needs (like hospitals) and a plan to get the most service restored to the most people as quickly as possible, which in practical terms means that urban areas and recent construction would get priority. This is because of the concentration of population, and the relative ease of repairing lines which would be less likely to have serious damage to the lines and transformers (older neighborhoods tend to have trees and other growth obstructing lines, so that in a major storm older neighborhoods are much more likely to have substantial damage to the transmission lines). Consequently, for the next month, an overwhelming majority of poll respondents in South and East Texas will be urban areas and new neighborhoods, which would heavily skew the demographics of the polling, if those respondents were considered “normal” for the area’s demographics. Or consider another example, where more mid-week polls are taken. People who work or who are taking care of children would be less likely to be available for polls, which would skew the apparent demographics towards the youngest and oldest voters, and those whose lifestyles matched the tactics used to reach respondents, like visiting malls or urban centers. Polling groups know these areas are heavily skewed in their demographic types, with heavy oversampling of certain groups, and so the weighting is adjusted to match Census norms, precisely because anything else would invalidate the poll results.

Those are just two obvious examples of why using poll results for one period to establish the demographic weights for another period would be clearly invalid; it’s simply circular reasoning and any errors (and there are always errors to some degree) would be greatly magnified rather than corrected. What’s worse, the only validity for any poll whatsoever is movement within a poll handled by consistent and transparent methods – if you shift party identification weights, you invalidate all conclusions. Anyone who has annoyed their lab professor understands that controls exist for a reason, and fiddling with the weights between polls is simply unscientific.

Some of the pollsters I have spoken with, argue that they shift their weights because no useful and objective source exists for party identification weighting. That, however, is not true. The exit polling from prior elections is a very valid source. It comes not from “adults”, “registered voters”, or even “likely voters”, but from people who actually voted. And what’s more, we can look at the last few elections to see if there is any substantive change. I looked at national elections for the past ten years, and discovered an interesting pattern:

In 2006, 38% of the voters were democrats, 36% were republicans, and 26% were independents;
In 2004, 37% were democrats, 37% were republicans, and 26% were independents;
In 2002, 39% were democrats, 38% were republicans, and 23% were independents;
In 2000, 39% were democrats, 35% were republicans, and 27% were independents; and
In 1998, 39% were democrats, 33% were republicans, and 28% were independents.

That sure looks like a consistent pattern to me. On average for the past ten years, democrats have averaged 38.4%, republicans 35.8%, and independents 26.0%. If we kick out top and bottom outliers, it becomes 38.7% democrats, 36.0% republicans, and 26.3% independents. Those numbers have a solid empirical history and a thoroughly objective source behind them, yet the polling groups do not use them. You might well wonder why.

Polling groups exist for one of three purposes. They either serve the needs of a client (private polling companies), they do academic research (which serves the faculty running the polls), or they are done for public release (including those by colleges like Marist and Quinnipiac). Each group has a very specific, and different, reason for existing. You may want to consider that both Barack Obama and John McCain have hired private polling firms, and consider why they each spend that money, as indeed every major political candidate does. And if political allegiance is so flighty, then why do so few of us know anyone who has supported one party, then another, in the same election? To read the reports from the polling groups, there are a lot of folks who loved Obama, then McCain, then Obama again, or vice versa, yet I have not met even one such person. Instead, I have seen democrats who stay democrats, I have seen republicans who remain republicans, and I have seen folks making up their mind as the campaign progresses. There are times where you might see a new jump in support, as previously undecided voters choose someone to support, but that happens for a reason – the “bounce” that supposedly comes just because a party has a convention, well, that’s pretty bogus if you think it through. The democrats may have been more excited about Obama after the democratic convention, but I do not believe for a minute that it made many new democrats. I am quite sure that the GOP convention excited republicans, but again I have to say I do not recall hearing about a bunch of new republicans after the convention. So, when the polls increase democrats’ weighting after the one convention and increase the republicans’ weighting after the other, it’s frankly dishonest because neither party saw much change in affiliation. What’s more, does anyone really think that there were fewer republicans after the DNC, or fewer democrats after the RNC?

Please.

Party affiliation is not some ephemeral quality, which winks in or out of existence because of a speech by one candidate, the headlines of a single day, or the personal desire of a polling group to have a hot story for the newspapers and TV stations. Party affiliation is something developed over a period of time, and while it does change over time, it does so gradually, taking into account the evidence of history as well as events of the moment. There were tens of millions of republicans after Bob Dole’s loss in 1996, just as there were tens of millions of democrats after Walter Mondale’s thrashing by Reagan in 1984. Support for a candidate is a thing apart from party identification. When it does change, it is spurred by a significant event of meaning with regard to the values and ideals of the party This is not merely a belief, but the evidence of American electoral history and the employment of common sense.

Errata

I made a mistake in yesterday’s post. Big enough that it needs its own post to address, but I also note that the critics themselves made a goof. What happened was, I took the most recent published overall results from Gallup, and applied them to the most recent party-specific results presented by Gallup, and walked each back by weeks to show the progression of results. Since the party-centric data was not aligned with the overall data, I did in fact submit an erroneous comparison. Here’s how that data should be presented (LD = liberal democrat, MD = moderate democrat, CD = conservative democrat, IN = independent, LMR = liberal/moderate republican, CR = conservative republican) :

BARACK OBAMA
August 10: 47% Overall, 91% LD, 79% MD, 67% CD, 22% IN, 19% LMR, 6% CR
August 17: 46% Overall, 88% LD, 78% MD, 68% CD, 24% IN, 16% LMR, 6% CR
(loss of 1% overall against gains in 2 categories, losses in 3 categories)
August 24: 45% Overall, 91% LD, 78% MD, 63% CD, 29% IN, 13% LMR, 5% CR
(loss of 1% overall against gains in 2 categories of 3% or more, losses in 3 categories, 2 of 3% or more)
August 31: 49% Overall, 93% LD, 81% MD, 77% CD, 23% IN, 14% LMR, 4% CR
(gain of 4% overall against gains in 4 categories, 2 of 3% or more, losses in 2 categories, 1 of 6% or more)
September 7: 44% Overall, 93% LD, 81% MD, 70% CD, 29% IN, 16% LMR, 3% CR
(loss of 5% overall against gains in 2 categories, 1 of 6% or more, losses in 2 categories, 1 of 7% or more)
September 14: 45% Overall, 93% LD, 81% MD, 66% CD, 27% IN, 10% LMR, 3% CR
(gain of 1% overall against gains in no categories, losses in 3 categories, 1 of 4% or more)

This is a milder shift, but as I said before, this still shows that the Gallup Organization shifted party affiliation weights on a regular basis, invalidating the statistical impetus of voter responses. The last week in particular, where Obama’s overall support is alleged to have increased when he stayed steady or lost ground in every category. Looking now to McCain:

JOHN McCAIN
August 10: 42% Overall, 5% LD, 13% MD, 20% CD, 33% IN, 70% LMR, 90% CR
August 17: 44% Overall, 6% LD, 14% MD, 23% CD, 34% IN, 75% LMR, 89% CR
(gain of 2% overall against gains in 6 categories, 2 by 3% or more, losses in 1 category)
August 24: 45% Overall, 6% LD, 13% MD, 26% CD, 31% IN, 77% LMR, 91% CR (gain of 1% overall against gains in 4 categories, 1 by 3% or more, losses in 2 categories, 1 by 3% or more)
August 31: 43% Overall, 4% LD, 11% MD, 15% CD, 29% IN, 78% LMR, 94% CR
(loss of 2% overall against gains in 2 categories, 1 by 3% or more, losses in 4 categories, 1 by 11% or more)
September 7: 49% Overall, 4% LD, 12% MD, 21% CD, 28% IN, 78% LMR, 94% CR
(gain of 6% overall against gains in 2 categories, 1 by 6% or more, losses in 1 category)
September 14: 47% Overall, 5% LD, 12% MD, 24% CD, 32% IN, 85% LMR, 95% CR
(loss of 2% overall against gains in 5 categories, 3 by 3% or more, losses in no categories)

Again, look closely at the last week, where McCain’s overall support is alleged to have decreased when he stayed steady or gained ground in every category. There’s no way an unbiased reader can call that a clean poll, with all due respect to Gallup. This was spin, and no question about it. The main point of my poll report remains correct, therefore, though I expect the trolls to whine all the same. It’s what they do.

(Overall support as reported by Gallup, at
http://www.gallup.com/poll/107674/Interactive-Graph-Follow-General-Election.aspx)

(Party-specific support as reported by Gallup, at
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108049/Candidate-Support-Political-Party-Ideology.aspx)

How Liberal Trolls Are Working To Get McCain Elected President

Ahhhhh Brian, you poor deluded troglodyte. I almost chose not to tell you, but it’s only fair you should know that you are working, very hard actually, to get John McCain elected President. For those who may have ‘troll-screen’ featured on their computer, it should understood that Brian is one of those malicious, venom-fueled malefactors who delight in attacking their betters. To be fair, there are Republican trolls as well as Democrat trolls, and Conservative trolls just as there are Liberal trolls, though it does seem to me that the Liberal variety breed a lot more, and that the Democrats like to encourage the vermin on their side, while Republicans would generally prefer a clean contest. Certainly in the present contest, McCain has tried to shut down the cheap shots from his side, while Obama seems to think his rats are just fine. That, folks, is a very stupid move by Obama, and I am frankly surprised that Senator Obama has not realized it yet. But of course, this is the Senator who thought his campaign based on “Change” would be best served by a VP nominee who is a Washington Insider working his fourth straight decade as an elite, self-serving mandarin. So, I suppose it should not shock me that a man who made so many promises to reach across the aisle and to eschew the dirty tricks and smear tactics of candidates from past elections, would in the actual case use the very tactics and slime that he pretended to hate.

Yesterday, some of my Left-leaning readers (or hecklers, to call things by proper names) remarked that my piece was nothing more than a Right-Winger making a noisy point that I supported the Republican. It’s true enough that I decided to vent a little bit, just call things as I saw them, kind of like a ‘sun comes up in the East’ kind of thing, saying ‘Obama is not what he said he’d be’, but as I pointed out, not one of the Leftists posted a rebuttal that proved me wrong on a single count. Either they were lazy, or I was right. It’s always fun to push buttons that will create predictable responses.

Anyway, back to the point. What I find so amusing about Brian and those like him, is that he will help get John McCain elected President. Explaining just why that is so will take a little bit, but please bear with me.

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:

Ahhhhh Brian, you poor deluded troglodyte. I almost chose not to tell you, but it's only fair you should know that you are working, very hard actually, to get John McCain elected President. For those who may have 'troll-screen' featured on their computer, it should be understood that Brian is one of those malicious, venom-fueled malefactors who delight in attacking their betters. To be fair, there are Republican trolls as well as Democrat trolls, and Conservative trolls just as there are Liberal trolls, though it does seem to me that the Liberal variety breed a lot more, and that the Democrats like to encourage the vermin on their side, while Republicans would generally prefer a clean contest. Certainly in the present contest, McCain has tried to shut down the cheap shots from his side, while Obama seems to think his rats are just fine. That, folks, is a very stupid move by Obama, and I am frankly surprised that Senator Obama has not realized it yet. But of course, this is the Senator who thought his campaign based on "Change" would be best served by a VP nominee who is a Washington Insider working his fourth straight decade as an elite, self-serving mandarin. So, I suppose it should not shock me that a man who made so many promises to reach across the aisle and to eschew the dirty tricks and smear tactics of candidates from past elections, would in the actual case use the very tactics and slime that he pretended to hate.

Yesterday, some of my Left-leaning readers (or hecklers, to call things by proper names) remarked that my piece was nothing more than a Right-Winger making a noisy point that I supported the Republican. It's true enough that I decided to vent a little bit, just call things as I saw them, kind of like a 'sun comes up in the East' kind of thing, saying 'Obama is not what he said he'd be', but as I pointed out, not one of the Leftists posted a rebuttal that proved me wrong on a single count. Either they were lazy, or I was right. It's always fun to push buttons that will create predictable responses.

Anyway, back to the point. What I find so amusing about Brian and those like him, is that he will help get John McCain elected President. Explaining just why that is so will take a little bit, but please bear with me.

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:

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.

McCain Is the Right Man, and the Right Choice

Barack Obama is no leader. When he first announced his candidacy for President, I admit that I was hopeful that he meant what he said, that his would be a candidacy which judged issues by the merits of their arguments, not the political posture behind them. But as I learned more about Barack Obama, I came to understand that he was just one more liar, another in a long line of con men who thought that integrity was not a virtue, but merely a shade of rhetorical inflection, that to him a ‘courageous’ man was not one who stood by his principles no matter the cost, but merely a man who timed his statements to gain political capital through ingenuous pretense. I became so disillusioned, that I stopped and wondered if I was being too harsh on the man, and missing his moral core. But for all the glamour to the man, I cannot find a single instance where Barack Obama accepted a difficult course and persevered against the weight of wrong-headed public opinion, where he ever bore injustice with dignity, or where he took on a difficult and thankless task because it needed to be done, with no personal reward or advantage made apparent. Barack Obama speaks with grace and eloquence, but only of himself.

The alternative, then, is John McCain. Ironically, at the same time that I was seriously considering the potential merit in the arguments of Senator Obama, I held those of Senator McCain in no small measure of contempt. I found McCain-Feingold an abominable law, his stance on Immigration wholly unsatisfactory, and even the man’s temperament got on my nerves. I found myself hoping for a new Reagan, but failing that, sure we could avoid handing the party nomination over to a man who was far to pally with the Democrats. As time passed, I gradually began to come around, however. It began, as it did for many Americans, with the indisputable heroism of McCain during Vietnam. Those on the Left mock the man for his rank at Annapolis, but they fail to understand that that place is where the man began, that his story grows a great deal from that place. John McCain endured five years of torment from truly evil people, his leadership in that place and time is proven by the accounts from his fellow prisoners, and his valor in refusing to leave ahead of fellow prisoners is undeniable. But that is not all there is to John McCain. As a Senator, McCain is the man most known in the Senate for working with anyone who would help to get the job done, where Obama pretends that he would consider crossing the aisle in partnership and goodwill, John McCain can point to more than many significant occasions where he has already done that. John McCain, in fact, has lived and worked by the very principles that his opponent says are most needed in the White House.

The evidence can be found in the campaign this year, as well. While the media pretends that McCain is running a negative campaign, it was McCain who ran an ad congratulating Obama’s historic nomination. When Palin’s nomination was announced, Obama at first could not rise to such a level of grace and dignity. And the events of recent days have shown that McCain anticipated the present financial crisis, even though he humbly says that he did not see it coming quite as it happened. Yet Obama not only cannot credit McCain for his attention to the problem ahead of anyone else, he lies about that and his own position on the issue in hopes of hiding his own inadequate preparation.

Americans are not often fooled, and never permanently. Between the two major candidates, one loves himself and thinks the office would serve his purposes well, but he has never sacrificed for his country, while the other clearly loves America and serves her interests ahead of many personal ambitions. One man desperately evades examination of his own opinion, while the other understands the need for a core integrity. The man who would be President thinks he can figure out the job once he gets into the office, while the man who will be President has the experience, judgment, and resolve to protect the country’s security, commonwealth, and future. John McCain is simply the right man to be President, because no one else at the top of the ticket available to voters in November is qualified or ready.