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.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Ike the Magnifier
Someone once said, (I forget who or I’d give them proper credit), that in a crisis a man is more of whatever he is made of. The coward and the leader each in his turn is clearly seen, and so too all promises are made sound or false as they are tested by the crucible of events. A hurricane is certainly such a crucible, and I have noted certain truths from the past week which might be of interest to the reader.
Here in the Houston-Galveston area, we saw all sorts of officials this past week. Most of them made no public statements, but simply did their jobs first to get folks ready for the storm, then to assist in the recovery. I have to put up a praise post later, to properly thank some of these largely unsung heroes (if ‘hero’ can be used to mean someone who saves you from a really bad situation, then we had a bunch of ‘em in our area this past week). We also had a bunch of ordinary folks, who banded together as neighbors, co-workers, and just plain folks who helped each other out where and when we could. We also had some noteworthy individuals, and it is that group I want to mention here, as representative of broader types in the public eye:
Mayor Bill White – I picked on Mayor Bill a bit for some of the goofy things he said after Ike hit, but a lot of that was stress and fatigue; the good mayor was present an about eight or nine press conferences a day to discuss recovery and supply efforts for hurricane victims. He screwed up, for example, when he told folks to check online or by phone for relief locations and times, forgetting that at that time only around 10% of the region had electricity and maybe 30% had some kind of phone service. But at the same time, Mayor White was answering a lot of questions and trying to give folks a way to get more information than they were getting from the harried and noisy conferences. While Bill White is a Democrat, I see him kind of the way I see George W Bush, a guy doing his job and basically getting it done, and he does not care who gets the credit.
Judge Ed Emmit – As I wrote before, this guy is a walking waste of taxpayer money. He spend time, more than once, trying to blame other agencies for one thing or another, and basically whining about how tough he has it. I mean, a total loser with nothing to contribute to helping folks find help. Platitudes, excuses and whining. Emmit reminds me a lot of Joe Biden.
Pastor and Narcissist Joel Osteen – Back when Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast in 2005, especially New Orleans, a lot of area churches jumped into action to help folks find relief, shelter, food, and eventually places to live and jobs in Houston. Lakewood Church, however, did none of those things. Well, they say they did help folks, although I could never find any record of them helping any of the evacuees or storm victims. While other churches like the Archdiocese of Galveston, Second Baptist, and Chapelwood United Methodist stepped up and helped out countless folks without once asking for any press or credit, well, Lakewood just did the same-o, same-o, talking big but doing squat. If they were helping folks, it’s sure strange I could never find any evidence of it. I mention that, because all this week I am hearing – once again – about supplies and help from churches like Windsor Village UMC, the archdiocese of Galveston again, Second Baptist again (Chapelwood wanted to help, but took wind and flood damage to the buildings, so they sent Stephen ministers and other volunteers over to Second Baptist and other UMC locations to help). But once again, nothing from Lakewood Church, where it’s all about the talk and not the walk. Ohhh, Lakewood has a link for Hurricane Ike on its website all right … but Osteen is not offering money from his church’s huge bank account. No, he is actually asking folks to contribute. That itself is not so bad, but check out where the money goes … “Joel Osteen Ministries”. Yep, the very same mail and wire address for his other money. Joel feels so bad about Ike that he wants you to make him richer. Every disaster has such vultures, who prey on honest people’s emotions and lie to line their own pockets. People like Osteen, no matter how eloquent and charming, are con men and hypocrites, and I do not have any intention of sugar-coating it.
Governor Rick Perry - I have to say that I have no great liking for Mister Perry, but on this occasion the man did things right. He got things moving, organized things and for the most part shut up and stayed out of the way while folks did their jobs. In this respect, I want to thank John McCain and Barack Obama for not coming into Texas and trying to turn the hurricane into a political football. Folks trying to keep their families safe and sound do not much like some politician coming in like he’s doing anything for them. Sometimes the smart political move is to sit down and shut up.
Here in the Houston-Galveston area, we saw all sorts of officials this past week. Most of them made no public statements, but simply did their jobs first to get folks ready for the storm, then to assist in the recovery. I have to put up a praise post later, to properly thank some of these largely unsung heroes (if ‘hero’ can be used to mean someone who saves you from a really bad situation, then we had a bunch of ‘em in our area this past week). We also had a bunch of ordinary folks, who banded together as neighbors, co-workers, and just plain folks who helped each other out where and when we could. We also had some noteworthy individuals, and it is that group I want to mention here, as representative of broader types in the public eye:
Mayor Bill White – I picked on Mayor Bill a bit for some of the goofy things he said after Ike hit, but a lot of that was stress and fatigue; the good mayor was present an about eight or nine press conferences a day to discuss recovery and supply efforts for hurricane victims. He screwed up, for example, when he told folks to check online or by phone for relief locations and times, forgetting that at that time only around 10% of the region had electricity and maybe 30% had some kind of phone service. But at the same time, Mayor White was answering a lot of questions and trying to give folks a way to get more information than they were getting from the harried and noisy conferences. While Bill White is a Democrat, I see him kind of the way I see George W Bush, a guy doing his job and basically getting it done, and he does not care who gets the credit.
Judge Ed Emmit – As I wrote before, this guy is a walking waste of taxpayer money. He spend time, more than once, trying to blame other agencies for one thing or another, and basically whining about how tough he has it. I mean, a total loser with nothing to contribute to helping folks find help. Platitudes, excuses and whining. Emmit reminds me a lot of Joe Biden.
Pastor and Narcissist Joel Osteen – Back when Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast in 2005, especially New Orleans, a lot of area churches jumped into action to help folks find relief, shelter, food, and eventually places to live and jobs in Houston. Lakewood Church, however, did none of those things. Well, they say they did help folks, although I could never find any record of them helping any of the evacuees or storm victims. While other churches like the Archdiocese of Galveston, Second Baptist, and Chapelwood United Methodist stepped up and helped out countless folks without once asking for any press or credit, well, Lakewood just did the same-o, same-o, talking big but doing squat. If they were helping folks, it’s sure strange I could never find any evidence of it. I mention that, because all this week I am hearing – once again – about supplies and help from churches like Windsor Village UMC, the archdiocese of Galveston again, Second Baptist again (Chapelwood wanted to help, but took wind and flood damage to the buildings, so they sent Stephen ministers and other volunteers over to Second Baptist and other UMC locations to help). But once again, nothing from Lakewood Church, where it’s all about the talk and not the walk. Ohhh, Lakewood has a link for Hurricane Ike on its website all right … but Osteen is not offering money from his church’s huge bank account. No, he is actually asking folks to contribute. That itself is not so bad, but check out where the money goes … “Joel Osteen Ministries”. Yep, the very same mail and wire address for his other money. Joel feels so bad about Ike that he wants you to make him richer. Every disaster has such vultures, who prey on honest people’s emotions and lie to line their own pockets. People like Osteen, no matter how eloquent and charming, are con men and hypocrites, and I do not have any intention of sugar-coating it.
Governor Rick Perry - I have to say that I have no great liking for Mister Perry, but on this occasion the man did things right. He got things moving, organized things and for the most part shut up and stayed out of the way while folks did their jobs. In this respect, I want to thank John McCain and Barack Obama for not coming into Texas and trying to turn the hurricane into a political football. Folks trying to keep their families safe and sound do not much like some politician coming in like he’s doing anything for them. Sometimes the smart political move is to sit down and shut up.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Beaten but not Down
The image at the top of the page today is a photo by Mark Wilson (Getty Images), taken Saturday afternoon. Ike did its worst, but we are still here.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Ike Ate My Homework, and Some of the Neighborhood ...
but on the whole, we are lucky. Got water back Sunday, and got power back today.
Early thoughts: Mayor White looks real tired, now I can see TV. That explains how dumb he's sounded since Saturday. Not to be mean, but he was better before the storm than after it.
Judge Emmitt is a git. He got defensive and wasted 20 minutes of a press conference last night shoving blame on everyone else for supplies running out and POD schedules not being released. Self-serving politician and just about useless.
FEMA is run by morons. The first deliveries came in Sunday, without announcement or schedule, they were disorderly and ran out before most folks found out about them. FEMA also thought the best way for victims to find out how to get what they needed was to GO ONLINE or CALL. A few problems there, Einstein, beginning with the fact that only 18% of Harris County and even less of Galveston County had any power or phone service at that time, and the ones lucky enough to have cell phones either could not get through because FEMA commandeered cell airwaves, or their cell batteries were dead. FEMA apparently only hires people who have NO direct experience in addressing a real disaster ... morons.
Lakewood Church is a fraud. While many area churches made sure to find their members in need and try to help, once again the richest church in Houston has focused its efforts on ... selling books and tapes!
Houston will be fine in a while, but it will take a while. Very few people died, I am very happy to say, and as usual individual business owners and community leaders (not organizers, thank you God for sparing us the tender attentions of Barack Obama) are doing the most to get things cleaned up and running again, but almost no street lights are working, there's a lot of debris from fences, signs, roofs and other materials in the roads. Just about 70% of Harris County still does not have power, which means no AC or phones or TV, and downtown took a lot of damage to building faces. My own company will be closed through Tuesday for sure, and we have to see after that. Just as well, because my daughter's school is closed all week and I do not think the daycare will be open. I just hope my mechanic opens up this week so I can get my car repaired before I go back to work, since there is no Park n Ride service right now (with no ETA) and I cannot drive my car far as it is, But I can't complain, the car, some windows and a few boards, no roof damage or structural damage at all, which is more than many others can say.
DJ
Early thoughts: Mayor White looks real tired, now I can see TV. That explains how dumb he's sounded since Saturday. Not to be mean, but he was better before the storm than after it.
Judge Emmitt is a git. He got defensive and wasted 20 minutes of a press conference last night shoving blame on everyone else for supplies running out and POD schedules not being released. Self-serving politician and just about useless.
FEMA is run by morons. The first deliveries came in Sunday, without announcement or schedule, they were disorderly and ran out before most folks found out about them. FEMA also thought the best way for victims to find out how to get what they needed was to GO ONLINE or CALL. A few problems there, Einstein, beginning with the fact that only 18% of Harris County and even less of Galveston County had any power or phone service at that time, and the ones lucky enough to have cell phones either could not get through because FEMA commandeered cell airwaves, or their cell batteries were dead. FEMA apparently only hires people who have NO direct experience in addressing a real disaster ... morons.
Lakewood Church is a fraud. While many area churches made sure to find their members in need and try to help, once again the richest church in Houston has focused its efforts on ... selling books and tapes!
Houston will be fine in a while, but it will take a while. Very few people died, I am very happy to say, and as usual individual business owners and community leaders (not organizers, thank you God for sparing us the tender attentions of Barack Obama) are doing the most to get things cleaned up and running again, but almost no street lights are working, there's a lot of debris from fences, signs, roofs and other materials in the roads. Just about 70% of Harris County still does not have power, which means no AC or phones or TV, and downtown took a lot of damage to building faces. My own company will be closed through Tuesday for sure, and we have to see after that. Just as well, because my daughter's school is closed all week and I do not think the daycare will be open. I just hope my mechanic opens up this week so I can get my car repaired before I go back to work, since there is no Park n Ride service right now (with no ETA) and I cannot drive my car far as it is, But I can't complain, the car, some windows and a few boards, no roof damage or structural damage at all, which is more than many others can say.
DJ
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Ike and the Weekend
Every now and then, Life likes to look at my carefully planned schedule, rip it into shreds and laugh in my face. But .. at least there are often exciting and interesting events when that happens. I had planned to continue my series of articles on polls, especially building towards a decent and reasonably readable guide on how to find a good one. But Life, well Life had other ideas. First of all, there’s my real world, where I have a ton of work and a couple courses as I work towards my MBA, and the professors and my boss would really appreciate it if I did what they tell me. Also, my wife and daughter have this funny idea that I should spend some time with my family. Come to that, so do my dogs. The dogs have a simple tool – if I ignore them, they dig up the internet cable.
And then there was Ike.
Look, I am not particularly afraid of a little wind, and a nice bit of rain would mean I did not have to spend that hour watering my lawn every day for a while. But … 20 foot tide swells and 120 mph winds, OK that means taping and boarding up the house, bringing in every loose object within a quarter-mile, and checking the list to make sure we have everything. Of course we don’t. There’s always something else you need, and so off we go to get ice, extra dog food, and more bottled water. Then we will check the list again, although most of the stores are closed tomorrow.
See you Monday, if the waters subside by then …
And then there was Ike.
Look, I am not particularly afraid of a little wind, and a nice bit of rain would mean I did not have to spend that hour watering my lawn every day for a while. But … 20 foot tide swells and 120 mph winds, OK that means taping and boarding up the house, bringing in every loose object within a quarter-mile, and checking the list to make sure we have everything. Of course we don’t. There’s always something else you need, and so off we go to get ice, extra dog food, and more bottled water. Then we will check the list again, although most of the stores are closed tomorrow.
See you Monday, if the waters subside by then …
On This Day
On this day then, evil came to America and murdered thousands of people, men and women, child and adult, soldier and civilian, Christian and Muslim and Atheist and Agnostic, in hopes of destroying Liberty.
On this day now, our soldiers fight to create Liberty in the very nations which spawned the evil which attacked us.
On this day then, thousands of our enemies cheered the death and pain brought about by villainy.
On this day now, millions of our new friends live in freedom and prosperity because of the efforts of Americans.
On this day then, monsters targeted people they knew to be innocent, in hopes of creating despair.
On this day now, our troops have destroyed many of the worst terrorists in the region, yet are careful to spare innocents, in hopes of fighting justly.
On this day then, the last long war America had fought was Vietnam.
On this day now, the world understands we can fight anyone, anywhere.
On this day then, the makers of terror believed they were immune from the consequences of their evil.
On this day now, we have obliterated the majority of Al Qaeda’s leadership, along with the network which coordinated plans and attacks for more than a dozen terrorist groups.
On this day then, some in America chose to side with the terrorists.
On this day now, sadly some in America still side with the terrorists.
On this day then, many in America supported the troops only in words.
On this day now, many in America support the troops only in words.
On this day then, the enemy thought to take over the world by chasing America out of where it wanted to go.
On this day now, the enemy hides in holes and lives in constant fear of discovery by our troops and the sure destruction our men bring to them.
On this day then, our enemy thought us weak and timid.
On this day now, we stand stronger than before, and surer of our precepts and prouder of our soldiers.
On this day now, more Americans than ever believe in our nation’s ideals, its value, and its promise.
On this day now, we remain resolved to destroy the tools and makers of terrorism, and to establish and protect Liberty throughout the world.
On this day now, our soldiers fight to create Liberty in the very nations which spawned the evil which attacked us.
On this day then, thousands of our enemies cheered the death and pain brought about by villainy.
On this day now, millions of our new friends live in freedom and prosperity because of the efforts of Americans.
On this day then, monsters targeted people they knew to be innocent, in hopes of creating despair.
On this day now, our troops have destroyed many of the worst terrorists in the region, yet are careful to spare innocents, in hopes of fighting justly.
On this day then, the last long war America had fought was Vietnam.
On this day now, the world understands we can fight anyone, anywhere.
On this day then, the makers of terror believed they were immune from the consequences of their evil.
On this day now, we have obliterated the majority of Al Qaeda’s leadership, along with the network which coordinated plans and attacks for more than a dozen terrorist groups.
On this day then, some in America chose to side with the terrorists.
On this day now, sadly some in America still side with the terrorists.
On this day then, many in America supported the troops only in words.
On this day now, many in America support the troops only in words.
On this day then, the enemy thought to take over the world by chasing America out of where it wanted to go.
On this day now, the enemy hides in holes and lives in constant fear of discovery by our troops and the sure destruction our men bring to them.
On this day then, our enemy thought us weak and timid.
On this day now, we stand stronger than before, and surer of our precepts and prouder of our soldiers.
On this day now, more Americans than ever believe in our nation’s ideals, its value, and its promise.
On this day now, we remain resolved to destroy the tools and makers of terrorism, and to establish and protect Liberty throughout the world.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Ken Obama
It occurred to me this morning, that Senator Barack Obama is a lot like the late Enron founder and CEO Ken Lay. Ken Lay, when you examine his life, was man who seemed to do everything right and best in everything he did. Lay went to the University of Missouri, where he was the president of the Zeta Phi chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Lay earned a PhD in Economics from the University of Houston, and went on to work at Exxon Mobil. Lay was enormously successful and in short order served as a federal energy regulator and became undersecretary for the Department of the Interior before joining Florida Gas. Lay was experienced and in perfect position to build his new company, originally named Houston Natural Gas but renamed Enron in 1985. Basically, for decades Ken Lay had the golden touch, never putting a foot wrong and succeeding at everything he did.
Until he finally found a situation out of his control. And rather than deal with Reality and accept the damage needed to survive, Lay instead drove the company into the ground all the harder. Lay never meant to hurt anyone, I do believe that. But he did hurt a lot of people, anyway, precisely because he could not deal with a situation out of his control. Lay had never accepted that he could lose at something, and when he was faced with that reality he started lying and cheating, anything to evade the scenario he could not control.
Barack Obama is turning out to be like that, himself. Obama has enjoyed a fortunate role in every major undertaking of his life. His education included the prestigious Punahou Academy, Occidental College in Los Angeles, then Columbia. Immediately upon graduation, Obama was mentored by major political figures in Chicago, and he joined the Trinity United Church of Christ, whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, became a defining influence for Obama by his own account (prior to his recent run for President). Obama then entered the Harvard Law School, and graduated magna cum laude. Obama was then hired by Miner, Barnhill, & Galland. Obama has been involved in politics since his community activist work in the 1980s, and his volunteer work for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for President. Overall, like Ken Lay before him, Barack Obama has worked hard and been tremendously successful at everything he tried, never tasting defeat at all. Obama’s meteoric political rise to the top of the Democratic Party ticket has been nothing short of Enron-like in its speed and scale, given his thin resume and lack of accomplishments. Just a few weeks ago, it seemed that nothing could stop Barack Obama from becoming the next President of the United States.
Enron, however, was never as solid as its image. Accountants inside the company warned of serious, fundamental, problems with the company’s structure and cash flow, warnings that were ignored or out and out quashed. So, when Enron finally came crashing to earth it did so with little hope of financial survivors; even half a decade later, forensic auditors have been largely disappointed in their efforts to find a functional sector or salvageable property or resource. It is now become apparent that the Obama campaign is similarly hollow and rotted-out. Initially, there were some questions about the details of Obama’s policies, and inconsistencies between what Obama had said in different places. Rather than clarify his position and expand on his plans, Obama became evasive, even dismissive. The problem was made worse when Hillary Clinton’s eighteen million supporters demanded he show public respect for her efforts and the historical significance of her campaign. Obama was so busy making sure he got props for his own campaign (which was not, by the way, the first, second, or even third time that a black candidate had run for President), that he spent no real effort at all praising the significance of a major female presidential candidate. Obama then ignored a promise he made to help Clinton clear up campaign debts, and refused to even extend the courtesy of vetting Clinton for the VP nominee short list.
Then McCain tapped Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and the cracks in Obama’s campaign became gaping holes. All those PUMAs Obama insulted and ignored began to rethink their support for the Democrat, and a bunch of women who thought this election had nothing of meaning for them decided that Sarah Palin made their support important.
The collective thought in Hopeychangeland?
“Ooops”.
Or various phrases with similar meanings.
You can learn some things about a person by their triumphs and victories. But you also learn about them, by how they address their mistakes, their setbacks, and their difficult times. John McCain screwed up his first marriage, he’s been very honest about that. But while he and Carol did not remarry, they did reconcile and she is very supportive of him. John McCain lost a bitter primary battle to George W. Bush in 2000. But he and President Bush worked out their differences and are solid allies who respect each other on many issues, even where they disagree. And John McCain spent over five years in a virtual hell, where he was physically and psychologically tortured, but during which time his fellow prisoners have said he was an outstanding leader and symbol of courage. That tells us some important things about John McCain.
Barack Obama has enjoyed many opportunities and advantages in his life, and there’s not a thing wrong in that. But we have not seen how he deals with his mistakes, how Barack Obama handles defeat, or how he faces serious adversity. But we can see what happened when a similar ‘golden boy’, Ken Lay, finally came face to face with something greater than his capabilities; Lay was just not up to the moral challenge.
The funny thing about Lay, is that he left Enron once, in pretty good shape. He came back to it when things were getting bad, and at that time he could have made a difference, when he actually could have saved the company and the investments of so many people.
But he could not handle a crisis of that type and scale, especially since it would have required him to admit that mistakes had been made, and that lies had been told. Instead, Ken Lay tried to cover them up and to protect his buddies. Ken Lay was inadequate to the task. His behavior over the past week indicates that Barack Obama is also inadequate for the role he desires to assume. When he found out that Sarah Palin had been nominated for Vice-President by the Republican Party, in spite of McCain’s congratulations the previous week Obama could not return the favor at first. Obama’s first impulse was to insult and attack, a practice he has repeated over and over again as he falls in the polls. Despite sending lawyers to Alaska to try to dig up something he could use to smear Palin, Obama’s campaign has only found lies and insults to use, and these only work against Obama. The promise of rising above petty bickering has been forgotten as Obama desperately seeks a way to slap down his opponent. Like a bad swimmer drowning in a riptide, Obama becomes more and more frantic in his behavior, first spewing puerile insults, then feigning innocence when called on it. He obsesses with his inability to counter the opposing party’s Vice-presidential nominee to such a degree that he completely ignores the issues and debates between himself and the GOP’s top-ticket nominee. The Democrats can do little more than stand by and watch in despair as their self-anointed Messiah proves no more than just another charlatan. When the test came, for all his expensive suits and crafted speech, Barack Obama was simply unready and ill-suited.
Until he finally found a situation out of his control. And rather than deal with Reality and accept the damage needed to survive, Lay instead drove the company into the ground all the harder. Lay never meant to hurt anyone, I do believe that. But he did hurt a lot of people, anyway, precisely because he could not deal with a situation out of his control. Lay had never accepted that he could lose at something, and when he was faced with that reality he started lying and cheating, anything to evade the scenario he could not control.
Barack Obama is turning out to be like that, himself. Obama has enjoyed a fortunate role in every major undertaking of his life. His education included the prestigious Punahou Academy, Occidental College in Los Angeles, then Columbia. Immediately upon graduation, Obama was mentored by major political figures in Chicago, and he joined the Trinity United Church of Christ, whose pastor, Jeremiah Wright, became a defining influence for Obama by his own account (prior to his recent run for President). Obama then entered the Harvard Law School, and graduated magna cum laude. Obama was then hired by Miner, Barnhill, & Galland. Obama has been involved in politics since his community activist work in the 1980s, and his volunteer work for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for President. Overall, like Ken Lay before him, Barack Obama has worked hard and been tremendously successful at everything he tried, never tasting defeat at all. Obama’s meteoric political rise to the top of the Democratic Party ticket has been nothing short of Enron-like in its speed and scale, given his thin resume and lack of accomplishments. Just a few weeks ago, it seemed that nothing could stop Barack Obama from becoming the next President of the United States.
Enron, however, was never as solid as its image. Accountants inside the company warned of serious, fundamental, problems with the company’s structure and cash flow, warnings that were ignored or out and out quashed. So, when Enron finally came crashing to earth it did so with little hope of financial survivors; even half a decade later, forensic auditors have been largely disappointed in their efforts to find a functional sector or salvageable property or resource. It is now become apparent that the Obama campaign is similarly hollow and rotted-out. Initially, there were some questions about the details of Obama’s policies, and inconsistencies between what Obama had said in different places. Rather than clarify his position and expand on his plans, Obama became evasive, even dismissive. The problem was made worse when Hillary Clinton’s eighteen million supporters demanded he show public respect for her efforts and the historical significance of her campaign. Obama was so busy making sure he got props for his own campaign (which was not, by the way, the first, second, or even third time that a black candidate had run for President), that he spent no real effort at all praising the significance of a major female presidential candidate. Obama then ignored a promise he made to help Clinton clear up campaign debts, and refused to even extend the courtesy of vetting Clinton for the VP nominee short list.
Then McCain tapped Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and the cracks in Obama’s campaign became gaping holes. All those PUMAs Obama insulted and ignored began to rethink their support for the Democrat, and a bunch of women who thought this election had nothing of meaning for them decided that Sarah Palin made their support important.
The collective thought in Hopeychangeland?
“Ooops”.
Or various phrases with similar meanings.
You can learn some things about a person by their triumphs and victories. But you also learn about them, by how they address their mistakes, their setbacks, and their difficult times. John McCain screwed up his first marriage, he’s been very honest about that. But while he and Carol did not remarry, they did reconcile and she is very supportive of him. John McCain lost a bitter primary battle to George W. Bush in 2000. But he and President Bush worked out their differences and are solid allies who respect each other on many issues, even where they disagree. And John McCain spent over five years in a virtual hell, where he was physically and psychologically tortured, but during which time his fellow prisoners have said he was an outstanding leader and symbol of courage. That tells us some important things about John McCain.
Barack Obama has enjoyed many opportunities and advantages in his life, and there’s not a thing wrong in that. But we have not seen how he deals with his mistakes, how Barack Obama handles defeat, or how he faces serious adversity. But we can see what happened when a similar ‘golden boy’, Ken Lay, finally came face to face with something greater than his capabilities; Lay was just not up to the moral challenge.
The funny thing about Lay, is that he left Enron once, in pretty good shape. He came back to it when things were getting bad, and at that time he could have made a difference, when he actually could have saved the company and the investments of so many people.
But he could not handle a crisis of that type and scale, especially since it would have required him to admit that mistakes had been made, and that lies had been told. Instead, Ken Lay tried to cover them up and to protect his buddies. Ken Lay was inadequate to the task. His behavior over the past week indicates that Barack Obama is also inadequate for the role he desires to assume. When he found out that Sarah Palin had been nominated for Vice-President by the Republican Party, in spite of McCain’s congratulations the previous week Obama could not return the favor at first. Obama’s first impulse was to insult and attack, a practice he has repeated over and over again as he falls in the polls. Despite sending lawyers to Alaska to try to dig up something he could use to smear Palin, Obama’s campaign has only found lies and insults to use, and these only work against Obama. The promise of rising above petty bickering has been forgotten as Obama desperately seeks a way to slap down his opponent. Like a bad swimmer drowning in a riptide, Obama becomes more and more frantic in his behavior, first spewing puerile insults, then feigning innocence when called on it. He obsesses with his inability to counter the opposing party’s Vice-presidential nominee to such a degree that he completely ignores the issues and debates between himself and the GOP’s top-ticket nominee. The Democrats can do little more than stand by and watch in despair as their self-anointed Messiah proves no more than just another charlatan. When the test came, for all his expensive suits and crafted speech, Barack Obama was simply unready and ill-suited.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
A Poor Attempt at a Poll
The Obama people, I am told, have been much encouraged by the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, pretty much because it is the only major poll right now which shows Barack Obama with the lead.
A one point lead.
With seven percent undecided.
And with an admitted margin of error between 4.7 and 5.0 percent on the major questions.
Further on, the polling group, Hart/Newhouse, tries to claim that the overall margin of error is +/- 3.3%, but the fact is a poll is only as reliable as its largest margin of error. One is left to consider whether Hart/Newhouse does not understand the significance of the math involved, or whether they simply wish to look better than they have done in preparing the poll. At best, they are being sloppy.
That sloppiness continues in the fact that there is no statement of methodology, nor are any of the internal demographics provided, much less the weighting. In terms of credibility, this is a poor effort.
Before looking further, I should note as well that if one visits NBC’s site (as I did to try to find the internals for the poll), the page for “Decision 08” includes a photo of Sarah Palin and the caption ”How many controversies can Sarah Palin’s candidacy survive?”. That, folks, is prima facia evidence that NBC (like MSNBC) is in the tank for Obama. This conclusion is supported by statements from the poll release, like this one from the third paragraph in the spin piece by Mark Murray; “The findings from this survey … are consistent with other recent national polls showing the race to essentially be tied after the conventions and vice presidential selections.”
I have no doubt that Mister Murray would like the race to be tied in all the major polls. But he’s wrong. ABC News and the Washington Post admit McCain is up by 2 points, which is also what CBS News is saying, and Gallup’s Daily Tracking has McCain up by 5 and says he’s been up that much for four days straight. In fact, USA Today and Gallup’s regular poll says that among likely voters, McCain is up by 10 points.
What’s significant about these polls is that all of them show McCain’s campaign as much stronger than before, while Obama has lost some ground. NBC/WSJ has not released a lot of head-to-head polls between Obama and McCain, but in general they have shown support as high as most polls for Obama, while generally suppressing McCain’s numbers relative to other polls. Consequently, if the NBC poll is admitting that McCain is within striking distance, they have admitted that McCain has gained strength compared to their own previous numbers. No NBC poll this year has shown McCain within 1 point of Obama before.
So, in summary, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll should be noted in these respects:
[] They have been consistently anti-McCain relative to other polls released at the same time
[] They have refused to release their internal data and weighting
[] They have made statements in their poll release which are factually incorrect, exhibiting either poor fact-checking or deliberate deceit.
And yet, the Obama campaign can find no better hope for its hype. That is significant, itself.
A one point lead.
With seven percent undecided.
And with an admitted margin of error between 4.7 and 5.0 percent on the major questions.
Further on, the polling group, Hart/Newhouse, tries to claim that the overall margin of error is +/- 3.3%, but the fact is a poll is only as reliable as its largest margin of error. One is left to consider whether Hart/Newhouse does not understand the significance of the math involved, or whether they simply wish to look better than they have done in preparing the poll. At best, they are being sloppy.
That sloppiness continues in the fact that there is no statement of methodology, nor are any of the internal demographics provided, much less the weighting. In terms of credibility, this is a poor effort.
Before looking further, I should note as well that if one visits NBC’s site (as I did to try to find the internals for the poll), the page for “Decision 08” includes a photo of Sarah Palin and the caption ”How many controversies can Sarah Palin’s candidacy survive?”. That, folks, is prima facia evidence that NBC (like MSNBC) is in the tank for Obama. This conclusion is supported by statements from the poll release, like this one from the third paragraph in the spin piece by Mark Murray; “The findings from this survey … are consistent with other recent national polls showing the race to essentially be tied after the conventions and vice presidential selections.”
I have no doubt that Mister Murray would like the race to be tied in all the major polls. But he’s wrong. ABC News and the Washington Post admit McCain is up by 2 points, which is also what CBS News is saying, and Gallup’s Daily Tracking has McCain up by 5 and says he’s been up that much for four days straight. In fact, USA Today and Gallup’s regular poll says that among likely voters, McCain is up by 10 points.
What’s significant about these polls is that all of them show McCain’s campaign as much stronger than before, while Obama has lost some ground. NBC/WSJ has not released a lot of head-to-head polls between Obama and McCain, but in general they have shown support as high as most polls for Obama, while generally suppressing McCain’s numbers relative to other polls. Consequently, if the NBC poll is admitting that McCain is within striking distance, they have admitted that McCain has gained strength compared to their own previous numbers. No NBC poll this year has shown McCain within 1 point of Obama before.
So, in summary, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll should be noted in these respects:
[] They have been consistently anti-McCain relative to other polls released at the same time
[] They have refused to release their internal data and weighting
[] They have made statements in their poll release which are factually incorrect, exhibiting either poor fact-checking or deliberate deceit.
And yet, the Obama campaign can find no better hope for its hype. That is significant, itself.
Monday, September 08, 2008
The Weight Room
I wondered about the way the polls came out in the past week. Maybe I’m just a suspicious type, but from what I could tell, a lot of voters had made up their minds before the conventions, and while I think Sarah Palin is going to make a big difference in the election, I did not expect a lot of voters to come over right away; I figure they want to find out more, first. The reason I say this, is that I found it strange to see poll numbers change so quickly. At least part of the answer, I found, was that the results were spun by fooling around with the weighting.
I visited Real Clear Politics, where I noted the new polls. Looking through them, I found two which provided the details on their party affiliation weighting; ABC News/Washington Post, and CBS News. Here’s how they cast the last two poll results:
ABC News/Washington Post
Sept. 7 (RV)____________Aug. 21 (RV)
McCain : 46%____________43%
Obama : 47%_____________49%
Republicans: 28%________26%
Democrats: 36%__________36%
Independents: 32%_______33%
I ignored “likely voter” results, because CBS News only tracked registered voters, and I wanted as much apples-to-apples as possible.
Demographics from washingtonpost.com (registration required)
CBS News
Sept. 7 (RV)____________Aug. 19 (RV)
McCain: 46%_____________42%
Obama: 44%______________45%
Republicans: 30.6%______28.8%
Democrats: 36.8%________36.3%
Independents: 32.5%_____35.0%
Both polls increased the weight of Republicans in the new poll. Should it surprise anyone then, that McCain’s numbers improved?
Let’s play a little game to show how this works. Working back the numbers, it appears that the following matrices of support can be shown using the data provided:
ABC News/Washington Post
August 21 (26% Rep, 36% Dem, 33% Ind)
Republicans: 7% Obama, 88% McCain
Democrats: 87% Obama, 8% McCain
Independents: 49% Obama, 51% McCain
TALLY – 49.31% Obama, 42.59% McCain
September 7 (28% Rep, 36% Dem, 32% Ind)
Republicans: 5% Obama, 92% McCain
Democrats: 87% Obama, 8% McCain
Independents: 46% Obama, 53% McCain
TALLY – 47.44% Obama, 45.60% McCain
CBS News
August 19 (28.8% Rep, 36.3% Dem, 35.0% Ind)
Republicans: 3% Obama, 87% McCain
Democrats: 84% Obama, 4% McCain
Independents: 40% Obama, 45% McCain
TALLY – 45.356% Obama, 42.258% McCain
September 7(30.6% Rep, 36.8% Dem, 32.5% Ind)
Republicans: 3% Obama, 93% McCain
Democrats: 84% Obama, 4% McCain
Independents: 38% Obama, 49% McCain
TALLY – 44.180% Obama, 45.855% McCain
I would point out that I am not making those numbers up – they come from actual poll internals I have been reading, and for this exercise you can see that if you plug them into the weights, you get the results published, more or less. Now, let’s take the average weighting of the four weights used, and apply it consistently, and then let’s see what happens to the published results:
[averaged weighting 28.35% Rep, 36.0275% Dem, 33.125% Ind]
ABC News/Washington Post
August 21, 49-43 Obama becomes 50-45 Obama
September 7, 47-46 Obama becomes 48-47 Obama
CBS News
August 19, 45-42 Obama becomes 44-41 Obama
September 7, 46-44 McCain becomes 44-44 tie.
This is not to say that these ‘revised’ numbers reflect a more accurate picture of voter support, but it does show that changing the party affiliation weighting can have a significant effect on the published results, especially in the headline which is all that most people read.
The problem with the weighting used in these and other polls, is that there is no science behind the weighting assigned to party identification. ABC/WaPo and CBS are just using whatever affiliation weighting they want to use, on no basis other than they chose to plug in that number. That’s fine for fooling around with the settings on a video game when you just want to have some fun, but it is hardly credible for a - purportedly - professional group to do this sort of thing. This kind of squirrelling around with internal controls on a poll is one reason, I think, why polls are so fragmented. I mean, Gallup does its own polls but also teamed up with USA Today. CBS News hires an agency for its own polls, but cooperates with the New York Times for a different poll. Disagreement on key demographic questions would explain that behavior, I think. I had a nice private discussion with one of Gallup’s executives back in 2004, and he agreed that the party identification problem is one of the big three for polling groups, largely because there is no consensus on what weighting should be used. Call me silly, but the best metric I have found to use, is the actual voter preferences from national elections.
In 2006, the National Exit Poll showed that 38% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 36% considered themselves Republicans, and 26% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 2004, the National Exit Poll showed that 37% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 37% considered themselves Republicans, and 26% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 2002, the National Exit Poll showed that 39% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 38% considered themselves Republicans, and 23% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 2000, the National Exit Poll showed that 39% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 35% considered themselves Republicans, and 27% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 1998, the National Exit Poll showed that 39% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 33% considered themselves Republicans, and 28% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
Those numbers look rather consistent to me, suggesting we could take an average of the last ten years of elections and get a practical idea of what to expect. Here’s how that shaped up:
Democrats: From 37 to 39 percent, average over the last ten years is 38.4%
Republicans: From 35 to 38 percent, average over the last ten years is 35.8%
Independents: From 23 to 28 percent, average over the last ten years is 26.0%
These numbers come from actual election exit polls from verified voters, and they demonstrate consistency over a decade of choice. They demonstrate that change does occur, but in small amounts and over time. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans should fear becoming a weak party anytime soon, nor should they fool themselves into thinking that their opponents are about to become irrelevant.
I cannot resist, however, applying these standardized party affiliations from known elections to the ABC/WaPo and CBS polls. Here’s how that worked out:
ABC News/Washington Post
August 21: 49-43 Obama original report. Historical weights indicate 49-48 Obama.
September 7: 47-46 Obama original report. Historical weights indicate 50-47 McCain .
CBS News
August 19: 45-42 Obama original report. Historical weights indicate 44-44 tie.
September 7: 46-44 McCain original report. Historical weights indicate 48-43 McCain.
I’m not saying you should count on those numbers, but I do think there’s better evidence for them.
I visited Real Clear Politics, where I noted the new polls. Looking through them, I found two which provided the details on their party affiliation weighting; ABC News/Washington Post, and CBS News. Here’s how they cast the last two poll results:
ABC News/Washington Post
Sept. 7 (RV)____________Aug. 21 (RV)
McCain : 46%____________43%
Obama : 47%_____________49%
Republicans: 28%________26%
Democrats: 36%__________36%
Independents: 32%_______33%
I ignored “likely voter” results, because CBS News only tracked registered voters, and I wanted as much apples-to-apples as possible.
Demographics from washingtonpost.com (registration required)
CBS News
Sept. 7 (RV)____________Aug. 19 (RV)
McCain: 46%_____________42%
Obama: 44%______________45%
Republicans: 30.6%______28.8%
Democrats: 36.8%________36.3%
Independents: 32.5%_____35.0%
Both polls increased the weight of Republicans in the new poll. Should it surprise anyone then, that McCain’s numbers improved?
Let’s play a little game to show how this works. Working back the numbers, it appears that the following matrices of support can be shown using the data provided:
ABC News/Washington Post
August 21 (26% Rep, 36% Dem, 33% Ind)
Republicans: 7% Obama, 88% McCain
Democrats: 87% Obama, 8% McCain
Independents: 49% Obama, 51% McCain
TALLY – 49.31% Obama, 42.59% McCain
September 7 (28% Rep, 36% Dem, 32% Ind)
Republicans: 5% Obama, 92% McCain
Democrats: 87% Obama, 8% McCain
Independents: 46% Obama, 53% McCain
TALLY – 47.44% Obama, 45.60% McCain
CBS News
August 19 (28.8% Rep, 36.3% Dem, 35.0% Ind)
Republicans: 3% Obama, 87% McCain
Democrats: 84% Obama, 4% McCain
Independents: 40% Obama, 45% McCain
TALLY – 45.356% Obama, 42.258% McCain
September 7(30.6% Rep, 36.8% Dem, 32.5% Ind)
Republicans: 3% Obama, 93% McCain
Democrats: 84% Obama, 4% McCain
Independents: 38% Obama, 49% McCain
TALLY – 44.180% Obama, 45.855% McCain
I would point out that I am not making those numbers up – they come from actual poll internals I have been reading, and for this exercise you can see that if you plug them into the weights, you get the results published, more or less. Now, let’s take the average weighting of the four weights used, and apply it consistently, and then let’s see what happens to the published results:
[averaged weighting 28.35% Rep, 36.0275% Dem, 33.125% Ind]
ABC News/Washington Post
August 21, 49-43 Obama becomes 50-45 Obama
September 7, 47-46 Obama becomes 48-47 Obama
CBS News
August 19, 45-42 Obama becomes 44-41 Obama
September 7, 46-44 McCain becomes 44-44 tie.
This is not to say that these ‘revised’ numbers reflect a more accurate picture of voter support, but it does show that changing the party affiliation weighting can have a significant effect on the published results, especially in the headline which is all that most people read.
The problem with the weighting used in these and other polls, is that there is no science behind the weighting assigned to party identification. ABC/WaPo and CBS are just using whatever affiliation weighting they want to use, on no basis other than they chose to plug in that number. That’s fine for fooling around with the settings on a video game when you just want to have some fun, but it is hardly credible for a - purportedly - professional group to do this sort of thing. This kind of squirrelling around with internal controls on a poll is one reason, I think, why polls are so fragmented. I mean, Gallup does its own polls but also teamed up with USA Today. CBS News hires an agency for its own polls, but cooperates with the New York Times for a different poll. Disagreement on key demographic questions would explain that behavior, I think. I had a nice private discussion with one of Gallup’s executives back in 2004, and he agreed that the party identification problem is one of the big three for polling groups, largely because there is no consensus on what weighting should be used. Call me silly, but the best metric I have found to use, is the actual voter preferences from national elections.
In 2006, the National Exit Poll showed that 38% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 36% considered themselves Republicans, and 26% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 2004, the National Exit Poll showed that 37% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 37% considered themselves Republicans, and 26% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 2002, the National Exit Poll showed that 39% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 38% considered themselves Republicans, and 23% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 2000, the National Exit Poll showed that 39% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 35% considered themselves Republicans, and 27% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
In 1998, the National Exit Poll showed that 39% of voters considered themselves Democrats, 33% considered themselves Republicans, and 28% considered themselves Independent or supporting another party.
Those numbers look rather consistent to me, suggesting we could take an average of the last ten years of elections and get a practical idea of what to expect. Here’s how that shaped up:
Democrats: From 37 to 39 percent, average over the last ten years is 38.4%
Republicans: From 35 to 38 percent, average over the last ten years is 35.8%
Independents: From 23 to 28 percent, average over the last ten years is 26.0%
These numbers come from actual election exit polls from verified voters, and they demonstrate consistency over a decade of choice. They demonstrate that change does occur, but in small amounts and over time. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans should fear becoming a weak party anytime soon, nor should they fool themselves into thinking that their opponents are about to become irrelevant.
I cannot resist, however, applying these standardized party affiliations from known elections to the ABC/WaPo and CBS polls. Here’s how that worked out:
ABC News/Washington Post
August 21: 49-43 Obama original report. Historical weights indicate 49-48 Obama.
September 7: 47-46 Obama original report. Historical weights indicate 50-47 McCain .
CBS News
August 19: 45-42 Obama original report. Historical weights indicate 44-44 tie.
September 7: 46-44 McCain original report. Historical weights indicate 48-43 McCain.
I’m not saying you should count on those numbers, but I do think there’s better evidence for them.
The History of Bounce
Once again, I went trekking to one of my favorite archives, the records at Gallup for poll results during Presidential elections. There were no pre-convention poll results available for 1936 and 1940, so I had to begin with 1944. But there are some interesting numbers to look at, in terms of what value a post-convention “bounce” has for a candidate. The polls are for pre-both conventions, and after both conventions.
1944: Pre-conventions FDR 47, Dewey 45
Post-conventions FDR 47, Dewey 45
[ no bounce ]
Election result FDR 53.4%, Dewey 45.9%
1948: Pre-Conventions Dewey 49, Truman 38
Post-conventions Dewey 48, Truman 37
[ no bounce ]
Election result Truman 49.6%, Dewey 45.1%
1952: Pre-Conventions Eisenhower 59, Stevenson 31
Post-Conventions Eisenhower 50, Stevenson 43
[ Stevenson 21 point bounce ]
Election result Eisenhower 55.2%, Stevenson 44.3%
1956: Pre-Conventions Eisenhower 61, Stevenson 37
Post-Conventions Eisenhower 54, Stevenson 41
[ Stevenson 11 point bounce ]
Election result Eisenhower 57.4%, Stevenson 41.2%
1960: Pre-Conventions JFK 50, Nixon 44
Post-Conventions JFK 47, Nixon 47
[ Nixon 6 point bounce ]
Election result JFK 49.7%, Nixon 49.6%
1964: Pre-Conventions Johnson 76, Goldwater 20 (yes, 20 percent support)
Post-Conventions Johnson 65, Goldwater 32
[ Goldwater 23 point bounce ]
Election result Johnson 61.0%, Goldwater 38.5%
1968: Pre-Conventions Nixon 40, Humphrey 38
Post-Conventions Nixon 43, Humphrey 28
[ Nixon 13 point bounce ]
Election result Nixon 43.4%, Humphrey 42.7%
1972: Pre-Conventions Nixon 53, McGovern 37
Post-Conventions Nixon 61, McGovern 33
[ Nixon 12 point bounce ]
Election result Nixon 60.7%, McGovern 37.5%
1976: Pre-Conventions Carter 53, Ford 36
Post-Conventions Carter 51, Ford 40
[ Ford 6 point bounce ]
Election result Carter 50.1%, Ford 48.0%
1980: Pre-Conventions Reagan 37, Carter 34
Post-Conventions Reagan 39, Carter 38
[ Carter 2 point bounce ]
Election result Reagan 50.8%, Carter 41.0%
1984: Pre-Conventions Reagan 53, Mondale 39
Post-Conventions Reagan 56, Mondale 37
[ Reagan 5 point bounce ]
Election result Reagan 58.8%, Mondale 40.6%
1988: Pre-Conventions Dukakis 47, GH Bush 41
Post-Conventions GH Bush 48, Dukakis 44
[ GHW Bush 10 point bounce ]
Election result GH Bush 53.4%, Dukakis 45.7%
1992: Pre-Conventions Clinton 56, GH Bush 36
Post-Conventions Clinton 51, GH Bush 42
[ GHW Bush 11 point bounce ]
Election result Clinton 43.0%, GH Bush 37.5%
1996: Pre-Conventions Clinton 53, Dole 36
Post-Conventions Clinton 53, Dole 37
[ Dole 1 point bounce ]
Election result Clinton 49.2%, Dole 40.7%
2000: Pre-Conventions Gore 47, GW Bush 46
Post-Conventions Gore 47, GW Bush 45
[ Gore 1 point bounce ]
Election result GW Bush 47.9%, Gore 48.4%
2004: Pre-Conventions Kerry 49, GW Bush 47
Post-Conventions Kerry 48, GW Bush 47
[ GW Bush 1 point bounce ]
Election result GW Bush 50.8%, Kerry 48.3%
2008: Pre-Conventions Obama 45, McCain 45
Post-Conventions McCain 48, Obama 45
[ McCain 3 point bounce ]
Looking at these results, the following observations may be made:
In the sixteen elections for President between 1944 and 2004, in twelve of the sixteen the candidate leading after the conventions won the election. The conventions gave the aggregate bounce to the candidate who lost the election nine times, to the winner twice, and there was no aggregate bounce on two occasions. The 1988 election is the only time in the sixteen elections that the candidate who was trailing before the conventions went on to take the lead after the conventions on a bounce, and go on to win the general election. Of the nine times where the losing candidate enjoyed the best convention bounce, in six elections the trailing candidate was 17 points or more behind in the polls before the elections, and the bounce simply tightened the race. On average, the candidate leading in the polls after the conventions enjoyed election results 2.3 points higher than his poll support after the conventions, while the trailing candidate enjoyed election results 2.9 points higher than his poll support after the conventions.
Gallup was used exclusively for this examination, because only Gallup has consistent public results dating back to 1944, and only Gallup has maintained the same polling methodology for all of its election polling. When other poll agencies are similarly complete and consistent, I plan to start using their results as well.
UPDATE - What does it all mean?
Blogger does not let me attach Excel charts, which is a shame, because the graphic track is interesting. What happens on that track for the most part, is the candidate who wins the election tends to have strong (48%+) support during the end run of the race, while the loser, well, he is either far behind or slipping in his support (meaning he would have to spend a lot of effort shoring up his base). Timing is critical, in other words, and peaking too early really does kill your campaign.
Of course, I have to throw in some caveats. For a reasonable level of confidence, you really need 32 or more samples of data, and this gives only half that many, and there are a number of apparent outliers already. Truman appeared to come from way behind in 1948 to win, the only such case of the sixteen elections examined here. Also, 1944 and 1948 showed no apparent bounce from the conventions, but the 14 elections after them all showed a bounce effect. In most elections, the candidate ahead when the conventions began won the election, but in 2000 and 2004 the election winner was behind in the polls both before and after the conventions. It is all but impossible to know if there is significance this year in McCain's sudden lead after the convention, the first time since 1988 that a candidate went into the party conventions trailing but came out from the conventions with a clear lead.
1944: Pre-conventions FDR 47, Dewey 45
Post-conventions FDR 47, Dewey 45
[ no bounce ]
Election result FDR 53.4%, Dewey 45.9%
1948: Pre-Conventions Dewey 49, Truman 38
Post-conventions Dewey 48, Truman 37
[ no bounce ]
Election result Truman 49.6%, Dewey 45.1%
1952: Pre-Conventions Eisenhower 59, Stevenson 31
Post-Conventions Eisenhower 50, Stevenson 43
[ Stevenson 21 point bounce ]
Election result Eisenhower 55.2%, Stevenson 44.3%
1956: Pre-Conventions Eisenhower 61, Stevenson 37
Post-Conventions Eisenhower 54, Stevenson 41
[ Stevenson 11 point bounce ]
Election result Eisenhower 57.4%, Stevenson 41.2%
1960: Pre-Conventions JFK 50, Nixon 44
Post-Conventions JFK 47, Nixon 47
[ Nixon 6 point bounce ]
Election result JFK 49.7%, Nixon 49.6%
1964: Pre-Conventions Johnson 76, Goldwater 20 (yes, 20 percent support)
Post-Conventions Johnson 65, Goldwater 32
[ Goldwater 23 point bounce ]
Election result Johnson 61.0%, Goldwater 38.5%
1968: Pre-Conventions Nixon 40, Humphrey 38
Post-Conventions Nixon 43, Humphrey 28
[ Nixon 13 point bounce ]
Election result Nixon 43.4%, Humphrey 42.7%
1972: Pre-Conventions Nixon 53, McGovern 37
Post-Conventions Nixon 61, McGovern 33
[ Nixon 12 point bounce ]
Election result Nixon 60.7%, McGovern 37.5%
1976: Pre-Conventions Carter 53, Ford 36
Post-Conventions Carter 51, Ford 40
[ Ford 6 point bounce ]
Election result Carter 50.1%, Ford 48.0%
1980: Pre-Conventions Reagan 37, Carter 34
Post-Conventions Reagan 39, Carter 38
[ Carter 2 point bounce ]
Election result Reagan 50.8%, Carter 41.0%
1984: Pre-Conventions Reagan 53, Mondale 39
Post-Conventions Reagan 56, Mondale 37
[ Reagan 5 point bounce ]
Election result Reagan 58.8%, Mondale 40.6%
1988: Pre-Conventions Dukakis 47, GH Bush 41
Post-Conventions GH Bush 48, Dukakis 44
[ GHW Bush 10 point bounce ]
Election result GH Bush 53.4%, Dukakis 45.7%
1992: Pre-Conventions Clinton 56, GH Bush 36
Post-Conventions Clinton 51, GH Bush 42
[ GHW Bush 11 point bounce ]
Election result Clinton 43.0%, GH Bush 37.5%
1996: Pre-Conventions Clinton 53, Dole 36
Post-Conventions Clinton 53, Dole 37
[ Dole 1 point bounce ]
Election result Clinton 49.2%, Dole 40.7%
2000: Pre-Conventions Gore 47, GW Bush 46
Post-Conventions Gore 47, GW Bush 45
[ Gore 1 point bounce ]
Election result GW Bush 47.9%, Gore 48.4%
2004: Pre-Conventions Kerry 49, GW Bush 47
Post-Conventions Kerry 48, GW Bush 47
[ GW Bush 1 point bounce ]
Election result GW Bush 50.8%, Kerry 48.3%
2008: Pre-Conventions Obama 45, McCain 45
Post-Conventions McCain 48, Obama 45
[ McCain 3 point bounce ]
Looking at these results, the following observations may be made:
In the sixteen elections for President between 1944 and 2004, in twelve of the sixteen the candidate leading after the conventions won the election. The conventions gave the aggregate bounce to the candidate who lost the election nine times, to the winner twice, and there was no aggregate bounce on two occasions. The 1988 election is the only time in the sixteen elections that the candidate who was trailing before the conventions went on to take the lead after the conventions on a bounce, and go on to win the general election. Of the nine times where the losing candidate enjoyed the best convention bounce, in six elections the trailing candidate was 17 points or more behind in the polls before the elections, and the bounce simply tightened the race. On average, the candidate leading in the polls after the conventions enjoyed election results 2.3 points higher than his poll support after the conventions, while the trailing candidate enjoyed election results 2.9 points higher than his poll support after the conventions.
Gallup was used exclusively for this examination, because only Gallup has consistent public results dating back to 1944, and only Gallup has maintained the same polling methodology for all of its election polling. When other poll agencies are similarly complete and consistent, I plan to start using their results as well.
UPDATE - What does it all mean?
Blogger does not let me attach Excel charts, which is a shame, because the graphic track is interesting. What happens on that track for the most part, is the candidate who wins the election tends to have strong (48%+) support during the end run of the race, while the loser, well, he is either far behind or slipping in his support (meaning he would have to spend a lot of effort shoring up his base). Timing is critical, in other words, and peaking too early really does kill your campaign.
Of course, I have to throw in some caveats. For a reasonable level of confidence, you really need 32 or more samples of data, and this gives only half that many, and there are a number of apparent outliers already. Truman appeared to come from way behind in 1948 to win, the only such case of the sixteen elections examined here. Also, 1944 and 1948 showed no apparent bounce from the conventions, but the 14 elections after them all showed a bounce effect. In most elections, the candidate ahead when the conventions began won the election, but in 2000 and 2004 the election winner was behind in the polls both before and after the conventions. It is all but impossible to know if there is significance this year in McCain's sudden lead after the convention, the first time since 1988 that a candidate went into the party conventions trailing but came out from the conventions with a clear lead.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Christians and Politics
Yesterday, my family and I went shopping, and in the parking lot of a superstore we passed a car with a bumper sticker which read, “Who Would Jesus Torture?” Like so many bumper stickers, this one was a trite attempt to suggest that Christians who support the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan are hypocrites. I could have written a lengthy article on why the bumper sticker was itself hypocritical and malicious, but there is a larger, more important issue to be examined here – the political character of the Christian in the United States.
Lately, it has become fashionable for Liberals to pretend that Jesus Christ would prefer Barack Obama to John McCain. In so far as everyone has a right to make their case and have an opinion that is fine, but when someone who is not a practicing Christian decides that they have the authority to speak for the Master who warned ”My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), they show a disappointing arrogance which cheapens their position. Also, there are dozens of significant denominations, and each holds strong beliefs which differ in various ways from other associations; the idea that a single political opinion on a controversial question would be monolithically held through all Christian churches betrays a simplistic and biased view of the Christian mind. Further, the American character of Christianity is distinct from the rest of the faith; not better or worse because of its differences, but ignoring those differences is to ignore History. American Christians have often taken stronger positions than other Christians on political issues, though in the main the decision has always been individual, not so much institutional. And in the past generation, those religious “leaders” who demand a specific political stance from their denomination have more and more been those individuals whose work has been almost exclusively political, and thoroughly lacking in pastoral acts of charity and, well, feeding their flock.
I have studied the Scriptures extensively, and from what I see it is very difficult to find a political position that is perfectly, hmm, ”Christ-like”. Take war, for example. Jesus is known colloquially as the “Prince of Peace”, and Scripture tells us that he warned His disciples, that “all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52). Yet it is also written that when a Roman Centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus not only did so, but strongly praised the faith of the Centurion (Matthew 8:5-13). What’s more, there is not a single verse in the Bible where a soldier is condemned or war itself is condemned. There are verses, actually, which suggest the Lord thinks well of honest soldiers (e.g. Exodus 15:3, Deuteronomy 20:1, Judges 3:10, Judges 6:12, Revelation 19:11). That is not to say that God thinks war is always a good thing, or even usually a good thing. But it is a fact of this world that wars happen, and that good men have to fight in them. From there, reasonable people can differ about the decision to go to war, or the decisions made by leaders. But it is plainly arrogant to claim that Christ sides with your own political position, especially if you are not a practicing Christian.
There are a lot of issues like that, where there is no clear political position which a person can properly say God advocates. It’s easy to rip out something you found in the Bible that seems to say what you want, but in many of those cases the actual context of the Scripture is less obvious, especially given twenty centuries or so between the time they were written and today.
Both major political parties have been guilty at one time or another with playing the ’God likes me better’ card. From where I sit, it may play out to a temporary advantage, but for the tens of millions of Christians who do their level best every day to walk in Christ’s teachings, it mocks who we are and what we stand for. It’s fine if you hold different beliefs from me and honestly express your own opinion, although I may say that I think you are wrong. But if you try to pretend that a faith you don’t even believe in teaches morality according to your political position, that is simply lying arrogance. And it’s not fooling the people you think it is.
Lately, it has become fashionable for Liberals to pretend that Jesus Christ would prefer Barack Obama to John McCain. In so far as everyone has a right to make their case and have an opinion that is fine, but when someone who is not a practicing Christian decides that they have the authority to speak for the Master who warned ”My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), they show a disappointing arrogance which cheapens their position. Also, there are dozens of significant denominations, and each holds strong beliefs which differ in various ways from other associations; the idea that a single political opinion on a controversial question would be monolithically held through all Christian churches betrays a simplistic and biased view of the Christian mind. Further, the American character of Christianity is distinct from the rest of the faith; not better or worse because of its differences, but ignoring those differences is to ignore History. American Christians have often taken stronger positions than other Christians on political issues, though in the main the decision has always been individual, not so much institutional. And in the past generation, those religious “leaders” who demand a specific political stance from their denomination have more and more been those individuals whose work has been almost exclusively political, and thoroughly lacking in pastoral acts of charity and, well, feeding their flock.
I have studied the Scriptures extensively, and from what I see it is very difficult to find a political position that is perfectly, hmm, ”Christ-like”. Take war, for example. Jesus is known colloquially as the “Prince of Peace”, and Scripture tells us that he warned His disciples, that “all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52). Yet it is also written that when a Roman Centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus not only did so, but strongly praised the faith of the Centurion (Matthew 8:5-13). What’s more, there is not a single verse in the Bible where a soldier is condemned or war itself is condemned. There are verses, actually, which suggest the Lord thinks well of honest soldiers (e.g. Exodus 15:3, Deuteronomy 20:1, Judges 3:10, Judges 6:12, Revelation 19:11). That is not to say that God thinks war is always a good thing, or even usually a good thing. But it is a fact of this world that wars happen, and that good men have to fight in them. From there, reasonable people can differ about the decision to go to war, or the decisions made by leaders. But it is plainly arrogant to claim that Christ sides with your own political position, especially if you are not a practicing Christian.
There are a lot of issues like that, where there is no clear political position which a person can properly say God advocates. It’s easy to rip out something you found in the Bible that seems to say what you want, but in many of those cases the actual context of the Scripture is less obvious, especially given twenty centuries or so between the time they were written and today.
Both major political parties have been guilty at one time or another with playing the ’God likes me better’ card. From where I sit, it may play out to a temporary advantage, but for the tens of millions of Christians who do their level best every day to walk in Christ’s teachings, it mocks who we are and what we stand for. It’s fine if you hold different beliefs from me and honestly express your own opinion, although I may say that I think you are wrong. But if you try to pretend that a faith you don’t even believe in teaches morality according to your political position, that is simply lying arrogance. And it’s not fooling the people you think it is.
Friday, September 05, 2008
The Palin Trump Card: TURNOUT
Howard Dean almost made history in 2004. While John Kerry just plain fumbled the opportunity handed to him, Dean’s fund-raising and grassroots registration and turnout drives were spectacularly successful. Over 58 million Americans voted for Kerry-Edwards in the presidential election, an amazing success for the campaign’s workers and planners. President Bush, however, claimed over 62 million votes, on the strength of a similarly epic turnout effort. The 2004 election turned on many points of decision, but in effective terms both parties knew they had to maximize their turnout.
Fast forward to today. Rasmussen Reports (whom I distrust to some degree, because they do not reveal all of their methodology and weighting rationale to the media, bloggers, or academics) released a poll showing Barack Obama leading John McCain by 2 points, 48% to 46%. The race is statistically tied, says Rasmussen. Looking more closely, however, I noticed how Rasmussen has weighted the respondent pool, with 39.7% weighted as Democrats, 32.1% as Republicans, and 28.2% as unaffiliated.
The significance of this weighting is that, as I have warned before, it is not based on any established statistical record or census report. Instead, Rasmussen does what it calls “dynamic weighting”. What they do, by their own admission, is to establish “baseline targets” for party affiliation by reviewing “survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months”. When translated into English, Rasmussen is admitting that they use the results from previous polls to weight their new polls, even though this is - by definition – circular logic and is invalid for any poll which is authentically using pure RDD methodology in its respondent contact procedure (that is, a pure random method of contacting people means that you have near-absolute certainty that you are not calling anyone from prior polls, and therefore there is no connection between your present and former respondent pool except that they meet the defined criteria, and therefore conditions of the former do not influence the conditions of the present). Rasmussen has no effective basis for claiming the party affiliation in its polls, as a result of its invalid system. This happens a lot with polling groups, but it is a critical factor in the results they report, and as such I must warn the readers regularly about this practice. While no proven scientific method exists to track and report party affiliation between elections, the reader should at least expect a consistent ratio to be used, and for polling groups to obtain the basis of party weighting using outside and objective sources for their party identification data.
So anyway, using Rasmussen’s made-up affiliation numbers, we see that if Rasmussen’s poll is correct and if 39.7% of the voters are really Democrats, 32.1% of the voters are really Republicans, and 28.2% are really unaffiliated, then Obama-Biden has the support of 46 to 50 percent of the people responding to the poll, while McCain-Palin has the support of 44 to 48 percent of the people responding. But suppose that more than 39.7% of the voters are Democrats? What if more than 32.1% of the voters are Republicans? From my experience, I can say that self-identified Democrats and Republicans are much more likely to vote than people without a party affiliation. And what if some factor or issue makes some voters of a certain party affiliation stay home? That’s happened before you know, it hurt Bush I in 1992 and Humphrey in 1968, and there’s more than a few groups which have said earlier that they would sit at home this fall. Not too many people have talked about it recently, and the ones who did seemed to assume they were not problems anymore, but McCain had to worry about hard-line conservatives, while Obama had to worry about Hillary’s army. McCain needed to assure folks that his age and health were not reasons to doubt his ability, while Obama needed to assure folks that he had the judgment to make good executive decisions, even if his record up to now was empty. McCain needed to show Republicans he stood for the party’s ideals, and to show independents that he was a different man from George Bush. Obama needed to show Democrats he was a man able to accomplish their goals, while proving to the nation his claim to be able to reach across the aisle. There are a lot of folks with reasons to walk away from the election, and to doubt the claims of the nominees from either party. Victory may well come down to which party best retains its existing active support, and beings back its doubters.
That brings us to Sarah Palin. John McCain picked Palin to be his running mate after Barack Obama chose Joe Biden to be his VP nominee. Biden was essentially the “safe” pick, meant to shore up Obama’s clear deficiencies in foreign policy and resume depth. Hillary Clinton was an obvious choice for VP, but the Obama campaign clearly worried about whether Clinton would remain an ally after November, and the campaign could be embarassed if Clinton had publicly declined the post, as some rumored she would do. And because the Obama campaign depended so heavily on Barack Obama’s personal charisma, there was no effective way the VP pick could expect to retrieve those voters that were not already attracted to Obama.
Things were much different for McCain. The threat of mainline Republicans staying home was a serious problem; even the likelihood that they would vote for him but withhold campaign support for registration and GOTV drives could seriously damage McCain in key battleground states. McCain therefore needed a running mate who would strongly appeal to the conservatives, yet not alienate the other key GOP candidates from the primaries. McCain needed someone with the skills to step into the role of President if it became necessary, ideally someone familiar with the executive roles and with energy experience. Also, McCain was clearly chasing Obama in overall support, and needed a VP pick who would energize his supporters and create media interest in his campaign. In terms of strategy, McCain wanted a running mate who would increase the level of turnout his campaign could expect in November, who would be able to retain and protect gains he had made in recent months, and whose skills would complement his own. The selection of Sarah Palin proved a near-perfect response to those needs. Palin’s solid credentials as a conservative went a long way to satisfy demands from conservatives who worried McCain would be less like Ronald Reagan and more like Gerald Ford. Her accomplishments as a woman may not attract great numbers of Clinton supporters away from Obama, but those who had already defected to McCain are now more inclined to stay as his supporters. But more to the point, a huge demographic has opened for McCain-Palin, one which has been largely ignored by Barack Obama. In choosing Palin, McCain has taken advantage of yet another Obama blunder.
Palin’s credentials also directly undercut Obama’s claims to quality judgment and executive qualification. Even as Obama’s supporters tried to ridicule Palin’s experience as a mayor and governor, the scale of her accomplishments demonstrates that Obama and Biden, even put together, have effectively no executive experience of any kind, and worse, were unaware of that fact. Biden has shown that he does not understand the difference between committee experience in the Senate, and executive decisions made by a head of state, while Obama lamely tried to claim that running for President counted as executive experience (rather like saying that applying for a job means you have experience in it!).
This election, like 2004, will be decided by turnout, by which party convinces the most folks not only to like their candidates, but also to register and really, truly, go out and vote when the time comes. Sarah Palin is a trump card for which Obama-Biden simply has no answer.
Fast forward to today. Rasmussen Reports (whom I distrust to some degree, because they do not reveal all of their methodology and weighting rationale to the media, bloggers, or academics) released a poll showing Barack Obama leading John McCain by 2 points, 48% to 46%. The race is statistically tied, says Rasmussen. Looking more closely, however, I noticed how Rasmussen has weighted the respondent pool, with 39.7% weighted as Democrats, 32.1% as Republicans, and 28.2% as unaffiliated.
The significance of this weighting is that, as I have warned before, it is not based on any established statistical record or census report. Instead, Rasmussen does what it calls “dynamic weighting”. What they do, by their own admission, is to establish “baseline targets” for party affiliation by reviewing “survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months”. When translated into English, Rasmussen is admitting that they use the results from previous polls to weight their new polls, even though this is - by definition – circular logic and is invalid for any poll which is authentically using pure RDD methodology in its respondent contact procedure (that is, a pure random method of contacting people means that you have near-absolute certainty that you are not calling anyone from prior polls, and therefore there is no connection between your present and former respondent pool except that they meet the defined criteria, and therefore conditions of the former do not influence the conditions of the present). Rasmussen has no effective basis for claiming the party affiliation in its polls, as a result of its invalid system. This happens a lot with polling groups, but it is a critical factor in the results they report, and as such I must warn the readers regularly about this practice. While no proven scientific method exists to track and report party affiliation between elections, the reader should at least expect a consistent ratio to be used, and for polling groups to obtain the basis of party weighting using outside and objective sources for their party identification data.
So anyway, using Rasmussen’s made-up affiliation numbers, we see that if Rasmussen’s poll is correct and if 39.7% of the voters are really Democrats, 32.1% of the voters are really Republicans, and 28.2% are really unaffiliated, then Obama-Biden has the support of 46 to 50 percent of the people responding to the poll, while McCain-Palin has the support of 44 to 48 percent of the people responding. But suppose that more than 39.7% of the voters are Democrats? What if more than 32.1% of the voters are Republicans? From my experience, I can say that self-identified Democrats and Republicans are much more likely to vote than people without a party affiliation. And what if some factor or issue makes some voters of a certain party affiliation stay home? That’s happened before you know, it hurt Bush I in 1992 and Humphrey in 1968, and there’s more than a few groups which have said earlier that they would sit at home this fall. Not too many people have talked about it recently, and the ones who did seemed to assume they were not problems anymore, but McCain had to worry about hard-line conservatives, while Obama had to worry about Hillary’s army. McCain needed to assure folks that his age and health were not reasons to doubt his ability, while Obama needed to assure folks that he had the judgment to make good executive decisions, even if his record up to now was empty. McCain needed to show Republicans he stood for the party’s ideals, and to show independents that he was a different man from George Bush. Obama needed to show Democrats he was a man able to accomplish their goals, while proving to the nation his claim to be able to reach across the aisle. There are a lot of folks with reasons to walk away from the election, and to doubt the claims of the nominees from either party. Victory may well come down to which party best retains its existing active support, and beings back its doubters.
That brings us to Sarah Palin. John McCain picked Palin to be his running mate after Barack Obama chose Joe Biden to be his VP nominee. Biden was essentially the “safe” pick, meant to shore up Obama’s clear deficiencies in foreign policy and resume depth. Hillary Clinton was an obvious choice for VP, but the Obama campaign clearly worried about whether Clinton would remain an ally after November, and the campaign could be embarassed if Clinton had publicly declined the post, as some rumored she would do. And because the Obama campaign depended so heavily on Barack Obama’s personal charisma, there was no effective way the VP pick could expect to retrieve those voters that were not already attracted to Obama.
Things were much different for McCain. The threat of mainline Republicans staying home was a serious problem; even the likelihood that they would vote for him but withhold campaign support for registration and GOTV drives could seriously damage McCain in key battleground states. McCain therefore needed a running mate who would strongly appeal to the conservatives, yet not alienate the other key GOP candidates from the primaries. McCain needed someone with the skills to step into the role of President if it became necessary, ideally someone familiar with the executive roles and with energy experience. Also, McCain was clearly chasing Obama in overall support, and needed a VP pick who would energize his supporters and create media interest in his campaign. In terms of strategy, McCain wanted a running mate who would increase the level of turnout his campaign could expect in November, who would be able to retain and protect gains he had made in recent months, and whose skills would complement his own. The selection of Sarah Palin proved a near-perfect response to those needs. Palin’s solid credentials as a conservative went a long way to satisfy demands from conservatives who worried McCain would be less like Ronald Reagan and more like Gerald Ford. Her accomplishments as a woman may not attract great numbers of Clinton supporters away from Obama, but those who had already defected to McCain are now more inclined to stay as his supporters. But more to the point, a huge demographic has opened for McCain-Palin, one which has been largely ignored by Barack Obama. In choosing Palin, McCain has taken advantage of yet another Obama blunder.
Palin’s credentials also directly undercut Obama’s claims to quality judgment and executive qualification. Even as Obama’s supporters tried to ridicule Palin’s experience as a mayor and governor, the scale of her accomplishments demonstrates that Obama and Biden, even put together, have effectively no executive experience of any kind, and worse, were unaware of that fact. Biden has shown that he does not understand the difference between committee experience in the Senate, and executive decisions made by a head of state, while Obama lamely tried to claim that running for President counted as executive experience (rather like saying that applying for a job means you have experience in it!).
This election, like 2004, will be decided by turnout, by which party convinces the most folks not only to like their candidates, but also to register and really, truly, go out and vote when the time comes. Sarah Palin is a trump card for which Obama-Biden simply has no answer.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Vetting
I am amazed sometimes, how well American businesses do. This is because the more I learn, from my career and from my graduate coursework, the more I realize that the average business, American or otherwise, is not planned, not effectively organized, and often seeks goals that make no sense. Yet an amazing number of businesses are successful in spite of all that. It’s because if you have the right idea and work hard at it, you can succeed without having to be perfect. That is the message I want to make regarding the vetting of Sarah Palin. Some mistakes were made although in the main the job was done right, her enemies (including the media being incredibly obvious in its partisan support for Obama) have posed outright lies and smears in their attempts to attack her, and in the end the American people will figure out well enough who she is and what she stands for.
John McCain had a while to decide who he wanted for his running mate, just as Barack Obama had several weeks to make his decision. Both campaigns started with a blank sheet of paper, because the person they’d want for their VP selection would depend at least in part on the issues and conditions of the moment, which could not be foreseen. Let’s begin with how Barack Obama chose Joe Biden for his running mate, The International Herald-Tribune’ who calls themselves the ‘Global Edition of the New York Times’, is about as pro-Obama a media outlet as one could hope to find. They published an account of Biden’s vetting on August 24, in which the paper reports that “his top advisers made a concerted effort not to disclose how he made his choice”, that ”Obama reached the decision … while on a weeklong vacation to Hawaii. That week, Biden's strengths in foreign policy were highlighted by the conflict between Russia and Georgia, giving his prospects a further boost”, showing that current events were a critical factor in the decision. The paper further observes that ”Biden had some powerful patrons in his corner whose opinions Obama respected, like Rendell; Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus; and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts”. So, while Obama’s team made a great noise about Biden’s qualifications, the NYT-styled paper makes clear that Biden was primarily chosen to support an area where Obama saw a potential weak point, that Biden gained the top spot in large part because he had powerful friends in the Democratic Party, and that “what kind of partner I'm getting” was an essential choice. Few details about the actual vetting were released, except that the paper noted that ”the vetting team sorted through Biden's financial statements, political statements and medical records”.
Now, with that in place, the decision to select Sarah Palin may properly be considered and the lies from the Left dispelled through Obama’s own standards. Senator Obama’s campaign has admitted he decided on Biden as his running mate very soon before announcing the choice. That makes sense to me, but it blows apart the claim by some that McCain made a “last-minute” choice on Palin, especially since he made the announcement the week before the GOP convention even began. Lie number one shot down. Obama chose Biden for his foreign policy experience, a logical reason. But that means that choosing a female governor with a high approval rating in her state and a history of fighting against corruption is just as logical for McCain. The idea that McCain was acting emotionally or rashly is just lie number two, and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Obama chose Biden because he was politically popular with a lot of Democrats, including the union base Obama needs. That makes sense, but of course that makes it reasonable for McCain to choose a VP nominee who is wildly popular with conservatives, whose life experience and personal character are well-suited to attract women voters and independents. So the lie that Palin is less valid than Biden for what she brings to the campaign also goes quickly down in flames.
Frankly, the Left has gotten pretty desperate in trying to find something to use against Palin. We’re told she’s “under investigation”, but the people who started that slimy rumor leave off that the situation was one in which Palin’s family was threatened, and the investigation has no statutory support for any potential action against Palin – it’s purely political, which makes all the more sense when people find out that Palin fought against corrupt officials in both parties in Alaska, and reformers often make political enemies. We’re told that news people going door to door in Alaska can’t find anyone who was asked about Palin, but that’s because vetting does not work that way. No one asked door-to-door in Delaware to see if Obama’s people chased down Biden’s old teachers or people he went to school with – that’s just another lie because the media knew they were misleading folks in how they portrayed the process. What is happening is what we have seen before, what we have to expect – the MSM has chosen a team, and objectivity be damned. Ironically, that won’t help them, and it could hurt their well-dressed if empty idol, Barack Obama.
If the media treated Sarah Palin the way way that they have treated Joe Biden, then it would be up to Palin to prove she was up to the challenge. Fluff just cannot be mistaken for muscle after a certain amount of time, and facades always fall when the wind blows. But it is a lie, and a stupid one, to pretend that Palin has not been vetted. As Bill Kristol pointed out last night, “The McCain campaign vetted Sarah Palin to the satisfaction of John McCain. He nominated her as his running mate. She is the governor of Alaska. She was vetted by the voters of Alaska”. Fred Barnes pointed out the lies as well, saying “I have been keeping a list of the things that the media has come out with, at least some parts of it that turned out to be wrong, including [the] thing about the Independence party. She wasn't a member there, she was a Republican the whole time. She didn't back Pat Buchanan. She was vetted. When you read how thoroughly she was vetted, I am sorry they missed the House Speaker, but I think they hit everybody else up there. They spent days and days up and interviewed her for a long time.”
Three facts have become obvious in the last few days about Sarah Palin:
1. She was properly vetted.
2. She does change the calculus of the election.
3. Judging from the reaction in the media and the Obama campaign, Joe Biden should be as worried as a moose in season.
John McCain had a while to decide who he wanted for his running mate, just as Barack Obama had several weeks to make his decision. Both campaigns started with a blank sheet of paper, because the person they’d want for their VP selection would depend at least in part on the issues and conditions of the moment, which could not be foreseen. Let’s begin with how Barack Obama chose Joe Biden for his running mate, The International Herald-Tribune’ who calls themselves the ‘Global Edition of the New York Times’, is about as pro-Obama a media outlet as one could hope to find. They published an account of Biden’s vetting on August 24, in which the paper reports that “his top advisers made a concerted effort not to disclose how he made his choice”, that ”Obama reached the decision … while on a weeklong vacation to Hawaii. That week, Biden's strengths in foreign policy were highlighted by the conflict between Russia and Georgia, giving his prospects a further boost”, showing that current events were a critical factor in the decision. The paper further observes that ”Biden had some powerful patrons in his corner whose opinions Obama respected, like Rendell; Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the House Democratic caucus; and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts”. So, while Obama’s team made a great noise about Biden’s qualifications, the NYT-styled paper makes clear that Biden was primarily chosen to support an area where Obama saw a potential weak point, that Biden gained the top spot in large part because he had powerful friends in the Democratic Party, and that “what kind of partner I'm getting” was an essential choice. Few details about the actual vetting were released, except that the paper noted that ”the vetting team sorted through Biden's financial statements, political statements and medical records”.
Now, with that in place, the decision to select Sarah Palin may properly be considered and the lies from the Left dispelled through Obama’s own standards. Senator Obama’s campaign has admitted he decided on Biden as his running mate very soon before announcing the choice. That makes sense to me, but it blows apart the claim by some that McCain made a “last-minute” choice on Palin, especially since he made the announcement the week before the GOP convention even began. Lie number one shot down. Obama chose Biden for his foreign policy experience, a logical reason. But that means that choosing a female governor with a high approval rating in her state and a history of fighting against corruption is just as logical for McCain. The idea that McCain was acting emotionally or rashly is just lie number two, and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Obama chose Biden because he was politically popular with a lot of Democrats, including the union base Obama needs. That makes sense, but of course that makes it reasonable for McCain to choose a VP nominee who is wildly popular with conservatives, whose life experience and personal character are well-suited to attract women voters and independents. So the lie that Palin is less valid than Biden for what she brings to the campaign also goes quickly down in flames.
Frankly, the Left has gotten pretty desperate in trying to find something to use against Palin. We’re told she’s “under investigation”, but the people who started that slimy rumor leave off that the situation was one in which Palin’s family was threatened, and the investigation has no statutory support for any potential action against Palin – it’s purely political, which makes all the more sense when people find out that Palin fought against corrupt officials in both parties in Alaska, and reformers often make political enemies. We’re told that news people going door to door in Alaska can’t find anyone who was asked about Palin, but that’s because vetting does not work that way. No one asked door-to-door in Delaware to see if Obama’s people chased down Biden’s old teachers or people he went to school with – that’s just another lie because the media knew they were misleading folks in how they portrayed the process. What is happening is what we have seen before, what we have to expect – the MSM has chosen a team, and objectivity be damned. Ironically, that won’t help them, and it could hurt their well-dressed if empty idol, Barack Obama.
If the media treated Sarah Palin the way way that they have treated Joe Biden, then it would be up to Palin to prove she was up to the challenge. Fluff just cannot be mistaken for muscle after a certain amount of time, and facades always fall when the wind blows. But it is a lie, and a stupid one, to pretend that Palin has not been vetted. As Bill Kristol pointed out last night, “The McCain campaign vetted Sarah Palin to the satisfaction of John McCain. He nominated her as his running mate. She is the governor of Alaska. She was vetted by the voters of Alaska”. Fred Barnes pointed out the lies as well, saying “I have been keeping a list of the things that the media has come out with, at least some parts of it that turned out to be wrong, including [the] thing about the Independence party. She wasn't a member there, she was a Republican the whole time. She didn't back Pat Buchanan. She was vetted. When you read how thoroughly she was vetted, I am sorry they missed the House Speaker, but I think they hit everybody else up there. They spent days and days up and interviewed her for a long time.”
Three facts have become obvious in the last few days about Sarah Palin:
1. She was properly vetted.
2. She does change the calculus of the election.
3. Judging from the reaction in the media and the Obama campaign, Joe Biden should be as worried as a moose in season.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Weighting and Other Poll Controversies
I have always found opinion polls to be fascinating, and yet I often mistrust the way in which polls are built and their results reported. It also occurs to me, that most folks do not really understand polling as a science, and so take it as, well, the political version of a horoscope. When I extrapolate that to the election, it explains quite a lot of just how some folks vote, but that’s beside the point for here. What I want to do today, is to explain just how it is that someone can take the opinions of a few to portray the opinion of the many, and what factors are the most influential in how a poll’s results are reported.
Let’s say you want to know how a group of a thousand people are likely to vote on an issue, say shareholders considering a potential merger with another company. If you ask one person, you will get one opinion, and that opinion would obviously represent 1/1000th or 0.1% of the group, so while you might be interested in that person’s opinion, you would not take it as a solid indicator of how the whole group feels. But at the same time, you really don’t want to have to ask all one thousand people, just to get an idea of what they would say now. If you ask a second person, you have still only addressed 0.2% of the whole, but at the same time your respondent pool has doubled in size and therefore increased in accuracy. To put it another way, let’s say that 665 of the 1,000 people would vote in favor of a proposed merger. It’s possible that you might get through all 335 people opposed to the merger before you get to anyone in favor of it, which would falsely indicate strong opposition, but if you make sure your queries are random, you are likely to start approaching a representative sample by the time you get to just ten people. Why? The key is partly how many people you ask – if you do it right, each person who answers your question lowers the statistical probability of error in your result by a relevant factor, a factor determined by the proportion of your respondent pool but also by the category of interest. In the example of the stockholders, for example, regional location, length of experience with the company, and preference for stock price or dividends might be relevant to how they would vote. That is, all of the stockholders who prefer a higher stock value to a higher dividend payment would be likely to vote the same way on the merger decision, and so the opinion of a relative few who have similar characteristics can reasonably represent the opinion of everyone in their group. Therefore, if the respondent pool includes a proportional representation of the whole population concerned, then statistically the small group may be expected to reflect the larger group’s opinion in scale. Over the course of the last seventy years, polling groups have found that once a respondent pool reaches eight hundred or more, the margin of error in a national contest is generally below four percent, meaning that in a two-candidate race the polling results for the candidate is within a four-point radius; if ‘A’ and ‘B’ poll at 42% and 48%, for example, A’s true level of support could actually be anywhere from 38 to 46 percent, while B could be anywhere from 44 percent to 52 percent in support. Frankly, in most elections this margin of error means that no clear message can or should be taken in terms of who is winning or by how much. The poll, however, is a valid tool for measuring development of support, when the questions and methodology used in the poll are consistent, and when the weighting used is consistent with Census norms.
This brings us back to weighting. By now it should be obvious that the weighting of a poll is critical to its determination. For example, let’s say you have a poll with exactly one thousand respondents. However, you have 700 Whites responding, with 150 Asians, 100 Hispanics, and 250 Blacks. The 2000 US Census reports that the racial breakdown is 71.6% White, 12.3% Black, 12.5% Hispanic, and 3.6% Asian. To match these demographic statistics, the polling data would then be weighted in the following manner:
The results from White respondents would be divided by 70.0 then multiplied by 71.6;
The results from Black respondents would be divided by 25.0 then multiplied by 12.3;
The results from Hispanic respondents would be divided by 10.0 then multiplied by 12.5; and
The results from Asian respondents would be divided by 15.0 then multiplied by 3.6.
This, of course, is only the racial weighting. Similar actions would be taken to adjust the statistical values of male and female responses to match Census norms, and responses would also be adjusted to match other relevant demographics, like age, geographic location, education, job category, military experience, and so on. The intent is to create an image aligned as correctly with the national model as much as possible. The problem, of course, is that every national poll is therefore manipulated to some degree.
There are three key problems to weighting polls. First, polls are driven by budget and time constraints, and as a result the weighting is often generalized, and not by the same method in each case. Some political polls, for example, start their age category with a broad “18-34” category, while others use a more narrow “18-24” or even “18-22” category to show college-age support. Worse, the range values sometimes fluctuate even by the same polling group, so that consistent methodology is lost, making the poll significantly less valid. Next, some polls have been known to fudge their weighting to match a different standard than the last Census. CBS and the New York Times, for example, have often ignored Census norms in favor of some arbitrary measure, which also violates the standard used in legitimate polling. And then there are the categories which defy clear definition. Almost no two major polls agree exactly, about what proportions of Republican and Democrat and Independent respondent should be used. Part of this is the fact that many states do not register political affiliation, and therefore the federal Census does not break down the population by party affiliation. So far, that doesn’t really bother me, except that the reader had better be aware that different polling groups will use different proportions in the way they weight political responses, because even though there is no official and firm balance of Republican-to-Democrat-to-Independent-to-Something Else, polls do indeed weight poll responses according to their party affiliation,. What’s worse, some of them will change the proportions from time to time, on no evidence beyond their belief that the mood has changed. This, of course, immediately invalidates the poll as an indicator of growing or lessening strength of support.
A poll is a useful indicator of trends and individual development of support by a candidate, provided the standards, methodology, and weighting remain constant. Otherwise, an opinion is absolutely worthless. Caveat Emptor, and then some.
Let’s say you want to know how a group of a thousand people are likely to vote on an issue, say shareholders considering a potential merger with another company. If you ask one person, you will get one opinion, and that opinion would obviously represent 1/1000th or 0.1% of the group, so while you might be interested in that person’s opinion, you would not take it as a solid indicator of how the whole group feels. But at the same time, you really don’t want to have to ask all one thousand people, just to get an idea of what they would say now. If you ask a second person, you have still only addressed 0.2% of the whole, but at the same time your respondent pool has doubled in size and therefore increased in accuracy. To put it another way, let’s say that 665 of the 1,000 people would vote in favor of a proposed merger. It’s possible that you might get through all 335 people opposed to the merger before you get to anyone in favor of it, which would falsely indicate strong opposition, but if you make sure your queries are random, you are likely to start approaching a representative sample by the time you get to just ten people. Why? The key is partly how many people you ask – if you do it right, each person who answers your question lowers the statistical probability of error in your result by a relevant factor, a factor determined by the proportion of your respondent pool but also by the category of interest. In the example of the stockholders, for example, regional location, length of experience with the company, and preference for stock price or dividends might be relevant to how they would vote. That is, all of the stockholders who prefer a higher stock value to a higher dividend payment would be likely to vote the same way on the merger decision, and so the opinion of a relative few who have similar characteristics can reasonably represent the opinion of everyone in their group. Therefore, if the respondent pool includes a proportional representation of the whole population concerned, then statistically the small group may be expected to reflect the larger group’s opinion in scale. Over the course of the last seventy years, polling groups have found that once a respondent pool reaches eight hundred or more, the margin of error in a national contest is generally below four percent, meaning that in a two-candidate race the polling results for the candidate is within a four-point radius; if ‘A’ and ‘B’ poll at 42% and 48%, for example, A’s true level of support could actually be anywhere from 38 to 46 percent, while B could be anywhere from 44 percent to 52 percent in support. Frankly, in most elections this margin of error means that no clear message can or should be taken in terms of who is winning or by how much. The poll, however, is a valid tool for measuring development of support, when the questions and methodology used in the poll are consistent, and when the weighting used is consistent with Census norms.
This brings us back to weighting. By now it should be obvious that the weighting of a poll is critical to its determination. For example, let’s say you have a poll with exactly one thousand respondents. However, you have 700 Whites responding, with 150 Asians, 100 Hispanics, and 250 Blacks. The 2000 US Census reports that the racial breakdown is 71.6% White, 12.3% Black, 12.5% Hispanic, and 3.6% Asian. To match these demographic statistics, the polling data would then be weighted in the following manner:
The results from White respondents would be divided by 70.0 then multiplied by 71.6;
The results from Black respondents would be divided by 25.0 then multiplied by 12.3;
The results from Hispanic respondents would be divided by 10.0 then multiplied by 12.5; and
The results from Asian respondents would be divided by 15.0 then multiplied by 3.6.
This, of course, is only the racial weighting. Similar actions would be taken to adjust the statistical values of male and female responses to match Census norms, and responses would also be adjusted to match other relevant demographics, like age, geographic location, education, job category, military experience, and so on. The intent is to create an image aligned as correctly with the national model as much as possible. The problem, of course, is that every national poll is therefore manipulated to some degree.
There are three key problems to weighting polls. First, polls are driven by budget and time constraints, and as a result the weighting is often generalized, and not by the same method in each case. Some political polls, for example, start their age category with a broad “18-34” category, while others use a more narrow “18-24” or even “18-22” category to show college-age support. Worse, the range values sometimes fluctuate even by the same polling group, so that consistent methodology is lost, making the poll significantly less valid. Next, some polls have been known to fudge their weighting to match a different standard than the last Census. CBS and the New York Times, for example, have often ignored Census norms in favor of some arbitrary measure, which also violates the standard used in legitimate polling. And then there are the categories which defy clear definition. Almost no two major polls agree exactly, about what proportions of Republican and Democrat and Independent respondent should be used. Part of this is the fact that many states do not register political affiliation, and therefore the federal Census does not break down the population by party affiliation. So far, that doesn’t really bother me, except that the reader had better be aware that different polling groups will use different proportions in the way they weight political responses, because even though there is no official and firm balance of Republican-to-Democrat-to-Independent-to-Something Else, polls do indeed weight poll responses according to their party affiliation,. What’s worse, some of them will change the proportions from time to time, on no evidence beyond their belief that the mood has changed. This, of course, immediately invalidates the poll as an indicator of growing or lessening strength of support.
A poll is a useful indicator of trends and individual development of support by a candidate, provided the standards, methodology, and weighting remain constant. Otherwise, an opinion is absolutely worthless. Caveat Emptor, and then some.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Obama Says Palin's Family Off-Limits
"Let me be as clear as possible," Obama said. "I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president."
Obama said reporters should "back off these kinds of stories" and noted that he was born to an 18-year-old mother.
"How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that's off-limits."
Good for Obama. I can't help but wonder how many of his trolls will trash the Palin family anyway, even after their leader has made it clear that they are out of bounds.
How Polls Work – And How They Do Not Work
In an earlier article, a reader noted that he was suspicious of CNN’s “Poll of Polls”. Frankly, he was right to do so. What CNN, Real Clear Politics, and other media outlets do, is to take poll releases from various polling groups in a certain time range, and aggregate them to find a sort of consensus. That is a very bad idea, however, if your intention is to accurately reflect the opinion of the general public. It’s a bit like saying that if you take everyone’s favorite version of spaghetti and mix them all together, you will get a really great-tasting batch of spaghetti. The odds are you will get a mess which won’t be worth the effort, and that’s what happens when you mix poll results. Polls, it should be noted, are the product of the groups and agencies which create them, and reflect a specific methodology which is usually similar to that used by other polling groups, but not exactly. That difference is why the two results cannot be mixed with confidence, and the more polls that are mixed, the less reliable would be the resulting report. Polls are best described as snapshots of opinion on one question at one specific point in time and place, not even movies much less reality. An example of this can be seen by looking at the most reliable of agencies, the Gallup Organization.
On August 24, Gallup showed Obama and McCain tied at 45% support each (with 10% undecided). But three days later, Gallup showed Obama with a six-point lead, 48% to 42%, and today Obama still leads by six points, 49% to 43%. The Gallup people seem to be claiming that Obama has increased his support while McCain has lost some. However, a look at the history of convention “bounces” would warn against making such an assumption. If history holds true, for example, McCain should enjoy a similar “bounce” after the GOP convention, yet this would not be a valid indicator of a stronger campaign, necessarily, but merely the effect of the focus from the convention. Even within the stable methodology of a well-respected poll, therefore, it is not valid to assume that changes in polling are necessarily indicators of a weaker or stronger election position.
With that said, it is important to consider other polling results. An August 30 release from Zogby, for instance, shows McCain at 47% support and Obama at 45%, at the same time that Gallup showed Obama ahead by six and holding steady support. How can two major polls say different things? Well, part of it is the fact that the variance between the polls is only eight points, which is equivalent to a four-point margin of error between them. If either poll had a respondent pool of 500 people or less, that disparity is within the standard deviation for such polling. That’s the mathematical point. What else needs to be considered, is that even where the same polling group takes polls, because of the randomness of the respondent pool, this means by definition that the people in different polls are not the same ones who answered the earlier poll, and even when conditions are the same and the same careful rules are applied, different people will probably produce different results. Also, as I have noted before, there is a clear bias in favor of or against the people in focus of polls by the polling groups. As a result, a composite of poll results cannot, by its character, produce an accurate or trustworthy result. At best, one of the polls might accurately reflect the opinion at that moment, but even if that is the case, mixing the results from all polls would only insure that the aggregate result was wrong to some degree.
Polls are not effective predictors of elections. The losing candidates of many past general and primary campaigns can point to any number of polls which indicated they would win. A candidate who trusts polls to indicate the precise amount and nature of their public support, is following the path of Tom Dewey. That is not to say, however, that polling is worthless. When a poll follows consistent methodology and asks consistent questions, and weights its demographics according to Census norms and the National Council on Public Polls standards (or the AAPOR), the results can be applied to illustrate trends and voter interest in key issues. Also, while the public is familiar with the polls which get published in their newspapers and favorite news sites, it should be noted that both the Obama and McCain campaigns have paid for private polling firms to identify target demographics and battleground states. Obama has spent almost 19 million dollars on private polling, while McCain has spent about 770 thousand dollars. It would fair to assume, I think, that these agencies are far more detailed in their questions and specific in their target demographics. So it may also be assumed from the amount of money spent, that there is significant confidence in the value of effective polling. The real question, as yet uncertain in its answer, is how to know which questions, which method, and which weighting is valid for the real condition.
On August 24, Gallup showed Obama and McCain tied at 45% support each (with 10% undecided). But three days later, Gallup showed Obama with a six-point lead, 48% to 42%, and today Obama still leads by six points, 49% to 43%. The Gallup people seem to be claiming that Obama has increased his support while McCain has lost some. However, a look at the history of convention “bounces” would warn against making such an assumption. If history holds true, for example, McCain should enjoy a similar “bounce” after the GOP convention, yet this would not be a valid indicator of a stronger campaign, necessarily, but merely the effect of the focus from the convention. Even within the stable methodology of a well-respected poll, therefore, it is not valid to assume that changes in polling are necessarily indicators of a weaker or stronger election position.
With that said, it is important to consider other polling results. An August 30 release from Zogby, for instance, shows McCain at 47% support and Obama at 45%, at the same time that Gallup showed Obama ahead by six and holding steady support. How can two major polls say different things? Well, part of it is the fact that the variance between the polls is only eight points, which is equivalent to a four-point margin of error between them. If either poll had a respondent pool of 500 people or less, that disparity is within the standard deviation for such polling. That’s the mathematical point. What else needs to be considered, is that even where the same polling group takes polls, because of the randomness of the respondent pool, this means by definition that the people in different polls are not the same ones who answered the earlier poll, and even when conditions are the same and the same careful rules are applied, different people will probably produce different results. Also, as I have noted before, there is a clear bias in favor of or against the people in focus of polls by the polling groups. As a result, a composite of poll results cannot, by its character, produce an accurate or trustworthy result. At best, one of the polls might accurately reflect the opinion at that moment, but even if that is the case, mixing the results from all polls would only insure that the aggregate result was wrong to some degree.
Polls are not effective predictors of elections. The losing candidates of many past general and primary campaigns can point to any number of polls which indicated they would win. A candidate who trusts polls to indicate the precise amount and nature of their public support, is following the path of Tom Dewey. That is not to say, however, that polling is worthless. When a poll follows consistent methodology and asks consistent questions, and weights its demographics according to Census norms and the National Council on Public Polls standards (or the AAPOR), the results can be applied to illustrate trends and voter interest in key issues. Also, while the public is familiar with the polls which get published in their newspapers and favorite news sites, it should be noted that both the Obama and McCain campaigns have paid for private polling firms to identify target demographics and battleground states. Obama has spent almost 19 million dollars on private polling, while McCain has spent about 770 thousand dollars. It would fair to assume, I think, that these agencies are far more detailed in their questions and specific in their target demographics. So it may also be assumed from the amount of money spent, that there is significant confidence in the value of effective polling. The real question, as yet uncertain in its answer, is how to know which questions, which method, and which weighting is valid for the real condition.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Timing
John McCain out-planned Barack Obama. That is the summary of what happened this last week. Senator Obama apparently planned on the normal course of events as he prepared for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. He made a number of assumptions along the way, assumptions which were apparent enough that McCain was able to use them in his own planning. Obama assumed, for example, that a few symbolic gestures would mollify Hillary and her supporters, and that in a short matter of time he would have all but a few of them under his banner, ideally working for his election but at least not working against him. He assumed that McCain would stay out his way during that week, and that he would have not only the convention time but also the weekend after to enjoy the glow of a successful run to the nomination. He assumed that the media, which has been overwhelmingly in his corner all through the year, would make sure the spotlight stayed on Obama. On all three assumptions, Senator McCain took advantage of errors by Obama and played them to his own advantage.
McCain understood that the race was close, but that Obama’s nomination would likely give him a “bounce”, in real terms boosting his lead and making it more and more difficult for McCain to look to undecided voters as someone who could win. Therefore, McCain needed to do something unexpected, something which proved him a viable candidate. Part of this was accomplished through Obama’s double-fumble in selecting his running mate. First, Obama not only did not choose Hillary Clinton for his VP spot, an understandable choice and it is quite unlikely that she would have accepted the offer anyway, but Obama failed to vet her for the short list, and in so doing displayed a lack of respect to Hillary’s 18 million supporters. While it is true that for the most part, those voters will come around and vote for Obama anyway, some will sit out the election because of the way Clinton was treated, and some had already warned they would swing support over to McCain in 2008, in order to give Clinton the best opportunity for 2012. The second fumble was Obama’s selection of Biden, a move which is tactically foolish, because it effectively highlights Obama’s own limitations while gaining nothing among undecided voters. This left the door open for McCain to make significant gains through his own choice, an opportunity which would have been far smaller if Obama had handled his side of the aisle better than he did.
The selection of Sarah Palin is brilliant to a far greater degree than it is risky. Analysis of her credentials has already shown Palin to be strong in many areas, and what areas of weakness she has is matched to a more serious degree on the Democrats’ side. Choosing Palin will probably not win over additional Clinton supporters, but that was not the object – what matters is that McCain has not lost any ground with the Clinton supporters he already held, something the Obama camp is not mentioning, indeed he may not yet understand that fact. The timing of the Palin selection is also significant, having destroyed the Obama publicity campaign intended for this weekend. All the talk is about Palin. And the media, while it leans left most of the time, is now as it always was, about the big story, and Palin is simply a much bigger story than Biden ever could be.
The move is not yet complete, however. McCain gambled a bit of his own attention this week. Hurricane Gustav could steal some attention away from the GOP convention, especially as there is no suspense left about who will be in the VP slot. Having played the first half so well, it remains to be seen how well McCain has planned the second half of the convention operettas.
McCain understood that the race was close, but that Obama’s nomination would likely give him a “bounce”, in real terms boosting his lead and making it more and more difficult for McCain to look to undecided voters as someone who could win. Therefore, McCain needed to do something unexpected, something which proved him a viable candidate. Part of this was accomplished through Obama’s double-fumble in selecting his running mate. First, Obama not only did not choose Hillary Clinton for his VP spot, an understandable choice and it is quite unlikely that she would have accepted the offer anyway, but Obama failed to vet her for the short list, and in so doing displayed a lack of respect to Hillary’s 18 million supporters. While it is true that for the most part, those voters will come around and vote for Obama anyway, some will sit out the election because of the way Clinton was treated, and some had already warned they would swing support over to McCain in 2008, in order to give Clinton the best opportunity for 2012. The second fumble was Obama’s selection of Biden, a move which is tactically foolish, because it effectively highlights Obama’s own limitations while gaining nothing among undecided voters. This left the door open for McCain to make significant gains through his own choice, an opportunity which would have been far smaller if Obama had handled his side of the aisle better than he did.
The selection of Sarah Palin is brilliant to a far greater degree than it is risky. Analysis of her credentials has already shown Palin to be strong in many areas, and what areas of weakness she has is matched to a more serious degree on the Democrats’ side. Choosing Palin will probably not win over additional Clinton supporters, but that was not the object – what matters is that McCain has not lost any ground with the Clinton supporters he already held, something the Obama camp is not mentioning, indeed he may not yet understand that fact. The timing of the Palin selection is also significant, having destroyed the Obama publicity campaign intended for this weekend. All the talk is about Palin. And the media, while it leans left most of the time, is now as it always was, about the big story, and Palin is simply a much bigger story than Biden ever could be.
The move is not yet complete, however. McCain gambled a bit of his own attention this week. Hurricane Gustav could steal some attention away from the GOP convention, especially as there is no suspense left about who will be in the VP slot. Having played the first half so well, it remains to be seen how well McCain has planned the second half of the convention operettas.
Friday, August 29, 2008
High Stakes Veeping
Wow, what a situation. In the last day, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have taken themselves out of the running for McCain’s running mate, and a lot of buzz has started up – again - about Governor Sarah Palin. The trouble is, there are now reports that she’s still in Alaska and the only guy from the field in the vicinity of John McCain is his old buddy, Joe Lieberman.
It’s difficult to imagine a vaster gulf between the two, in the effect they would have on the election. Palin would be a breath-taking choice, a masterful stroke which would be likely to reinvigorate McCain’s campaign and make Obama-Biden look dusty and old just a couple days after it kicked off. It would demonstrate bold leadership and an ability to simultaneously firm up the base and attract a lot of the Hillary supporters still angry at their shameful treatment by the Obama camp. If McCain chooses Lieberman, however, he would do just the opposite, burning bridges with groups he desperately needs in order to win, while doing effectively nothing to attract new support. Choosing Lieberman would prove McCain to be the doddering, out of touch man that Obama’s people say he is. This choice could single-handedly prove Obama right and advance his campaign, or prove McCain’s ability to make bold and unprecedented decisions which move things forward. We will know in a little while whether McCain has been a fool or brilliant, but this is a real high-stakes decision, either way.
It’s difficult to imagine a vaster gulf between the two, in the effect they would have on the election. Palin would be a breath-taking choice, a masterful stroke which would be likely to reinvigorate McCain’s campaign and make Obama-Biden look dusty and old just a couple days after it kicked off. It would demonstrate bold leadership and an ability to simultaneously firm up the base and attract a lot of the Hillary supporters still angry at their shameful treatment by the Obama camp. If McCain chooses Lieberman, however, he would do just the opposite, burning bridges with groups he desperately needs in order to win, while doing effectively nothing to attract new support. Choosing Lieberman would prove McCain to be the doddering, out of touch man that Obama’s people say he is. This choice could single-handedly prove Obama right and advance his campaign, or prove McCain’s ability to make bold and unprecedented decisions which move things forward. We will know in a little while whether McCain has been a fool or brilliant, but this is a real high-stakes decision, either way.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Poll Bias 2008: What the Numbers Say
Back in 2004, I determined a general measure of bias in the Presidential election by polls. I did the same thing for this year, which may be useful in examining the post-Convention stretch. I began by noting the 2-way poll results from Real Clear Politics from January 1 2008 through August 25.
I made a spreadsheet with the name of the group or agency which conducted the poll, the starting and ending dates of the polling, and the results for Obama and McCain. From this information, I drew up another spreadsheet which produced the daily average for the polls. I then compared each poll against the average for the days polled, to see where each poll stood against the average, noting whether Obama or McCain was getting more or less support than the average in a poll. I then was able to apply that information to determine the average bias, the aggregate variance, and essentially the stability of each poll.
I want to stop at this point, and make an observation about the fairness of these polls. As polls make statements which favor Obama or McCain, it is becoming common to see this poll or that dismissed as being unreliable or unbelievable. This is generally unwise, because in examining the polls presented, I was struck by how well, overall, most polls were conducted. While I have concerns about the demographics base used, and the weighting assumptions inherent in modern polling, the conclusions of each poll were consistent with other polls at the same time. Since twenty-six national agencies or groups have conducted national polls used for my research, such consistency indicates a high level of professional standards. However, within that acknowledgment, there were some clear trends and characteristics, which I think are worth mentioning.
As I said, there were twenty-six separate groups or agencies which conducted polls. Of these, six conducted only one or two polls this year (Battleground, McLaughlin, Franklin & Marshall, Ipsos,POS/GQR, and NPR). Accordingly, I have not considered these groups for the purposes of comparative bias.
That leaves another twenty groups, however, which have conducted a measurable pattern in their polls. For this report, I will note the five polls which most favor Obama, the five which are least favorable to Obama, the five which are most favorable to McCain, the five which are least favorable to McCain, and the five which are, as an aggregate, the least likely to be off the average measure for that date. I would like to emphasize that bias is used here not as an attack on the poll’s integrity or veracity, but simply marks a tendency likely to continue in future polls between now and the election. It remains to be seen which of these polls will prove the most accurate in the final measure.
Here are the top five in each of the five categories, then:
Obama Favorable
1. ABC News/Washington Post (+3.33 pts)
2. CNN (+3.00 pts)
3. Quinnipiac (+1.97 pts)
4. Pew Research (+1.54 pts)
5. USA Today/Gallup (+0.92 pts)
Obama Unfavorable
1. Investor Business Daily/TP (-2.80 pts)
2. FOX News (-2.30 pts)
3. Cook/RT Strategy (-2.28 pts)
4. Hotline/FD (-1.62 pts)
5. LA Times/Bloomberg (1.26 pts)
McCain Favorable
1. Democracy Corps (+3.27 pts)
2. USA Today/Gallup (+2.83 pts)
3. Rasmussen (+1.89 pts)
4. CNN (+1.51 pts)
5. ABC News/Washington Post (+1.40 pts)
McCain Unfavorable
1. Investor Business Daily/TP (-4.55 pts)
2. CBS News (-2.80 pts)
3. Hotline/FD (-1.88)
4. Quinnipiac (-1.57 pts)
5. Time (-1.40 pts)
Aggregate Stability
1. NBC News/Wall Street Journal (1.81 avg total variance)
2. AP-Ipsos (2.06 avg total variance)
3. Gallup (2.17 avg total variance)
4. Pew Research (2.40 avg total variance)
5. CBS News/NY Times (2.53 avg total variance)
I will let the reader draw his/her own conclusions, after making three suggestions:
1. Notice which groups are favorable or unfavorable to both Obama and McCain
2. Aggregate Stability is a near-unknown quality, but represents a reason to have great confidence in a poll. If a poll does not miss the average by very much, it represents a reliable place for quick vitals.
3. Most of the variance shown is within the standard deviation for the population base used in the polling.
I made a spreadsheet with the name of the group or agency which conducted the poll, the starting and ending dates of the polling, and the results for Obama and McCain. From this information, I drew up another spreadsheet which produced the daily average for the polls. I then compared each poll against the average for the days polled, to see where each poll stood against the average, noting whether Obama or McCain was getting more or less support than the average in a poll. I then was able to apply that information to determine the average bias, the aggregate variance, and essentially the stability of each poll.
I want to stop at this point, and make an observation about the fairness of these polls. As polls make statements which favor Obama or McCain, it is becoming common to see this poll or that dismissed as being unreliable or unbelievable. This is generally unwise, because in examining the polls presented, I was struck by how well, overall, most polls were conducted. While I have concerns about the demographics base used, and the weighting assumptions inherent in modern polling, the conclusions of each poll were consistent with other polls at the same time. Since twenty-six national agencies or groups have conducted national polls used for my research, such consistency indicates a high level of professional standards. However, within that acknowledgment, there were some clear trends and characteristics, which I think are worth mentioning.
As I said, there were twenty-six separate groups or agencies which conducted polls. Of these, six conducted only one or two polls this year (Battleground, McLaughlin, Franklin & Marshall, Ipsos,POS/GQR, and NPR). Accordingly, I have not considered these groups for the purposes of comparative bias.
That leaves another twenty groups, however, which have conducted a measurable pattern in their polls. For this report, I will note the five polls which most favor Obama, the five which are least favorable to Obama, the five which are most favorable to McCain, the five which are least favorable to McCain, and the five which are, as an aggregate, the least likely to be off the average measure for that date. I would like to emphasize that bias is used here not as an attack on the poll’s integrity or veracity, but simply marks a tendency likely to continue in future polls between now and the election. It remains to be seen which of these polls will prove the most accurate in the final measure.
Here are the top five in each of the five categories, then:
Obama Favorable
1. ABC News/Washington Post (+3.33 pts)
2. CNN (+3.00 pts)
3. Quinnipiac (+1.97 pts)
4. Pew Research (+1.54 pts)
5. USA Today/Gallup (+0.92 pts)
Obama Unfavorable
1. Investor Business Daily/TP (-2.80 pts)
2. FOX News (-2.30 pts)
3. Cook/RT Strategy (-2.28 pts)
4. Hotline/FD (-1.62 pts)
5. LA Times/Bloomberg (1.26 pts)
McCain Favorable
1. Democracy Corps (+3.27 pts)
2. USA Today/Gallup (+2.83 pts)
3. Rasmussen (+1.89 pts)
4. CNN (+1.51 pts)
5. ABC News/Washington Post (+1.40 pts)
McCain Unfavorable
1. Investor Business Daily/TP (-4.55 pts)
2. CBS News (-2.80 pts)
3. Hotline/FD (-1.88)
4. Quinnipiac (-1.57 pts)
5. Time (-1.40 pts)
Aggregate Stability
1. NBC News/Wall Street Journal (1.81 avg total variance)
2. AP-Ipsos (2.06 avg total variance)
3. Gallup (2.17 avg total variance)
4. Pew Research (2.40 avg total variance)
5. CBS News/NY Times (2.53 avg total variance)
I will let the reader draw his/her own conclusions, after making three suggestions:
1. Notice which groups are favorable or unfavorable to both Obama and McCain
2. Aggregate Stability is a near-unknown quality, but represents a reason to have great confidence in a poll. If a poll does not miss the average by very much, it represents a reliable place for quick vitals.
3. Most of the variance shown is within the standard deviation for the population base used in the polling.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Clowns and Commerce
As often happens in these things, we are told that this election is about the economy. That’s no surprise, people often vote by how they feel about their jobs and homes and savings, and wrap the candidate they support in expectations that he will somehow make a difference for the better. The problem with that, is that very few elected officials have any effective idea how the economy works, much less how their actions will influence its behavior. The United States’ economy is a multi-trillion dollar economy, with thousands of job categories and descriptions in industries spanning historical classics to new types created within the past decade. The historical record shows that the government can damage the economy through excessive taxation or neglect of strategic needs, but as a rule government cannot help the economy except by reducing, as much as possible, its footprint upon it. The candidate, therefore, who promises to create jobs or revive the economy through government programs is a liar and a fool, and a poison to the nation he wants to control.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
