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Hi Jane

Good morning Jane -

Interesting.

Polling as a concept has been pissing me off ever since I began voting. Polling is easily manipulated and I don’t think that anyone can argue that it does not sway the vote. Just another way of manipulating the electorate rigging elections.

Thanks for turning off the screeching iPod ads. :)

wow, thanks Jane!

just the other day, I listened to Zogby. He was explaining/defending his polling methods, and it sure sounded like he, in effect, works backwards; deciding what the result was (by feel?) and then weighting the variables to support the predetermined opinion.

What is the average error value?

What time does the senate get started with FISA?

I think people are yanking the chains of pollsters a bit these days and in this particular race changing their minds, that is undecideds who answer when they are … undecided.

FISA backwards is AS IF hmmmmmm The world upside down?

Just as I always suspected. Gallup is basically honest. Zogby is basically DIShonest. Similar to ID “scientists”, you start with a result and then collect data to prove it.

Ron Paul tips his hand for the general election:

Paul, a Texas congressman, said he will not back McCain if he is the party’s nominee unless the Arizona senator “has a lot of change of heart.”

“I cannot support anybody with the foreign policy he advocates, you know, perpetual war. That is just so disturbing to me,” Paul said in a Monday telephone interview. “I think it’s un-American, unconstitutional, immoral and not Republican.”

-G

Just as I always suspected. Gallup is basically honest. Zogby is basically DIShonest. Similar to ID “scientists”, you start with a result and then collect data to prove it.

and top it off with a dollop of self fulfilling prophecy

SUSA looks like they are the titans.

Zogby and ARG are in the bottom of the barrel.

-G

Fisa starts at 10am E

thanks for the heads up on FISA

I think people are yanking the chains of pollsters a bit these days […]

Yuh know, I guess this sort of fibbing to pollsters has always gone on to some extent. And I imagine the pollsters have developed mechanisms take it into account. But, if folks start doing it at an unprecedentedly high level, it seems to me that could blow the predictions totally out of the water. One does have to wonder if this isn’t what’s going on.

Good morning pups. Today is Donna Edwards’ big day. Go Donna!

Not to mention the LA Times, Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon, polls I see quoted ubiquitously.

Jane:

Check your email in a few..

polls I see quoted ubiquitously

Hmmm…is that good english?

Wish we had an editor.

Side note…interesting article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t…..346386.ece

There must be money in polling, just who pays these guy’s?

Nothing wrong with ubiquitously. It does mean what I think you think it means. ;=)

The neo-con fetish of perpetual war is straight from Leo Strauss. McCain may not be a Straussian, but, if he indeed likes war as an end in itself, probably absorbed Strauss’s ideas indirectly through others.

http://newhumanist.org.uk/1463

Oh yes there is… lots of money. Focus groups and so forth are used for product launches.

Yeah, I know, but I wasn’t sure if it was appropriately used in that context,

I’ve since come to embrace it.

It’s important to note the change in polling accuracy since the use of computer voting machines. Canada’s exit polling still works as does other countries that don’t use ballotless, non transparent machines.

Exit polling is one of the tools used by people like Jimmy Carter when monitoring elections in other countries. Of course, we turned back efforts by election monitoring organizations when it came to our own last two presidential elections.

Think of it this way.

It’s advertising research.

Here’s a link to a good piece about the ‘04 election and exit polls. They are still accurate when paper ballots are used and not counted on optical scan machines:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=907

Why should we assume that the exit polls are wrong and not the machines?

I belive in Pollsters. I do not believe in Diebold Machines.

First: I would guess that some Candidates do not Like Caucusses because it is very hard to Cheat at a Caucus, as it is done in the light of day, and there are no Diebold machines with no paper trail which can be hacked into at caucusses. That is why California responsibily got rid of their Diebold Machines because they have courageously admitted that they are susceptible to Hacking!

Second: Blue-collar workers, teachers, etc., do not work on Saturday or Sunday, so that is not an acceptable excuse for why the Clintons said they do not do good at caucusess.

Third: Blue-collar workers and teachers are Also for Obama, as are some Latinos, women, etc., because Obama, a unifier, is for all of the People!

Interesting that the top four are all within a .33 band, and then the gap between numbers 4 and 5 is a whopping 1.44.

…am guessing my astrological charts are more accurate than the polls…ahem