Just when you think it’s over. . .
I have to prognosticate tomorrow night at the NLT Gala Bloggers Confab, and this morning brought news from the Wall Street Journal and Zogby-Reuters that Obama has jumped out to a double-digit lead. It feels that way to me: that 100,000 person rally Obama had in St. Louis the other day was remarkable. I’m pressed to recall a campaign rally that big before.
But then this afternoon AP has the race dead even. It is hard to tell from the text of the story why this poll is so different from the others, except for the little detail that they randomly called cell phone numbers. I do know that the increasing use of cell phones is a huge methodological problem for pollsters who are used to landline-only calling. But you’d think cell phone users would tilt toward Obama, wouldn’t you? In any case, the story doesn’t give us enough to go on. But these two polls can’t both be within a correct margin of error.
STEVE, ignore Lawler's morbid defeatism. This race is neck and neck. Catholics are split, and Wright is going to make a brief cameo before this race is concluded. Pennsylvania is in play, as evidenced by Rendell pleading with Obama to campaign in the Commonwealth, and lastly Joe the plumber has successfully called into question Obama's economic agenda.
Anybody who says this is over either wants it to be over, for they're in bed with Obama's campaign, or, they don't know what they're talking about.
The smart and savvy take right now about this race is that it can still break, and break DECISIVELY, either way. Not just is it possible for McCain to eke out a narrow win, it's still possible for him to decisively defeat Obama. If Pennsylvania goes for the GOP.........................
It's not over 'til it's over. McCain might still pull this off or the Dems blow it. I refuse to accept a majority of Americans will vote for Obama.
If its any comfort, in the opinion section of the WSJ, Michael Barone's article is about the art of reading polls.
Academic pollsters say that to get a really random sample, you should go back to a designated respondent in a specific household time and again until you get a response. But political pollsters who must report results overnight have to take the respondents they can reach. So they weight the results of respondents in different groups to get a sample that approximates the whole population they're sampling.
Yes, cell-phone use is higher among the young. But, how did the pollsters get the numbers and how did their numbers come up on the cell phone screens? Who responds to unknown numbers on cell phones, anyway? The culture of cell phones, is so different than the phone use of my youth. I still can't get over being out walking in the woods with my phone in my pocket and "I hear music and there's no one there," I do hope that after Nov. 4, it's not too much of a new world. Change for the better is always appealing. The other sort, oh, so much less so.
Dan, it really does have to be a decisive defeat of Obama, or we are likely to have a nasty time of it. Too many people trust polls over electoral college results.
The reason that one poll has Obama and Mccain tied neck and neck is because the number of people in that poll who said that they consider themselves as evangelicals was 45%. That is double the percentage of people in this country who actually are evangelicals. (In 2004 evangelicals made up 23% of the electorate). That is why that poll has McCain and Obama tied. The poll itself had major flaws.
You can see that percentage on page 20 of this pdf. PDF of the poll
I’m pressed to recall a campaign rally that big before.
There was a John Kerry rally that big in downtown Cleveland the day before the 2004 election. Hate to draw that kind of comparison, but . . .
"But you’d think cell phone users would tilt toward Obama, wouldn’t you?"
Only if all of the homeless people, illegal immigrants and fictional characters ACORN has been “helping” to register were answering their cell phones when that poll was taken.
Leah,
If you look at question DM15, the religious breakdowns, they look pretty reflective of the US demographic. Perhaps responders got confused about being asked if they were born again? Nonetheless, DM15 tells me that there is not a religious bias to the poll.
Writing from Colorado --
McCain looks like toast to me. He's not led in any statewide poll for several weeks. And Obama's going to attempt to exceed the 100k turnout at a rally in Denver Sunday.
Then again, you wonder why the Dems are pushing so hard for people to vote early. I mean it's relentless. If they've got nothing to worry about, why bother?
You think they're afraid of an October Surprise, or that fears of a unified government under Obama/Reid/Pelosi will finally sink in and push voters in McCain's direction in the closing days?
Why is Obama pushing so hard in the last two weeks? Is he really afraid of an "October surprise?" I hope all of us really, really listen to what the troika, Pelosi, Reid, Obama and all those liberal, illuminati socialists are saying. They're going to destroy this country with their agenda.