By now most of the savvy readers of this site know that yet another round of Presidential polls has been released, which still have Bush ahead, although by varying margins. I have no idea how accurate any of them are, so I will offer no opinion, but… in the time-honored tradition of “all politics is local”… I was amused by the following pull from the new ABC-WaPo Poll:
The poll was conducted by telephone Sept. 23 to 26 among 1,204 randomly selected adults nationwide, including 969 self-identified registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
Only 1204 in three or four days? In the less than twenty-four hours the site survey at the top of the page has been going on, we already have well over 3000 responses! Maybe I should have thrown in a question on the Presidency, but given the tenor of the answers I’ve seen so far, I have a strong suspicion the incumbent would do pretty well (like an unprecedented landslide). I will publish the results when we’re done, probably over the weekend.
Roger:
I wondered at that myself. You know they have a system they use, once that is established how hard can it be?
But then again probably half the people they call hang up on them or won’t pick up in the first place.
Caller ID is probably hell on polsters.
I think Bush is pulling ahead and I think the Dems can largely thank themselves for that.
For instance I was yelled at by someone called John Clayton on this very blog because I was saying Gore was a lunatic. I mean really, is there any question? He is like a poster child for what ails the party. Sad but true.
“Only 1204″? What, I have to make stuff up for you AND ABC?
If- please note I wrote ìifî not ìwhenî- Kerry wins the election after polls showed him trailing, hereís what the experts will say Wednesday morning: the polls were off because so many people who donít have phones or who only use cell phones were motivated to vote, and they mostly voted for the Democrat.
And Terrye, I didnít mean to yell at you. But calling someone a lunatic because of what he might have done after 9-11 doesnít score points with anyone who watched President Bush pull out from the hunt for Osama Fifth Group Special Forces. Fifth Group had Pashtu speakers who had learned the culture and earned the trust of tribal leaders essential to hunting down Al Qaida in eastern Afghanistan. Instead, they were yanked out of Afghanistan and sent to Iraq to hunt for Saddam because the President was embarrassed that Saddam was thumbing his nose at us. So whatever Gore might have done, he didnít invade the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. And he didnít pull out the men who were the only ones fighting the real killers who attacked us on 9-11.
ech – I was going to say something but think it is about to be drowned out anyway.
Well, here goes… does anyone have any opinion on this big Dem effort for voter registration and how that may effect the elction compared to what the polls say today?
And Terry – thanks again for you answer in a previous post.
John Clayton:
anyone who watched President Bush pull out from the hunt for Osama Fifth Group Special Forces.
I assume you watched this. Are you in the special forces? Just askin’.
John Clayton:
Why would an entire Special Forces Group be hunting a man who is already dead?
Seriously:
1) ELEMENTS of the 5th Special Forces Group may have been re-deployed, but I will guaranty you that the whole group was never deployed all at once anywhere – it just doesn’t work like that.
2) How long had they been looking to no avail? I can’t believe that, absent a huge stroke of luck, merely wandering around the mountains of Afghanistan is going to turn up one man. First, I think that there is at least a 60% chance that he is singing with the choir invisible, as my old Property Prof would say. I can’t prove that, but it’s a strong gut feeling based on his ego and the lack of a credible video, as well as the lack of any credible sightings, even stale ones. Second, if he is alive, we’ll only get him when he slips up. The best way to encourage that is to say that he’s dead and force him to release a plausible video tape. I don’t think that Bush should say Osama’s dead – absent Osama’s head on a pike he’d be excoriated as a liar – and with the head he’d be pilloried for violations of international law (then he’d have to get his international lawyer Jim (Baker)) – but the rest of us should say it. With a little luck, he’ll either prove us right or try to prove us wrong.
PS Typekey is still all messed up
John Clayton: “If- please note I wrote ìifî not ìwhenî- Kerry wins the election after polls showed him trailing, hereís what the experts will say Wednesday morning: the polls were off because so many people who donít have phones or who only use cell phones were motivated to vote, and they mostly voted for the Democrat.”
The problem with this theory, John, is that the age group most likely to be using cell phones are the 18-30 year olds, and they’re supporting Bush over Kerry by the biggest margin of any age group!
Some internals of the Gallup poll via Power Line:
Younger voters, 18-30, have lower levels of unfavorable ratings than all other age groups toward Bush (33%, compared to 52% favorable). They support Bush over Kerry by the widest margin of any age cohort (53-41).
For people 18-30 (regarding Bush): Approve somewhat+approve strongly= 54. Disapprove somewhat+disapprove strongly=39.
John Kerry’s lowest favorable rating comes from 18-30 year olds (33%).
Young people are the most satisfied (58-41) with the way things are going of any age group (overall, it is 49-49).
Young people trust Bush over Kerry by the widest margins of any age group (60-33).
Same with terrorism (59-35).
Same with “Strong leader” (65-25).
Same with “make the country more safe and secure” (60-31).
Same with “qualified to be commander in chief” (60-37).
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
Good grief, John Clayton, “…the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.”?
Does Terry McCauliffe also do your laundry when he stops by on Mondays?
Lookit, the area in the White Mountains where bin Laden was last spotted is incredibly vast. It is honeycombed with 1,000-year-old smuggler’s trails. It is forbiddingly remote, with a 2,400-mile border with Pakistan that is impossible to seal off. Remember: the Red Army couldn’t do it with over 100,000 troops.
Nor was a quarantine of such an area ever feasible. Here is a portion of an article in that noted right-wing London paper, The Guardian, from a strangely saner time on the Left, Sept. 24, 2001:
“Some things are impossible. Seal the border with Afghanistan? How pat it sounds from Pentagon wizards who can’t even seal off Mexico. The plain fact, from Chitral to Taftan, is that there is no border, only thousands of miles of mountains and desert. You can close a few crossing points but you can’t make a wilderness non-porous – especially when what human life there is, the life of the tribe, swills back and forth, bound together by a history and a tradition that guards its independence against all interlopers whether they wear British, Russian, American or Pakistani army uniforms.
As for Al Gore, I seriously doubt he would have done anything beyond going to the United Nations after September 11th and begging for France’s permission to spit dates over their airspace. But in any case, as Terrye said, Gore has plainly gone round the bend since then. He isn’t fit to run a Cub Scout pack.
I have to second Chuck’s skepticism about your knowledge of military affairs. Do you really have any idea what you are talking about? Doesn’t sound like it to me.
I went through this whole poll thing when Dole was running against Clinton in 96, disbelieving them then realizing in the end that they were pretty accurate. Zogby is very good. These people know what they are doing and unless they are intentionally trying to weight it, they are generally very accurate.
And Gore is looney, btw. That is also highly accurate.
Seeing a looney Gore is scary, given how close we came.
Seeing the “I’m a war hero when I’m not helping the enemy” Kerry out there is scarier.
Armchair generals are always saying this or that (myself included).
As far as wrong country, blah blah, we are fighting a war, not just a manhunt. Iraq is one campaign. Afghanistan is another. There is an important but quiet one in the Sahel desert, and there are others. In any war, disposition of assets is an issue.
Imagine Saddam in power now, the sanctions functioning just enough to keep the bribes flowing, the nuclear and missile systems coming in from Pakistan and a Libya which didn’t see a good reason to roll over, the organophosphate “pesticide” factories turning out VX, the Bacillus thuringensis plant turning out weapons grade anthrax by the ton, the botulin toxin being amplified and purified. The terrorists dancing around with vials of all this stuff.
Yep, wrong country, wrong time. Much better to chase the ghost of one rich Saudi of health ranging from dead to near dead in some of the toughest country on earth, rather than letting the folks in that country, who received quite an ultimatum on 9/13/2001, do the job.
TypeKey is terrible at the moment.
Roger,
So how long before popular blogs such as yours, which can identify readers (if not personally, at least as the same person as before) become the de facto, trusted polling source? Wouldn’t take much to set up, not now at least.
Roger,
It’s pretty tough to get the correct mix required for an accurate poll by phone these days.
In 1996, I worked for a major polling organization, and even then, trying to get over 1,000 responses over a three day period was very tough.
Today, no one answers their phone, have voicemail, or or not just interested.