Return of the Bradley Effect: What if ALL the Polls Are Wrong?
Many of us oldsters remember the Bradley Effect. Back in ye olde 1982, Tom Bradley, the longtime popular mayor of Los Angeles, a nice affable fellow in my recollection, ran for California governor against a fairly faceless guy named George Deukmejian. Most of the polls — including exit polls — showed Bradley with a significant lead. But Deukmejian won, narrowly.
This was all put down to a form of covert racism. People didn’t want to admit they wouldn’t vote for a black man. As an ex-civil rights worker, I remember being hugely depressed by Bradley’s defeat.
Times have changed. These days the significant racism emanates mainly from atrocious reactionary bigots and race baiters of the Al Sharpton ilk.
But the Bradley Effect has resurfaced dramatically in a different manner in the Wisconsin recall vote. The polls — and, yes, the exit polls as well – were showing Scott Walker in a narrow victory. But he won beyond anyone’s prediction.
Apparently, the silent majority of Wisconsin voters didn’t want to admit to nosy pollsters and anyone else that might be listening that they were opposed to runaway unions, runaway spending, or the Democratic administration. They just wanted to cast their votes. And they did.
This Bradley Effect, then, is not like the Bradley Effect of yore. It’s about race to some degree, but I suspect there are much larger components of being fed up with elites of all sorts, interest groups, media groups, union groups, all sorts of groups telling the average citizen what he should and shouldn’t think, openly or covertly threatening to ostracize him or her for not going along with the pervasive liberal status quo. This was a cry of “Ya, basta!”
So if I were a member of the Democratic Party this morning, if I were David Axelrod and his team of so-called wise men, I would be wondering – what if all the polls are wrong? What if this is true across the entire country?
Even if these polls are wrong by three or four points in only a handful of states, the results of the coming election could be disastrous for the Democrats. Romney could win in a walk and bring a Republican House and Senate with him. And then, if the economy revives….
You can bet that many Democratic politicians are scratching their heads. Is it time to desert Barack Obama before it’s too late? (Bill Clinton evidently did long ago.) How many of them are suddenly going to be going Blue Dog?
(Surprisingly, Charles Krauthammer, of all people, missed the point on Fox when he pointed to Obama’s nine-point lead in Wisconsin exit polls as indication the state would not be in play in the presidential election. It was those same exit polls that said the recall election would be close.)
And needless to say, the mainstream media are going to be doing mental cartwheels, trying to think of ways to spin this. It’s not going to be easy. The sons and daughters of Grub Street are going to have to explain away a horrendous economy. They invented Barack Obama (quite literally); now they are going to have to live with him.
And make no mistake about it — this election was only partly about Wisconsin. It was about the state of the nation. All eyes were glued on it.
Sure, people are tired of public sector unions holding the taxpayer hostage. Why wouldn’t they be? But they’re tired of a lot more than that. This is only the beginning.
I discussed this in my least-remembered and most embarrassing but in some ways favorite essay, from October 2008, in which I questioned whether John McCain might win anyway despite atrocious polling in the final weeks before the election. Back then I wrote:
Exit polling, where the pollster has to approach a voter in person, seems particularly susceptible to the subconscious bias you describe. A co-worker was amazed by the exit pollster he encountered in 2000. She didn’t seem to accept that a non white immigrant with a heavy accent hadn’t voted for Gore. He wondered is she hadn’t stopped him as opposed to his neighbor because she had profiled him as a Gore voter based on his appearance.
You may also like this anecdote from a telephone poll. A candidate I worked with in a state senate race in the early 90s tried to get a handle on his name recognition six or seven months before the election. He used several volunteers-mostly recent college graduates in the local Young Republican club- and a careful script to make a couple of hundred random phone calls. The callers were coached to be as neutral as possible. The results showed him beating the long time incumbent! It seemed most of those who picked up the phone quickly picked up on the enthusiasm in the voices at his name and told the callers exactly what they wanted to hear in what was to most at that early date a zero interest race. Come November he got trounced.
All survey design courses, and surveys are polls, warn about the bias problem. Usually, they recommend asking the question two ways with implied bias from opposite points. Political polls are not nearly so carefully designed.
It’s also a consequence of the tactics the “progressives” are using. If you’re response to anyone who disagrees with you is to scream and call them names, you shouldn’t be surprised that they start telling you what they think you want to hear so you will leave them alone. But in the privacy of the voting booth, people are free to be honest.
I expect any day now to hear about some new research that suggests that the secret ballot is inherently racially discriminatory and must be abolished…
Yes, the threat of physical violence, intimidation, and the massive power of The State being arrayed against against an individual ( remember Obama’s “joke” about IRS audits? ) does make for circumspection in political discourse. As a result, I believe there truly is a “silent majority” whose presence will not be reflected in the polls, but whose actions will be more than evident after November.
I hate to be the cold water in the face guy, but though Walker won (congratulations as the best man won) the language twisters of big media, including Fox News, also won. They continue, in spite of all concrete evidence to the contrary, to maintain that collective bargaining for government employees is a “right” when it is really a special privilege that can be revoked at the will of the people. Shame on Wallace and Baier.
thank you for speaking the truth
How many door-to-door pollers take their forms at the start of the day, get driven to the starting point, and then retire to a park bench or a bar and fill out all the paperwork at their leisure?
Heisenberg Uncertainty principle.
It is true that the humanities are dominated by social democrats (the soft left) and Leninists (the hard left), but I wouldn’t discount traditional hatred of the money power (i.e., antisemitism) and just as important, the stage of life in young adults. They have been separating from adult authority since at least puberty, and are fodder for any demagogue who can justify their anger at their parents (for bossing them, favoring siblings, neglecting them, etc.). Add to that a big dose of primitivism (encouraged by popular culture since at least the 1920s and probably earlier). I tried to write about what real Marxist theorists wanted in the 19th century here: http://clarespark.com/2011/10/10/populist-catharsis-on-wall-street/. On youthful angst and nihilism, see http://clarespark.com/2012/05/15/progressive-uplift-vs-new-left-nihilism/.
I have a similar view, and as I read your comment I agree with you. I assert the same bias of pollster and reaction of the polled, not to the nature of whom they hire to take polls, but to the nature of the companies that conduct polls. News organizations. NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, CBS/New York Times poll…
I wonder if Gallup, Neilson, Pew get a different response? But I think they are also different in quality of pollster.
“Most embarassing”? I hate to say it, but I remember that one very clearly, Zombie, and how I wished you were right! Still, I remember it being very thorough. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
Roger, might I correct you.
It’s not the Silent Majority it’s now the Ignored Majority.
And I think they are just a little tired of being Ignored. (See the Tea Party for a complete explaination.)
And that’s another thing, Pundits everywhere are doing Pretzle Logic and Multiple Mental Gyrations to avoid mentioning the Tea Party in any of the analysis of the outcome of this election.
Well said.
Well said, indeed.
Tactically and strategically, I’m in favor of the MSM continuing their Tea Party blackout. If the ordinary Dem voter remains blissfully ignorant, he is less likely to exert himself to the extent of contributing cash and turning out and voting. The government of Japan did this to its population during WW II with the result that a great many Japanese civilians thought they were winning the war right up until the atom bombs were dropped and the Missouri showed up in Tokyo Bay. By all means maximize the looks of stunned incredulity on Nov. 6.
Yup. Less crowing on our side would be a good idea, but some people live more for the pleasure of the moment than for the long-term good.
That’s characteristic of the left, but we have plenty of them on our side, too.
No worries. They aren’t reading this, not listening to us, on any level. This bad habit extends to the top, no dissenting voices, no reasoned analysis, no understanding of what is in our minds, hearts.
The leftist net is various echo chambers, not a single spot, not a single writer shows a sophisticated understanding of modern conservatives. The angry caricatures represent what they actually think. It is what they hear, read, are told by the media, who share the same limited views and input.
Think of Pelosi’s dumbfoundedness upon being asked about the constitutionality of the individual mandate?
Turtles all the way down.
They certainly don’t get the Tea party, don’t see the significance of it. They genuinely think it is just racism.
They actually believe this.
The media in being blinded and focused, truly biased from being ultimately closed and uninformed will serve to leave them shocked at what happens. They are totally unprepared.
I am very optimistic today, we all should be.
We know the adversary. We understand everything about them.
They don’t. They have no clue.
I think Roger is spot on here, this is just another round.
Still the beginning.
Good points, Jim. We have cause to be optimistic, but we need to avoid complacency like the plague.
I’m loving how everyone on the left from Md. Gov. O’Malley to Sgt. Ed Schultz of msdnc are predicting the impending indictment of Gov.Walker on criminal charges. It really is getting harder to determine who is leading whom these days, the dems or th(i)e(r) lapdog media.
Are you sure that isn’t the media and their lapdog Democrats??
Are polls EVER right? Even when they get a general trend right, the quantities are invariably wrong. I’m not sure why anyone actually believes them any more.
Scott Rasmussen has a very good track record. He called Obama a week out within 0.3% because he samples 1,500 likely voters daily representing the actual party affiliation. He asks simple questions offering a range of answers.
For example: Do you approve of Obama’s handling of the economy?
1. Strongly approve
2. Somewhat approve
3. Neutral
4. Somewhat disapprove
5. Strongly disapprove
I distrust any poll conducted by the main stream media.
Rasmussen also robo-polls to remove the factor of interviwer bias. Ras does not use human pollsters.
Approve vs. diapprove is only a PART of the story. What pollsters usually (always?) seem to miss is WHY people disapprove or approve.
For example, Bush’s low approval numbers were part leftist hate, and a LARGE part conservative disgust.
That didn’t get surveyed or reported, quite deliberately.
Roger, I’m surprised you didn’t use the ‘to be fair’ caveat in your article. To be fair, many people felt electing a black president was important. They still do- and worry over it’s significance could be lost. So they say they support Obama to keep the historical event alive and will vote against him because… he wasn’t ever qualified to be president in the first place and he’s proved it spectacularly. To be fair, that is.
I can’t help wondering if, in Wisconsin at least, we weren’t seeing the Bradley Effect but the Ortega Effect — the unwillingness of prospective voters to court the wrath of vindictive and violent Leftist forces. (We might also call this the Saddam Effect, except that he never lost an election…supposedly.) Voters with self-protection in mind might tell pollsters, whose actual loyalties and chains-of-report they could not know, whatever was most likely to keep the union goons off their doorsteps.
I thought the same thing – this may be the result of the Thug effect. Maybe people don’t want to make themselves a target for ugly threats and intimidation. WI citizens have witnessed serious threats against Walker and his family. And the coup de grace may well have been the mailers identifying one’s voting record or donations along with those of their neighbors.
And it’s not just Wisconsin. Here’s a recent example of voter intimidation from New Mexico:
“Officials with the Taos Police Department say they are still working to get to the bottom of the alleged beating of a Taos landowner over the removal of [Democrat] political signs from in front of his property.”
The man removed signs that Democrat thugs put on his property without permission. And he was beaten.
whatever was most likely to keep the union goons off their doorsteps.
Particularly after those creepy targeted mailings from the leftist ‘Greater Wisconsin Political Fund’, showing neighbors’ names and addresses and voting histories, and declaring that you are being watched.
There’s another factor – how many people refuse to participate in any poll whatsoever? I know I don’t. A good percentage of the “polls” are actually political “push polls”, which is more a form of advertising than anything else. Thank goodness for caller ID. If we don’t recognize the number, we don’t answer. If it’s important, they can leave a message.
Pollsters calling your home can easily associate your responses to your phone number. Go on Google and enter your phone number and you’ll get not only the name but the address and even a map to your home. Sorry, but I refuse to play.
Add in the factor that millions of people have dropped their landlines, which can skew the poll’s demographics.
Definitely. I’ve also noticed that at least among my circle the people who are the most eager to tell you their opinion on things tend to be left leaning, which would slant things quite a bit if it’s a widespread pattern.
Aside from the possibility of actual trace-backs or consequences that way, I think most people are conditioned to think what they like in private but say what’s popular. Even on something like Facebook, someone posts a left-leaning article and it racks up likes but usually an article touting a more conservative viewpoint brings out snarky retorts or it’s simply ignored.
Exactly. The ugly thuggishness of the Left is showing a lot lately. Because they have no argument anymore. There next tactic will be to take away the secret ballot.
Do the words ‘Card Check’ come to mind?
I think the thug effect was definitely in play. Regardless of whether WI is currently a blue state or a red state or a purple state, I think the public unions now showed the average WI citizen something he had never seen before.
I have little doubt a lot of WI people already thought public unions were feeding at the trough for quite a while, etc, but the average person let it slide for various reasons. But when the public unions and big-government people put it in your face like that and take over the capitol building for weeks and make death threats and cost the state millions of dollars to do a recall, etc, that’s going to tick even some Democrats off.
I think the poll about “when should a recall be done” also tells a good part of the tale. 70% said either a recall should only be done for criminal behavior, or done never.
In short, the loud lefties made a lot of noise to get everyone’s attention, and the silent majority finally gave them their attention.
You also have plain old liberal laziness. The local lib reporter / pollster hops in his / her van in Madison or Milwaukee and drives how far? To a nice local neighborhood? Certainly not out to the nasty outer suburbs and commuter towns. That would be crazy.
Exactly. The last thing I want is for the Leftist Thug activists to be able to place my house on a map. The California Prop 8 reaction drove that home to me, “don’t oppose us because we know where you live!”
I don’t even give any political information on social networks. I don’t want the abuse.
This happened in Nicaragua in the ’80′s. Polls showed the Sandinistas getting re-elected but they lost. Fear of the Sandinista block watch people may have been a factor. Voter intimidation by Democrats was blatant in WI. Obama’s lousy primary results are certainly at odds with the polls. Will the Marxists create a national emergency Obama can use to cancel the elections? What would Lenin or Van Jones do?
Soros’ recent speech predicted a dominos style meltdown from Europe beginning in September. He said only three months left to correct the situation, but he didn’t think it would or could be. Being instrumental in it, he certaily knows.
Given a huge international crisis which infects the U.S. intolerably, THE ONE can most certainly make a move like all his much revered antecedents did. That’s when Americans will discover what 50 years of teaching children not to win has wrought.
Its not that Soros is incorrect, but realize that Soros is a socialist and bangs the “doom” drum to push for a bigger federal Europe. Up to Germans whether they are foolish enough to step in front from the tsunami-debt train and get squashed like the rest.
Even if such an emergency or crisis were to occur before November, the general election will still go forward and whoever wins it will be the next President of the United States.
That is what living under the “rule of law” means.
Even if oBummer were to declare some sort of “national emergency” sometime this year, it wouldn’t make any difference in the events to take place on January 20, 2013. The voters will decide if he gets another four years (and God help us if he does) or if its President Romney who is sworn in that day.
And if he were to somehow prevent the electoral college from voting, Speaker Boehner will show up at the White House on January 20 declaring himself Acting President under the provisions of the 20th Amendment as enforced by the Presidential Succession Act, until a validly elected President or Vice President can be sworn in.
Do keep in mind that while the President is commander in chief of our armed forces every military officer swears to obey every lawful order and more importantly to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
Should the Obama team attempt any such funny business they would find themselves overwhelmed by large numbers of very polite but heavily armed soldiers there to “aid” their transition out of control of the country.
Walkers landslide victory in Wisconsin is a complete repudiation of Obama and his socialist policies. Will we see a big rally on Wall Street on Walkers victory?
I think that happened this afternoon!
Of course the polls are wrong. No one in their right mind will accurately state what they really think, and open themselves up to some shrieking Nancy telling them they’re a Nazi.
I guess it’s a different topic, but there’s still the dark cloud of 178,000 voters that made a difference in a vote count of 2+ milllion. So why did 1.1 million people still think Barrett was the best choice?
Your point is on the mark and is one I find truly disturbing; almost 50% of the voters cast their lot with Barrett even though if Barrett’s policies had been implemented there would have been mass layoffs, an out of control state budget, and higher taxes for all.
Of course, the unemployment rate would have also gone higher. Yet, almost 50% of the voters simply did not care about the consequences of Barrett-type policies.
The lessons of California, Illinois, Greece, Spain, etc. mean nothing at all to this almost-50%.
On a similar note, Obama not only may win in November but even if he loses he will probably garner a minimum of 45% of the vote.
Frankly, the USA as a constitutional republic WILL NOT SURVIVE if a very significant minority continually votes themselves benefits at the expense of those who are productive and who simply do not care at all if, by doing so, it will bankrupt the USA.
Liberal progressive ideology is not anywhere near dead and will persist until it causes the death – literally – of our constitutional republic. Socialism works fine for the beneficiaries until there is no money left to extract from the producers.
Then what?
Violence and anarchy and tyranny.
“…Liberal progressive ideology is not anywhere near dead…”
I suspect that Marxist/Progressive/Utopian ideologies will never go away, at least in this world. The fallen nature of Man will have something to do with that. And we’ll always have Lucifers in human form, tempting us down ultimately hellish paths, with schemes that initially sound good to ignorant people.
I too am disturbed that such a sizeable number of Americans have succumbed to Progressive ideas, and are willing to vote for someone like Obama. And I agree that we should keep fighting these evil ideas, but we’ll never eradicate them completely. In a way, maybe that will help keep a good number of us honest.
And on the bright side, there are indications that a lot more Americans have a negative view of unions–especially public sector unions–than a few decades ago. The most important challenge, I think, is that we need to take back education and more of popular culture. Too many conservatives have been complacent about that, thinking that we could just leave schools, colleges and Hollywood to the Left, and maintain our own spheres elsewhere. The Left understood though how they could effectively use propaganda on not just “young minds full of mush,” but on older, complacent suburban types, who could be swayed to accept a lot of the horrible ideas that the Left dishes out.
I agree that liberal progressive ideology will persist in our society. After I read “The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages” by Norman Cohn it became more clear to me why this is the case. Read it if you have a chance.
Wow! This is almost word for word what I said to my wife this morning while we readied ourselves for another day of…work.
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s vote.
And that of Paul’s wife and other dependents.
I think the impact of cultural identification with Democrats of old still needs a generation or two to be stamped out. My mother was born and bred a Kennedy Democrat, and it wasn’t until 2008 that she, for the first time in her life, voted R. I know many who live their lives according to conservative/middle class values, so you would think the R’s would be a natural home. But they have been trained to believe that voting D is the only way to protect poor, unfortunate, hopeless souls, whereas voting R means you stand for greed, giving money to connected corporations, old people eating cat food, etc. Oh, and they are also the types who like to think of themselves as “no judgment”-types. For these people, they genuinely believe the good-hearted choice is to vote for D’s. For them to realize that the biggest boot stamping on the little guy’s necks these days is more likely than not a government bureaucrat would require them to undertake a full-blown cultural/philosophical re-think, which is just not gonna happen for the average voter, who usually has better, more day-to-day things to think about…
I’m glad I am not the only one who has seen and understands this phenomenon.
Spend some time in MA, where this dynamic is full-blown, with the additional ethnic component of the Boston Irish who have been told since they were fetuses about how the evil Brahmin Republicans have, are still, and always will be putting INNA signs in every storefront and that everything bad that happens in the world is the result of Republicans. You go down a laundry list of issues and they agree with the conservative view on each one but will always vote D because they have been brainwashed their whole lives to believe that doing otherwise is like voting for satan himself. Never mind that the Dems create a society which demeans their religion, their work, their avocations, etc. Republicans are eeeeeeeeevil, they “just know it”‘ so they vote Dem.
Even without the ethnic component, this dynamic exists in pockets around the country. Voting becomes habit instead of thought.
As the daughter of Boston Irish and Italian parents, I can attest to this phenomenon. And yes, you are spot-on about the reasons. It will take a while before the last vestiges of this mentality wear off.
That’s why I think taking on the Catholic church was mistake on the part of the Administration. A bigger mistake than it looks like at first glance. They looked at the polls and said “hey, Catholics basically agree with us, so we can ram this through to please our real base with no electoral repercussions”. But they forgot that the solid Democrat Catholic bloc was already hanging by a thread, and that it was based largely on cultural memories of oppression by Republican-linked demographics (whether this was fair or not).
They are taking cultural inertia for granted here, when it was already looking kind of iffy.
Southerners were just as “congenitally” Democrat as the Irish, but they’ve pretty much gotten over it in a generation once the leadership cohort began to change in the ’70s. I think Irish Catholics stay Democrat because Irish Catholic leadership stays Democrat. Maybe Comrade Obama’s recent attack on the Church will change some of that.
None of this surprises me. Americans don’t like being pushed around, they don’t like bullies, and they aren’t impressed by snobbish elites. This isn’t Europe or Asia or the Middle East or Africa. It’s the place where those people from the Old World who couldn’t stand bullies decided to set up shop.
True, thats what we (once) were….
But we’re quickly filling up with the refuse from Failed States who have no historic memory of the rule of law,
contracts, private property rights, work ethic or moral/sexual restraint.
They are fed from the left the meme that all “rich people” (meaning, middle class, working) are only on top becuase we robbed from them to get here. They flock to any idea that will bankrupt the Nation, because it can never bankrupt THEM…
They have no love FOR, and no investment IN, this Nation. If it goes belly up and dies, its carcass will still be better than where they came from, so nothing matters to them but the next free handout.
Add Commie Unions, egomaniacal Statists, and cushy practical no-show government jobs,
and we are pretty much doomed.
Oh, we’ll make small adjustments here and there….Teachers in my distict get 100K, and are currently on Strike for more….Considering the “mood” against Unions this week, maybe they’ll get just DOUBLE the rate of inflation raises this time, instead of the 3-5x they normally get….maybe they’ll have to contribute 2% of their health insurance, instead of the current zero…
But nothing will really change….
unless you think 95 MPH into a brick wall is SOOOO much better than 110 MPH,
we can call it an “improvement”…
Or, God Help Us, a “victory”
What would Lenin or Van Jones do?
I don’t know about Van Jones but I can tell you what Lenin actually did.
When Lenin and his minions seized power via a coup in November 1917, the Provisional Government, which consisted of people from many different political parties, had already scheduled a national election for a new Duma (parliament). Lenin allowed the election to go ahead. (I’ve never found anything that reveals his reasoning. Perhaps he actually thought he’d win and would then be able to declare himself the People’s Choice and thus cement his legitimacy.) In any case, the election went ahead in late December and Lenin’s Bolsheviks got only 25% of the vote.
Lenin allowed the new Duma to meet. It had exactly one session. It dragged on into the night and finally the janitors interrupted the law-makers to request the Duma members to call it a night because they needed time to clean up before tomorrow’s session. The Duma members complied. The next day, when they showed up for their second session, they found the door locked and chained. It never opened again until Gorbachev’s time some 70 years later.
Good analysis, Roger.
But Bill Clinton isn’t deserting Obama. He never was with him.
Clinton is restartihng the Hillary bandwagon but it’s still painted camy.
Correct, Billy wants OBUMMER to lose. This will set Hilary up for a 2016 run with 4 yrs tocampain. Crooked Willy is very very wise and does hold grudges-remember 2008?
Exactly. This is payback. For once I’m really enjoying something that Bill Clinton is doing!
This is a win-win for Billary. If Obama wins, well, no harm, no foul, and Hillary remains above the fray, a dignified elder statesman, er, statesperson. Then she runs for the primary in 2016 on the “experience” and “continuity” theme.
If Obama loses, she runs on the “experience” and “I told you so!” theme.
I’m QUITE sure that both Clintons would VERY much prefer the second approach.
They hold grudges.
What the machine thugs do not understand is that nobody thinks that most teachers and other public employees don’t deserve to be paid fairly. What we don’t tolerate is intimidation, harassment, threats, and destruction of property. Keep it up union thugs with your vile tactics and you will dig your own grave. When my children start school, I will have their teacher switched or pull them out of school, before I will let them be taught by someone who has been involved with the brownshirts.
“When my children start school, I will have their teacher switched or pull them out of school, before I will let them be taught by someone who has been involved with the brownshirts.”
Good luck with that. Teachers and administrators pretty much enjoy the power they wield over children and parents alike, and they can, and do, refuse to accede to parental prerogatives regarding the fitness of who is teaching the child. They can, and do, ignore both Federal and state law to suit their own personal agendas, and twist and manipulate parent-teacher interactions to achieve predetermined outcomes. You’d be better off home-schooling.
Yes to all of the above.
If you don’t want your children indoctrinated, homeschool them.
The government schools are lost.
After witnessing firsthand how dangerous leftists can be and the tactics that they will resort to, not only will I not vote for Obama again, but I will never vote for a democrat again for the rest of my life.
Here-here Liv !
I’m a non-affiliated voter and I have always voted for the person I thought best for the job – didn’t care whether the (D) or (R) or (IND) or whatever sat next to their name.
Now, I feel as you do. I will NEVER vote for anyone with the (D) associated with their name EVER AGAIN. For ANY office – local, state, or federal.
Further, I’ll do much research before voting for any (IND) to be sure they are not a democrat in disguise.
Welcome to both of you.
I have long believed that the average Democrat or Independent is a good person who wants good things for his country, but votes for its enemies out of (pardon me) ignorance. You simply don’t know who it is you’ve been supporting. They’ve lied to you quite effectively.
Now that you have seen what the Dem leadership really is, you can begin to learn more, and the more you learn, the less you will like them.
You won’t find Republican leadership perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but outright thuggery is conspicuous by its absence.
On the other hand, it’s become the NORM for the Democrats.
Come November voter fraud and intimidation will be way up. Could be that showing Obama ahead in the faux polls might mitigate this a bit. But it will be there make no mistake.
I for one do not answer polls anymore. I quit the GOP ones during Bush when illegal aliens was never brought up as a top ten issue for the GOP. It is still in the top 3, if not the real long term issue.
If Obama had an election, I BET IT WOULD LOOK JUST LIKE THIS ELECTION!!
This is the the “Keisha Effect” as in “Every one loves Keisha from HR”
If you are a white male you have been taught NEVER to be honest about the affirmative action losers you work with. If you are honest you have committed suicide in the PC Regime.
I bet the day before the French Revolution the parties were the best ever.
For the crazy left this is the day before the Tea Party Revolution. Their institutions (Hollywood, media, universities) are about to collapse under the weight of their own PC insanity. For the true believer the defeat in Wisconsin will be dismissed and they will sail into November to an historic repudiation of leftism.
It’s not some weird reluctance to answer polling questions — it’s because the polls are intended to push the results. Polls are pure bandwagon propaganda: “you want to be on the winning side, right?”
I don’t think it’s about race or union rights per se. It’s about the perception that the pollsters work for the MSM, and the implicit threat that the pollster and the people reporting the poll will attempt to shame the person responding to the questions.
In other words, the media works hard to create the perception that if you’re opposed to anything Obama does, it means you’re a racist. People who are theoretically serious adults, well known liberals, have stated flatly that anybody who opposes anything Obama does – from tax hikes, to nationalized health care, to crushing environmental regulations, to extrajudicial killing of Americans abroad – is solely and exclusively motivated by racism. Well obviously, saying you would vote for somebody other than Obama (or his strongest backers, such as the unions or feminist lobby) would be met with the same attempt at social shaming and ostracism.
So why would anybody answer a polling question from one of these media mountebanks honestly?
Take heart. The same exit polls that showed Walker in a dead heat or perhaps even losing were off by 10-12 points. The polls showing Obama up by 7-10, asked of the same people, are probably off by a similar amount. Wisconsin is in play, particularly if Romney adopts some of Walker’s budget-cutting and public union-busting (and maybe private union busting) tactics. A number of national polls have also re-jiggered their composition to show a very high percentage of self-identified Democrats, a very low number of Republicans and a percentage of independents. They are necessarily skewed left pretty hard.
My own personal barometer (I live in a deep blue state) is that even my liberal friends know the Obama presidency is very, very fouled up and they are extremely unhappy with him and willing to vote for Romney. It’s possible that Romney may lose but at this moment, I expect him to win surprisingly strongly. This isn’t a great thing for conservatism – Romney looks like a guy who will turn to the left in office and is likely to only slow the decline rather than reverse it – but it’s a better thing for the country on the balance. The real races are in the senate and house; we need to put strong conservatives and libertarians in, not so much to deal with the social issues, a distraction, but to get the government shackles off the economic engine.
I fully expect Romney to win in November. I suspect it will be close, given current polling–but I won’t be surprised if Romney wins by at least twice what pollsters say the gap is going into election day. Between media polls oversampling Democrats, using registered voters instead of likely voters, and a general unwillingness for conservatives and libertarians to even participate in media polls they know will be skewed…well, it’s damned near impossible to trust the polls at all these days.
You discount the probability that Hillary will be running.
I certainly discount the possibility of Hillery being the candidate. The democratic party machine will stick with Obama because he and his fund raisers are the ones currently in charge of the party. For Hillery to have a chance she would have needed to get geared up for a primary challenge several months ago. The money she would need, isn’t there.
Hillary ain’t running this year. She’s positioning herself for a strong run in 2016, whether Obama wins or loses to Romney. It’d be a fool’s errand of the 1st magnitude for her to run against the sitting president of her own party. These kind of 5th column attacks never turn out well for the challenger. She would not win and in losing she would damage her brand for 2016.
Bingo. As far as Hillary’s campaign is concerned, the only variable is HOW she’ll campaign for the nomination in 2016. If The One wins, she’ll be Ms. Gracious Supporter Of Our Dear President for at least a year or two. After that, it depends on his popularity. If he’s doing well, she’ll continue the GSOODP meme, and add the, “We Need To Continue His Great Policies And I’m The One To Do It!” meme.
If his ratings continue to tank, she’ll run on the “I Told You So” platform.
If the latter, her biggest challenge will be to say “I told you so!” without appearing to enjoy it.
…And the Romney team begins to sound like McCain redux and if more nimble and able to smack back, still the message of all politics now, to me, is that we are surrounded. In other words, it is not just the hateful Left in front of us. The post that cited nearly 50% of this country is ready to tank liberty for a free lunch rings true. Feeding that monster is a suicide pact and we must be vigilant against ANY political force, at ANY level, that wants to do so. Hooray for WI, but we have yet to do serious battle.
Charles Krauthammer may be playing a deeper game here. Just sayin’
I think Krauthammer is overrated, and we shouldn’t be too surprised at what he said about Wisconsin. I tried posting this comment much earlier this morning, but maybe the PJMedia moderator is like those at NRO–they think we must all bow at the feet of La Charles.
Krauthammer is good at delivering clever punchlines, but he is often awfully wrong. He has badly mischaracterized the Tea Party and Sarah Palin, and he is too enamored of disastrous nation-building schemes. He did good work as a pundit during the Cold War, but he needs to get out of the Beltway a lot more often.
Draw a bell curve. Draw a straight line through the center of the bell curve. Let the part of the bell curve to the left of the line represent those who vote for the left and those to the right of the line vote for the right. Go back to that center line. On either side of that center line, put other lines that will represent 20% of the total under the curve. Those past those lines are hard corp and will vote the same left or right election after election. These will be the independent voters. Within that 20% there will be another group called the swing voters. They will not make up who they are going to vote for until about 4 to 6 weeks before an election generally. You have to win the swing voters to win the election. This is why you have the “October Surprise.” Any time you get more than 5% of the total number of voters you have a “landslide.” The trick though is trying to figure out where that initial center line is. Sometimes the hard corp left or right voter will still vote but will with hold money if they don’t like their candidate. Real disgust will result in them not voting.
Polls have shown American Decideds split 40% conservatives and 20% liberals. That leaves 40% in the middle, but it is likely that if Undecideds were forced to choose, they would also split 2:1 conservative, just as the Decideds do, meaning the electorate could easily be 67% conservative 33% liberal, when forced to choose. Republicans should run campaigns clearly, though moderately, conservative in content.
Well you have a group who call themselves Independent and not affiliated with any party. However a lot of them will consistently vote Democrat or Republican. In other words they lie to themselves and others. While “swing” voters fall into the “independent” subset they aren’t the full subset. While not always the deciding issue “swing” voters tend to fall into the “vote their pocket book” issue sensitivity.
Pre-Civil War northerners were ambivalent about slavery. They felt that although they personally found it repugnant and evil, it wasn’t that important to them because it didn’t directly affect their lives. They were free to abhor it. What the southerners did was on their own heads.
It was only when government gave slave catchers the power to demand the northerners’ help in catching runaway slaves that the final bridge was crossed. At that point, their PERSONAL integrity was being coopted because they could not legally refuse to aid bad men to do something distasteful and wrong. This was simply too much, and public opinion angainst slavery skyrocketed. The rest is history. Don’t take my word for it. Grant says it plain in his memoirs.
Everything’s just fun and games ’til someone’s own ox is gored!
I absolutely agree with you, and think this was one of the strong strong strong reasons contributing to why the North, once Fort Sumter was fired upon, was ready to make the South acknowledge Lincoln’s election by point of bayonet–”You made us follow a law we did not like and demonized us when we didn’t. Turnabout is fair play, and you shot first. Reap it.”
In other words, the South in the 1850s acted just as we see with Democrats today.
In Harry Turtledove’s Guns of the South, there is a meeting between leaders, both North and South. At one point, a Northerner asks, “do you believe in Democracy?” His counterpart agrees, yes, he believes in this.
Well, no you actually don’t, observes the Northerner, because you liked it fine – right up to the moment a vote went against you. And then you seceded. So you didn’t really believe in it at all, you only liked it when the vote went your way.
I think the Wisconsin election is going to set off a national “preference cascade”, as explained by Instapundit.
Right.
The group that really needs to take this lesson home is the GOP. Those guys hold their fire far too much, because it always seems like the costs will be a high for acting. Well their problem is that the costs may be high, or it might be a mirage as described here, and the only way to know for sure is to act.
This is important because I believe a sizeable majority in fact can be mobilized for a new paradigm, or won’t object; wishes decisive action; is getting increasingly hacked off at the “elites”; and will vote with their feet if they have a choice. Think Lugar.
If the GOP doesn’t stop playing it McClellan-safe every single time, seeing Democrat armies of 200,000 where only 80-90k exist (versus their 110,000) then it will be replaced, either by folks who call themselves “GOP” (but aren’t the old guard), or by something new that actually is willing to risk things to get the job done.
Because the job needs to get done. That is the important thing. Not winning elections. We need real results, not election-night ones.
Why would you talk to a pollster? Especially if you aren’t a progressive/leftist. They only poll to find ways to manipulate the election, so why give them ammunition. Plus, these days you can’t be sure whether it is the old time, find the trend, manipulate the trend polling or some very progressive or union organization taking names and addresses for their thug friends inside and outside government. Wrong opinions, you win an IRS audit or suddenly your business experiences regulatory action.
That last is a bit far but not by much these days.
So keep your counsel and leave the pollsters flopping in the dark.
That’s why I’m starting to screw with the pollsters. I don’t believe that it’s anyone’s business how I vote. I used to tell them just that.
However, last election, I started to have fun. I’d say:
- I definitely plan to vote for (your guy)
- Everyone in my house is voting for (your guy)
- I’d ask them questions about their organization. I’d act like a paranoid freak (of THEIR political persuasion).
- I’d act moronic or drugged out – hard to tell from a typical Liberal, I know.
Good grief. The response to the exit poll spin is obvious either it’s BS as Roger and others have noted, or if Obama is such a popular figure in Wisconsin, the White House was unaware – which says something awful about Axelrod’s shop. However, if they were aware, then their lack of support for Barrett doesn’t speak well of them or the DNC that pulled the plug over a week ago: If Obama is popular, then he should have been more supportive of Barrett all along. Labor will take note. And Obama’s coattails are that short, many other Dems running this year will also take note.
Atrocious politics all around. That’s the message in all its simplicity. The real pros like Bill Clinton know this. As Obama’s situation worsens, Bill’s contempt for Obama will only grow larger. In explaining this, someone cited the ol’ adage that the Democrats are a criminal organization masquerading as a political party. To this extent, the writer noted that elder Democrats, like elder Mafiosi, expect a measure of deference. Obama was far from deferential to the Clintons in ’08. To top it off, he fired Bill Daley (scion of Hizzonor himself: William J. Daley, and brother of the most recent mayor Daley of Chicago) from his position of WH Chief of Staff. Rahm and Daley both were pushed out by Jarrett, Michelle and finally Barack: He basically dissed the Daley machine of which Rahm, whose first allegiance is to the Clintons, is also a part. Obama and his core supporters seem to have the strong-arm part of Dem politics down, but seem utterly clueless about some of the most important parts of what it takes to be effective with in their party. Bill will always try to “help” Obama by suggesting ways that he could do better while citing his own past successes as examples. How could anyone doubt the sincerity of his motives when offering his best advice?
“This is only the beginning.”
This is the moment when the ocean sucks the tide from the beaches and no one knows why. They can’t see the wall of water miles away forming and hurtling towards land. The first storm was 2010, Scott Brown, now this magnificent victory in Wisconsin.
I don’t give a damn about the GOP but I love my country, and our country is coming back. The Restoration has begun.
It’s coming, America.
But of COURSE the exit polls won’t show the truth. Everybody knows the media is Lefty, and everybody knows that Lefties literally run riot when somebody disagrees with them. They beat people up. They turn over cars. They burn things. Who in his right mind is going to tell a Lefty that he voted for the other guy?
Good grief.
I flipped to CNN as Wisconsin results were coming in last night. First, it looked like Walker was losing as a function of the numbers they were putting up and then they ran a long story on the Queen’s Jubilee, with actual Wisc. numbers just scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
The last time I flipped to CNN during the Edwards case, John King and someone were loudly bemoaning the terrible “ordeal” Edwards’ daughter Kate was being put through. Having apparently decided that the prosecution of John Boy was completely unfair, they’d transferred the terrible ordeal meme from the mother to the daughter.
Something to behold.
Crazy Ed Schultz at MSNBC (crazy might be too kind)is beside himself, huffed and puffed that “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days”.
For my own self, we have Caller-ID and we never answer calls from pollsters, but I have voted in every election (save one) since 1976. Years ago, I heard Rush Limbaugh speculate about whether there was a tendency of conservatives to not participate in polls and/or simply not be home when they call. I wonder if this is true and may have an effect?
I disagree with the premise of this piece.
If you look at the Real Clear Politics website which aggregated polls prior to the election, based on their poll average of every available third party poll, they had the race called for Walker 54-46, which is nearly exactly the margin he actually won by.
So in fact, I think in this case the polls actually WERE accurate.
The only polls that were not accurate were the ones released by the candidates themselves or by partisan polling outfits. In other words, the polls one might expect to be biased were.
I could certainly be wrong, but I think most of the surprise over how wrong the polls were primarily focuses on the exit polls- which were significantly off regarding the Walker/Barrett matchup. And yet these same polls are being used to show how much more popular Obama is compared to Romney.
The Democrats were given a wake-up call in 2010 and they hit the snooze alarm. I suspect they might be doing that again. What it will take to really wake them up no one knows because they have a lot of time and money invested in their failure and they really don’t know anything else.
The spontaneous rise of the Tea party following the 2008 election and the results of the 2010 election speak louder than the polls. It’s all about turnout. Does anybody think conservatives will be less motivated in 2012? Given that nearly half of eligible voters don’t show up at all, a mere five percent increase by the conservative base will produce a landslide. In addition, if left wing pundits are any indication, it’s the democratic base that is deeply dispirited. It’s all about turnout, baby. The motivation is all on the right.
I have never understood the concept of exit polls. My response to anyone rude enough to ask me how I just voted would be “none of your business”.
This country is 60 to 70% conservative. In weak moments (or perhaps giddily honest moments), the msm claims credit for a 15% swing, and that might be understating the impact they have had for the last 25 years.
In addition to that, there is AT LEAST a 5% swing for people who won’t tell pollsters the truth…which is that they recoil in horror at obama and everything he stands for.
Some of this even impacts African Americans who are probably a lot less than 99% for obama now. There are plenty of smart minorities who will never ever speak up, but who know what an unmitigated disaster the marxist in chief has been.
The so-called 50/50 country is really a 70/30 country.
The main role of the alternative media should be to make it clear to the public that what people think quietly inside their heads is really what a huge majority of the country KNOWS to be true.
Obama got 95% of the Black vote, Kerry got 90%. He won’t be getting 95% this time around. Also you had record Black turnout in 2008, mostly due to Black churches’ efforts to register and get Blacks to the polls. You won’t see as much of that this year also. This at a time when Obama needs increasing minority votes to counter losses among Whites.
http://dunellanoestachato.blogspot.com/2012/05/obama-gay-marriage-and-black-voter.html
I don’t want to seem cynical, and I hope I’m wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Obama still gets 95% of the Black vote this year, or whatever the percentage was in 2008. He also will probably get much more of the Jewish vote than many at PJMedia think. Conservatives should in no way bank on significant numbers of Blacks or Jews moving in their direction. The cultural brainwashing within those two groups has been too effective over the last several decades.
I would love to see more Blacks, Jews and other minorities shake off their blinders. I’ve just seen the dynamics at work for too long to be optimistic this time around, and I hope that the GOP is realistic about this. Contrary to what some pundits have said, Republicans have tried a lot of “outreach” with these groups, but tribalism and ignorance are still extremely powerful obstacles. In short, I think we should always try to get out the message to everyone, but stay realistic.
He might still get 95% but I guarantee he won’t get the same turnout. Right now voter registration is down for Blacks and Hispanics. Don’t be too sure the Jewish vote will be there in the same numbers either.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/99711/the-end-of-the-jewish-left?utm_source=Tablet+Magazine+List&utm_campaign=4aba4f5698-5_16_2012&utm_medium=email
I guess you forgot about all the white people who voted for Obama.
There’s a reason why the political parties and insiders pay money for “internal polls”. It’s because the MSM polls are junk. There’s a reason why Obama stayed away from Wisconsin. I don’t think any of the insiders are surprised.
Your premise is correct. Romney in a landslide. The MSM delusion will sustain itself to the end.
With all the best HOPES we should remember that one swallow does not make a summer.
We know the democrats and certainly all those in the Party hierarchy, the evidence daily in front of us, care nothing for the demos except as tool in attaining and retaining power “by hook or by crook”.
Their ultimate aim unaccountable power now in their sights they should prove even more ruthless, if more ruthless is possible. The example in Wisconsin calls for cheer certainly but more importantly increased vigilance of this “enemy”.
Roger, great observation. I expect this accounts for several polling points for Obama. Undecideds or don’t knows will go to Rom ney.
Roger, please don’t forget another major component of “The Bradley Effect”:
Gun Control!
There was a Proposition on the ballot to ban all handguns; Bradley was for it, Deukmejian against. It was defeated overwhelmingly, in all sectors of the electorate.
That, plus the fact that Deukmejian’s voters overwhelmingly showed up AT THE POLLS (he lost the Absentee Vote), blind-sided the pollsters who were predicting a Bradley victory.
And, that rightish groundswell kept Governor Moonbeam from becoming Senator Moonbeam.
Last night was about the loss of mandatory dues payments from union member to unions. Unions went ballistic in the first place because Walker pulled mandatory payments, which provide the symbiosis between unions and Democrats, allowing Democrats to rule against the will of the people without taking a financial hit.
Could someone explain this to me. Last night I was watching Fox news and they had exit polls scrolled across the bottom. At one point it read Walker 61% Barrett 39 % and some other candidate whose name have I already forgotten at 1%. Now 61 + 39 + 1 =101. How can that be?
Rounding.
shhhsh! Isn’t that our stratedgy? Let them think they are winnining just like the at best 2% of the LGB community are decieving us to believe that many more are LGB. Black folk are being bombarded with guilty consciences about leaving the Obama team. Unions leaders are trying to compell union rank & file to go against their own personal beliefs and look what happend in Wisconsin, 38% of union members voted to keep Walker. People are po’d about forcing them to do anything and they are fighting back with the power of their votes. We are tired of being told what to eat, how to worship, how to vote, and with whom we should associate ourselves. We are tired of government inserting themselves in our kitchens, bathrooms, & bedrooms. The silent majority is coming out of the closet, whew, its about time..
You have expressed thoughts I’ve harbored for some time. There was a disparity between exit polls and the final vote… What is the explanation? The Bradley effect warrants attention, and if you couple that with the accepted notion that undecided voters break for the challenger, then Obama’s re-election team has to be sweating. Gubernatorial wins in VA and NJ; Scott Brown’s election; Congress in 2010; and the continuing march of WI…the evidence of a building wave seems at least worthy of mention, the ignorance of the MSM notwithstanding.
And don’t forget…
Obama ate a dog.
Can you picture lib campaign managers all over the country looking at their poll data and wondering if they can believe any of it?
Mr. Simon:
I did not vote for Bradley because of his views not his color nor did my father. That said, while this is a great victory I am not sure this is a major trend. As your new contributor from Romainia stated in his recent column Marxism is becoming ingrained in our culture, we will continue to have these battles untill we can talk openly about who is pushing Marxism and not be called a McCarthyite. As Glen Beck has said, he may have been the wrong messenger but he had an incredible viable point. I believe that Ion Mihi Pacepa has the potential to be the Whittaker Chambers of our time, lets hope he is treated better than the origional. The population must be educated about the negative effects of Marxism, there are plenty of prime examples as well as expose the deciet used to push it, then we may be able to rest.
It’s infuriating that people will not learn the lessons of the past. “Socialism will work if only it’s done right.” So throughout history it’s never been done correctly? The opposite is also true, “The Reagan years were horrible, supply side economics doesn’t work.” Even people who lived through those years believe the revisionist history. We will have to re-fight these battles continuously, some people don’t seem to learn.
Sort of like McCain losing in 2008 so the GOP pushes hard to run McCain2 in 2012 instead of pushing the real small-government, constitutional candidate that can actually beat Obama. (And who now has the majority of delegates in like 10+ states, btw. So that’s what “unelectable” looks like….)
The only poll that matters is the one that contains ballots or an electronic voting machine.
It’s always boggled my mind how much stock some people place in polls. When encountering such a person, I always ask them the following questions:
1) Did you participate in this poll?
2) For that matter, have you ever participated in a political poll?
3) If the above answers are no, which demographic of the responders do you allow to speak for you–Age? Ethnicity? Income? Location?
I know that researchers have been using this method for a long time, but I basically call BS on the whole idea that a sample can accurately reflect a population; this only works if you believe that people act in groups rather than as individuals.
We too readily accept conclusions from journalists and public speakers, talkshow hosts/guest, politicians and polls as of value except as gossip or poison pen letters whichever the case depending on their membership in this or that club.
There is no such thing as a disinterested poll. Or disinterested journalist or talkshow host/guest or obviously politician. The interest is to please the client or the employer. Don’t believe that the client/proprietor of the business declines to interfere. With his/her interest at stake do you see refusing to influence the reports? Important then to know who is that client and remember that polling is a business.
Polls are as many, most? information that determines the life of a nation and her people to be taken with that grain, in the case of political polls pound of salt.
As most of us ordinary people have neither the time nor interest for the necessary evaluation of the methods, we must fall back on common sense aka scepticism of self-proclaimed experts. And don’t believe everything we read or hear on TV or radio.
Roger, you and the conventional wisdom are probably right about the reason people didn’t want to say they rejected Bradley. You and they are completely wrong about why he was rejected. I lived in LA then, too, but am not from there. Tom Bradley was affable but the rest of California didn’t want a governor who was for gun control and generally was a standard big-city liberal. Bradley obviously thought LA was a fine example to other California cities at a time when the unofficial motto of Santa Barbara and San Diego was “This is not LA.”
a) obama’s favorability is double digits ahead of romney.
b) yet, the two, are within margin of error for actual votes.
I’ve never seen this before…
romney’s deficiencies are understandable. conservatives are still coming around to him, as the lesser of two evils.
obama?
bradley effect. go the specifics of consumer confidence and sentiment and explain how a guy who is overseeing the economy entering it’s third year of stagnancy, post recession, and explain why his approval is above 40%.
absent all other reasons, the bradley effect is running rampant.
it reminds me of the phrase, ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’. the media and several polling firms are bailing water, but are loathe to report that it is not fast enough.
sooner or later, somebody is going to break from the liberals and figure out that lying to oneself is not going to help obama win reelction.
5 months?
too late.
romney, by double digits, in november.
This is backed up by other questions, that those polled can answer without looking like a racist by saying they dont like the black guy. For example, right track/wrong track, agreement with jobs policy, agreement with budget, agreement with spending, regulation, success in creating jobs, etc, are almost all much worse for Obama than his personal popularity. And Romney looks better on most of those than his popularity. If you are voting, will you vote for a guy because you say you like him, or will you vote for the guy who you agree with on most of the important issues.
I would expect the Bradley Effect to be enhanced enormously by the kinds of threats of violence that were on display in Madison and on the interwebs for the last 6 months. Personally, I have begun to get paranoid about answering questions about my political opinions over the landline phone from some anonymous pollster (Anonymous? Where I have heard that label before?). I suspect the internet concerns about privacy have begun to bleed over to any pollster, live or telephonic. How do you know what use they will make of the information, who can buy it on the secondary market, and for that matter, who commissioned the poll? Race has nothing to do with it.
The polls reflect how people say they are going to vote.
1. it’s far easier to say you’re voting for the Dem and avoid any possible nastiness that might follow.
2. Perhaps there is some ‘Operation Chaos’ going on as well. Lull the left into a sense of complacency by telling the pollsters you’re voting for the Dem. I’d never do that. Me? oh no, never.
Good article.
You are quite right that the election exit polls were complete bunk. If they were 7-8 points off in their prediction of the final result, then how can you trust any of their internal data on voter attitudes, or any questions on how those voters will vote in november. This is not the 1st time the exit polls have gotten it badly wrong either, they also got it completely wrong in Bush v Gore, predicting a big Gore win, when actual returns were almost even.
I have the following question about exit polls:
1. How come they get it so badly wrong so often, off by as much as 8 points, when they are supposedly counting actual voters, and not just making a prediction of how people may vote in the future.
2. How come almost every time they get it wrong, it is always in a pro dem direction. This indicates some actual bias in the polls, since if it was just margin of error, you would also expect to see an equal number of pro repub exit poll mistakes, which I have never seen.
Until these questions about exit polls can be answered, and modified so these problems are fixed, I think the networks should stop using them, or at the very least refuse to use them until their basic election prediction has been borne out by actual returns from the sample precincts.
1. How come they get it so badly wrong so often, off by as much as 8 points, when they are supposedly counting actual voters, and not just making a prediction of how people may vote in the future.
The only poll that counts everyone is the election. As with any other poll, they’re collecting information from a sample of the voters, not everyone. They don’t go to every single polling place, just “representative” ones. Not everyone they ask will provide answers at all, or if they do, there’s no way to know if they’re telling the truth. For example, I’ve been voting for decades and have never had some exit poller ask me anything. For that matter, I’ve never seen an exit poller. Even if they did ask me, I’d tell them to get bent. Further, if their “representative” polling places actually aren’t (say by over-representing liberal strongholds like Madison, then the results will be skewed.
2. How come almost every time they get it wrong, it is always in a pro dem direction. This indicates some actual bias in the polls, since if it was just margin of error, you would also expect to see an equal number of pro repub exit poll mistakes, which I have never seen.
Again, I suspect many conservatives aren’t exit polled, or if they are, they don’t give accurate answers. Why should they? It’s no one’s damned business how I vote if I don’t want to tell them.
Bill Clinton didn’t desert Obama. To desert Obama, he’d have to have been on Obama’s side in the first place, and he simply never was.
I think what is becoming more difficult for pollsters is that the tea party types sees no point in talking to pollsters. I think they look at it like Ann Coulter’s line about liberals “how to talk to a liberal, if you must”. Since we don’t have to talk to them we don’t. They talk to pollsters and the pollsters think they are representative….they aren’t. On top of that, tea party types don’t need a rally a week, or a month or a year to keep the faith. The left thinks if you don’t have a reeking rat infested camp where you poop on cop cars, you aren’t engaged. They are unable to think like anything but a liberal. Imagine a military commander that is unable to get inside the head of his opponent- he would get his butt kicked. That’s where we are at.
David Burge:
#wiunion doesn’t understand the aftermath. In fact, they don’t understand any kind of math.
DRUDGE WON!
The Internet won!
Kids today use their iPhones. They’re connected to the news with sites like Reddit. (Which does favor the left.) But the kids, today, over-educated as they are. And, looking for high paying jobs that don’t require sweat … are learning all about reality.
I don’t see Obama knocking anything out of the ballpark in November. He’s got a real race on his hands! Mostly because his voters are disgusted enough to stay home.
While Walker in Wisconsin is a lot more popular than Romney.
The media and the left? They were sure the recall would work in their favor. Didn’t. So, this is the SECOND TIME a recall backfired. The first time? Here, in California. Where the governor was a democrat, Gray Davis. And, the recall started with a conservative, Tom Campbell. But as soon as Arnold Schwartzenegger saw the “ball in the gutter,” (as Napoleon would have said). He took the crown!
So, it’s the SECOND RECALL in recent history that has favored republicans!
How many California politicians will put guns to their heads, ahead, and try to raise taxes? If you think so, then are these politicians currently on suicide watch?
It ain’t just about which candidate people like, it’s about who shows up to vote.
And I think that the halo around Obama’s head is so tarnished that many of his supporters won’t be too enthusiastic come election day. They would rather die than vote Republican, but the Hope-Change thing isn’t working for them either, so they’ll do something useful like clean out the garage.
Whatever happened to the 119% “turnout” Drudge reported mid-day as having taken place in Milwaukee? Seems like you can’t just run up enough numbers when you’re on the losing side of a tug-of-war.
Interesting article, and I won’t speculate about a Mitt landslide, but the Wisconsin claims don’t appear to be true. Before the election there were plenty of polls that had Gov. Walker winning by 7 (actual results 53% – 45%). The exit poll results Mr. Simon claims are more concerning. (My cynical self often believes the exit polls more than the actual tally, because I don’t trust the vote counting.) But when I looked them up here (and averaged male & female because there’s no total reported) I get 53 – 46. Close enough, so what exactly is Mr. Simon talking about? Perhaps the moral is not to jump to conclusions based on Chuck Todd’s tweets.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/05/us/politics/wisconsin-recall-exit-polls.html
I think it’s a combination of The Thug Effect (as mentioned by Lizzy) and the Bradley Effect. The former phenomenon should be very strong in Wisconsin considering what outspoken Walkers supporters have had to endure. And the latter is not entirely about being perceived as racist- it is also about the heresy of rejecting The One.
Numerous studies have shown that people have a very strong need for approval, or at least to be seen as a good and cooperative citizen, even by total strangers who have no claim on the individual whatsoever. Just look at how easily some people turn over personal data like zip codes, phone numbers and addresses just because some retailer asks for it; and how hard it is to hang up on a telemarketer. Being “a nice person” is something a lot of Americans (especially people in flyover country) really value. In addition, anyone conducting a poll is going to be (rightly or wrongly) assumed to be affiliated with the media and therefore a liberal. Put these attitudes together and it’s very believable that a Wisconsin voter would lie about their support for Walker and their lack of support for Obama.
It must drive the liberals wild that their deification of Obama and consequent intimidation of those who don’t share that belief have made polls increasingly worthless. They are going to be nervous as kittens for the next few months, no matter what the polls say.
The “Bradley Effect” was always a myth. In the 1982 California elections the pollsters ceased polling well before the election, and failed to include absentee ballots. What is more, in the U.S. Senate race that year between Republican Pete Wilson and Democrat Jerry Brown, pollsters also predicted a Jerry Brown victory. Mr. Wilson won handily. Brown was white. Both Brown and Bradley lost because an unpopular gun control initiative and an aggressive Republican absentee ballot program generated hundreds of thousands of Republican votes no pollster anticipated, giving George Deukmejian a narrow victory. With less than a month to go, Bradley did enjoy a double-digit lead. Then the Deukmejian campaign focused on the increasing crime rate in Los Angeles under Mayor Bradley’s watch. A major effort was made to turn out disaffected Democrats in the rural interior of the state. People there were incensed at a confiscatory handgun initiative on the ballot – supported by Bradley liberals but vigorously opposed by Deukmejian. The public polls stopped polling too soon, missing the Deukmejian surge, and they completely ignored the absentee ballot.
2 words:
ROMNEY DEMOCRATS
I agree that Romney Democrats do exist. They’re the ones who are socially liberal but have sinking 401(k)s and housing equity, and the swing state ‘burbs are full of them.
The polls could be wrong; exit polls are particularly wrong. What, folks are going to show publicly how they voted in private? Do we think they would reveal their vote with the neighbors and shop stewards in earshot? Don’t we think that fear mascarades the truth expressed behind the voting curtain? Why do we think ballots are secret? Wisconsin showed that exit polls do not accurately reflect the actual vote.
pollsters have been doing this for decades, they know what they’re doing, they take all of that into consideration.
of course the economy is going to revive, primarily due to the policies Obama put in place. You can’t fix Bushes mess overnight you know. Obama told us back in 08 that this would take a while to fix, and not expect instance fixes. So no matter who wins in November the economy will continue to improve as it has for the past 2 years. If Romney wins the Republicans will say Romney fixed it, if Obama wins the Republicans will say Obama had nothing to do with it. Same old stuff.