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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 10/13/2008 : 09:30:03 [Permalink]
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I think that RealClearPolitics Poll Averages has more reliable numbers, given that they track all of the large polls and update daily. Gallup was in double digits last week but has dropped back considerably. As it stands at this moment, Obama has a 6.8% lead in a poll of polls. Not bad, but on Thursday of last week, he was up 7.6%. I think the best we can get from polls, unless Obama breaks into double digits in a poll of polls is trends, with the knowledge that polling numbers depend on so many factors.
I don't know why Gallup has changed so much in the last several days. It could be that, now that McPalin has dropped the terrorist crap, more people are responding to them. Or it could be that they just happened to call more people who are voting for McCain. I dunno...
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 09:47:28 [Permalink]
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| I can't believe how close this election is. I feel like an alien from another planet with a completely different understanding of what I see going on the world from what everyone else sees. |
-Chaloobi
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 10:02:17 [Permalink]
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| I occasionally hear that phone surveys do not take into account college students with cell phones, which is a large voting block much more motivated this year than in past elections. However I haven't read this anywhere so don't know if its based on real election surveys or just anecdotal. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 10:02:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
I can't believe how close this election is. I feel like an alien from another planet with a completely different understanding of what I see going on the world from what everyone else sees.
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My thoughts exactly! |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 10:04:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
I can't believe how close this election is. I feel like an alien from another planet with a completely different understanding of what I see going on the world from what everyone else sees.
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I know what you mean. This should not be a close race.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 10:35:54 [Permalink]
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| It's got to be race. Another one of America's very serious hang-ups, right up there were naked ass cracks and boobs, but less quaint. |
-Chaloobi
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 11:15:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
It's got to be race. Another one of America's very serious hang-ups, right up there were naked ass cracks and boobs, but less quaint.
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Definitely not scientific, but based on the polling results of my immediate family race is playing a part for some.
- I have two brother-in-laws and their spouses who will vote for McCain because under the stated Obama plan they expect that their taxes will go up.
- A sister and brother-in-law who have voted Republican all the time because they oppose gun control. With accusations that Obama is a liar.
- A mother who has always voted democratic may skip this election. Possibly because she lived 51 years with my father a vocal racist when he was alive, but always voted democratic.
- A brother and his son who are just looking for reasons not to vote for Obama. Acorn has become their "raison du jour". I suspect the real reason remains unspoken. To me at least. I'm in an email debate with them on the Obama - Acorn connection right now. Last week it was Ayers. They may be channeling my father or my mother's father.
- Another brother who has clearly state, "I will not vote for that n......" Much like my father.
It looks like I may be the only one who plans on voting for Obama. My wife is a registered republican, but may vote for Obama. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 11:43:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by moakley
Originally posted by chaloobi
It's got to be race. Another one of America's very serious hang-ups, right up there were naked ass cracks and boobs, but less quaint.
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Definitely not scientific, but based on the polling results of my immediate family race is playing a part for some.
- I have two brother-in-laws and their spouses who will vote for McCain because under the stated Obama plan they expect that their taxes will go up.
- A sister and brother-in-law who have voted Republican all the time because they oppose gun control. With accusations that Obama is a liar.
- A mother who has always voted democratic may skip this election. Possibly because she lived 51 years with my father a vocal racist when he was alive, but always voted democratic.
- A brother and his son who are just looking for reasons not to vote for Obama. Acorn has become their "raison du jour". I suspect the real reason remains unspoken. To me at least. I'm in an email debate with them on the Obama - Acorn connection right now. Last week it was Ayers. They may be channeling my father or my mother's father.
- Another brother who has clearly state, "I will not vote for that n......" Much like my father.
It looks like I may be the only one who plans on voting for Obama. My wife is a registered republican, but may vote for Obama.
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Well, that's the bad news. The good news is that people from 18 to 35 do not seem to have race as an issue. The 18 though 29 demographic is mostly supporting Obama, but are not being counted as likely voters in most polls. They could offset the racist vote if they show up.
Frankly, I don't think we will know who won until the ballets are counted, polls or not. There are just too many unknowns this time around. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 11:49:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
...The good news is that people from 18 to 35 do not seem to have race as an issue. The 18 though 29 demographic is mostly supporting Obama, but are not being counted as likely voters in most polls. They could offset the racist vote... |
Again, the "college age" kids with un-surveyed cell phones, of which there are many. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 12:03:41 [Permalink]
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| Yeah... But so many of them will just sit around and get stoned on election day (I jest of course, but they do belong to the portion of the population less likely to vote while the racist scumbag will be highly motivated to show up at the polls). |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 12:12:41 [Permalink]
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Yeah. 25 and under don't vote in numbers significant enough to be bothered with. Pollsters ignore them, politicians ignore them, because they are (as a group) unreliable.
If they went out and actually voted there would be no question in my mind that Obama would win a massive landslide victory.
There is a possibility of polling error in the 25-35 age group though, because of the cellphone only crowd. You'd think that pollsters would be seriously investigating this and have some solid numbers by now, since it was proposed months ago.
I'm not sure the media wants the poll margin to be wide though. They are having a month-long circlejerk with the race beiing close... if the result were a forgone conclusion (one candidate up by 15 points nationally, or Obama up 10 in FL)) their ratings would fall off as people stoped paying attention.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 12:51:50 [Permalink]
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| True... And I have read bad things about pollsters being more interested in getting stats to sell than about the accuracy of their polls so I am not to trust them too much. |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9687 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 17:02:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Frankly, I don't think we will know who won until the ballets are counted, polls or not. |
Well, if the Diebold vote machines are maipulated, then the exit-polls will certainly not be accurate.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 19:01:03 [Permalink]
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Speaking of polls, the RealClearPolitics Poll Averages has Obama up in the sevens again. And Gallup is rising. This is in the course of a day. If you watch the polls too closely, it'll make you crazy...
Oh, and I doubt that Gallup gives a rats ass about TV news ratings.
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 10/13/2008 : 19:23:37 [Permalink]
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| That's a fair point... |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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If these numbers hold it could be a landslide
