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News & ArtsTuesday, September 25, 2012
2012 For Conservatives, Liberal Polling Is the New Liberal Media
Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 2:26 PM
The media has made much of Unskewed Polls, a new site that claims to remove the liberal bias in polling. (Romney is way ahead in every poll on Unskewed Polls!) The Romney campaign is claiming they have secret polling showing Romney tied or ahead in most of the battleground states. But I share my media compatriot Sean Hannity's skepticism with this line of thinking:
Let's ignore the self-serving Romney claims of polling bias for a moment and get back to Unskewed Polls. The problem with Unskewed Polls is it's a binary site. Either they're right and every single poll has a liberal bias that does not reflect reality, or they're arguing very publicly with reality, as most people suspect. Either way, we'll know for sure on Election Day. I think giving all this attention to Unskewed Polls is kind of dumb. The other sites advertised on Unskewed Polls—MittRomney2112, GOP 2112—are basically just click bait waiting for old people to mistype a URL. That doesn't make me believe they're very confident in their brave new polling model.
2
You say that, but if you are reading the comments on Politico/CNN, Jesus Christ are people lapping up these polls.
I'm fine with them, frankly, because if conservatives think they've got this election in the bag, maybe, just maybe they'll get comfy and stop pushing their agenda as hard.
I'm fine with them, frankly, because if conservatives think they've got this election in the bag, maybe, just maybe they'll get comfy and stop pushing their agenda as hard.
3
This website is kind of ridiculous. Any website that has DAILY tracking polls (see lefthand side Unskewed Choices) seems pretty fishy to me.
4
Either it's just more crazy-sauce to make conservatives feel better or it's the cover story for some upcoming election fraud.
5
It's a little "the lady doth protest too much", just like Fox News' "fair and balanced" mantra or their catchphrase from back in the day, "we report, you decide". If these polls are indeed nonpartisan, why call them "unskewed polls"? Why not give them less of a Luntzian name?
6
@2,
I don't know that we necessarily want them to quit pushing so hard. Seems the harder they push, the farther to the right they wind up. At this rate, I'd be content to let them just keep pushing, maybe ditch Paul Ryan and take on the Akin guy as a running mate instead.
I don't know that we necessarily want them to quit pushing so hard. Seems the harder they push, the farther to the right they wind up. At this rate, I'd be content to let them just keep pushing, maybe ditch Paul Ryan and take on the Akin guy as a running mate instead.
7
I hope Obama wins, because then we can listen to the right whine that the election was biased in favor of liberals and in a non-biased election their candidate would have won.
8
These polls are talking points to get Republicans to the polls. They are afraid their supporters won't vote if it's an Obama landslide. Either that or it is something for Scalia to throw in his majority opinion after the election, and the country is heading down the toilet.
9
@6 Yeah, I have seen a lot of people confronted with these sites shake their head and walk away from the conversation.
The Tea Party is helping everyone else but themselves realize that reality has a lefty bias.
The Tea Party is helping everyone else but themselves realize that reality has a lefty bias.
10
This is how they intend to spin the results of the massive disenfranchisement of black, Latino, student, and elderly voters. It's a cheap and easy cover story.
11
If a decent Democrat (albeit a rare thing) doesn't like the facts of a situation, he/she will work to change the situation. A Republican will simply change the facts.
14
The site is registered to QStarNews (http://www.qstarnews.net/), a conservative site. The admin contact is Dean Chambers (dean@gop2112.com). http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-se…
15
@11 The mental gymnastics is sometimes astonishing.
"The polls are disenfranchising our voter base! We need to fix it!"
"Uh, are you sure it's not all the stupid shit Romney has done in the last week and a half that are causing the polling issues?"
"Nonsense! We just need to fix the polls! Everything else is going perfectly!"
"The polls are disenfranchising our voter base! We need to fix it!"
"Uh, are you sure it's not all the stupid shit Romney has done in the last week and a half that are causing the polling issues?"
"Nonsense! We just need to fix the polls! Everything else is going perfectly!"
16
Just an interesting little aside on polls:
http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/11/…
PDF version:
http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/…
I was surprised to learn that Fox did better than Gallup.
http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/11/…
PDF version:
http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics/…
I was surprised to learn that Fox did better than Gallup.
17
This is the prelude to claiming the election was stolen by Obama because reality can't be unskewed.
18
Hannity's interviewing Dick Morris, who says that if the election were held today, Romney would win by four or five points. Has Dick Morris ever been right about anything?
19
Yeeeeaaaaah. I think I'll continue reading Nate Silver's excellent analysis and leave these "Unskewed Polls" in the Internet trash heap where they belong.
20
Well, yeah, the SECRET information is that Romney is ahead. The scientific polls showing the opposite are just a bunch of pointy-headed intellectuals foisting a conspiracy, yes I said a CONSPIRACY, upon us! Don't tread on me! Get your government hands off my Medicare!
21
@16 - An interesting aside to your aside: That's dated November 5, 2008. The actual popular vote margin ended up being 7.2%, so it's likely that that list is out of order. It was interesting going back and looking at these numbers, because I remember the margins fairly well from the night of the election for certain states, and Obama extended his lead substantially in a many of them. I remember Indiana being decided by something like 1,000 votes, where the true total ended up being around 30,000. North Carolina was at a margin of 10,000 that night, and ended up being 20,000. I think I remember Nate Silver releasing a list a little bit later in the year ranking the pollsters, but his took into account state data more than national data. Rasmussen was certainly not at the top of that list.
I also recall many models showing the race to be much closer than 538 did, and only in the last two weeks or so, did the rest of them begin to match up with his model, which by that time predicted an almost certain Obama victory. I think this is why these days, nearly every aggregate site I've looked at seems to mirror 538 to some extent.
I also recall many models showing the race to be much closer than 538 did, and only in the last two weeks or so, did the rest of them begin to match up with his model, which by that time predicted an almost certain Obama victory. I think this is why these days, nearly every aggregate site I've looked at seems to mirror 538 to some extent.
22
@21
This one is dated November 12, 2008, with similar results, namely Rasmussen at the top:
http://electoralmap.net/2012/2008_electi…
I was very suspicious of Rasmussen position in particular, in light of their numerous accusations of bias and misleading questions. I thought, well maybe they just got lucky.
Still, this tally led me to the Pew Research Center, which appears to be a reliable neutral source. I like 538, but its affiliation with the NYT makes it difficult for me to cite it as neutral amongst conservatives. I'm also a fan of Intrade, since it is basically putting money where your mouth is.
This one is dated November 12, 2008, with similar results, namely Rasmussen at the top:
http://electoralmap.net/2012/2008_electi…
I was very suspicious of Rasmussen position in particular, in light of their numerous accusations of bias and misleading questions. I thought, well maybe they just got lucky.
Still, this tally led me to the Pew Research Center, which appears to be a reliable neutral source. I like 538, but its affiliation with the NYT makes it difficult for me to cite it as neutral amongst conservatives. I'm also a fan of Intrade, since it is basically putting money where your mouth is.
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