2012 US Election -- Round 2

[Kristie]

Nobody answered my question. I'm having a hard time figuring out who you guys are voting for. I like to think my vote is pretty obvious though.

As CES would say, I'm an Obama cheerleader!

[Wumbologist]

Nobody answered my question. I'm having a hard time figuring out who you guys are voting for. I like to think my vote is pretty obvious though.

As CES would say, I'm an Obama cheerleader!

Guess Romney's not getting you in a binder?

[Ian]

Gerald - Just to really piss off CES, I'm going to post an article by Bill Maher.

Thursday, October 4, 2012
Rasmussen Closes the Hole
By Bill Maher

When we talk about the conservative bubble, we’re generally talking about the Fox-Rush-Drudge information bubble, and the people who reside in it. This is the information loop that allows any willing right-winger to live in a world where the opinions they already have are the only ones that get recited back to them, and the opinions they will one day have get fed to them so they can later recite them and hear them being recited back again, and around and around we go, all without any having to hear any opposing viewpoints expressed beyond – possibly – those of tokens like Kirsten Powers and that old school Irish Dem who periodically loses it and tells Sean Hannity to go fuck himself. I think his name is Bob Beckel or something. And I’d like his job some day.

If you’re a conservative, wherever you turn, the bubble is there. If you want to get your news on TV, you have Fox. If you’re the type who frequents talk radio, there’s Rush, along with a dozen other Rush clones. If you want to get your news online, you get all the links you want to read assembled for you by Matt Drudge, complete with misleading headlines, bad pictures of Hillary Clinton and Michele Obama, and a smattering of racism. Anywhere a Republican wants to turn for news, there’s a friendly face. And by “friendly” I mean the “smiling veneer over the contemptible inner core.”

But there was always one hole in the bubble that continued to let in the air of reality: polling information. As in, surveys that measure what Americans actually believe, or who they plan on voting for, or what they think of ideas like privatizing Social Security, etc. Because wingnuts can go for months and not talk to anyone who doesn’t think Obama is a bigger threat to America than Al Qaeda with airborne AIDS, but that’s because they live in rural Tennessee, and inside the information bubble.

Polling information, on the other hand, when done correctly, comes from a representative sample of everyone. What’s more, polls are often widely reported, mostly because it’s an easy article to write. Even if you do your best to live only in the Fox-Rush-Drudge information world, you’re still going to get information about what people outside the bubble think through polling data. And it can be very disconcerting for Republicans, finding out that millions of other Americans exist in the “not real America” and think they’re completely batshit.

Thankfully, Republicans now seem to have solved this problem. Enter Scott Rasmussen. He’s a Republican and a pollster. And a few years ago, it seemed Scott ran his polling outfit the way everyone else did. But somewhere along the line – and I’m guessing here – Scott saw which way the media winds were blowing and realized there was a new way to distinguish yourself in the world of political news: by taking a side.

You see, polls, when done accurately, have a way of creating a narrative about what people actually want or think, or what may eventually happen. And this narrative is largely immune from the partisans on either side because, well, it just is. Because polls are the temperature of reality. If your candidate is down 8 points in a poll a few weeks out before the election, the story starts becoming about how you’re going to lose, and how everyone knows it, and how you might as well stay home on election day because it’s hopeless. Which is effective, or harmful, depending on which side you’re on. Because lots of people are looking for an excuse not to vote anyway and “My Candidate is down 9 points as of yesterday” is a pretty good one.

These narratives are particularly dangerous for Republicans. And that’s where Rasmussen polling comes in. By designing his to polls to lean Republican, he allows Republicans inside the bubble to continue breathing the air inside the bubble. Ex: When other polls show Obama pulling away from Romney, release a poll that says he isn’t:

RCP_Poll.jpg (21.75 KiB) Viewed 486 times

Mission accomplished.

You see, now when people inside the bubble get confronted with what people think outside they bubble you can say, “No, according to a poll out today, they don’t think that!” Narrative averted! Thanks, Scott Rasmussen!

There’s only one problem with this, of course. And that’s that the bubble has now plugged its leak. Remaining contact with the outside world is even more limited. Republicans now not only have their own information loop, but their own polling company to deny what everyone outside the bubble thinks, too.

After the 2010 elections, the New York Times statistics wizard, Nate Silver, analyzed the polls produced by various polling organizations, including Rasmussen Reports, which is the house pollster for Fox News. Silver's analysis covered only polls taken during the final three weeks of the campaign and compared them to the actual election results. Silver analyzed 105 polls released by Rasmussen Reports and its subsidiary, Pulse Opinion Research, for Senate and gubernatorial races in numerous states across the country. The bottom line is that on average, Rasmussen's polls were off by 5.8% with a bias of 3.9% in favor of the Republican candidates.

[Ian]

Nobody answered my question. I'm having a hard time figuring out who you guys are voting for. I like to think my vote is pretty obvious though.

I'll be voting for Obama.

However, seeing as how I live in Maryland where an Obama victory is already a foregone conclusion, there is a slight temptation for me to put in a cheeky protest vote for Jill Stein (Green Party), knowing that my one vote not going to Obama won't make much of a difference in this state. But I'll probably just vote for Obama anyway. He's the Man.

[Kristie]

Nobody answered my question. I'm having a hard time figuring out who you guys are voting for. I like to think my vote is pretty obvious though.

As CES would say, I'm an Obama cheerleader!

Guess Romney's not getting you in a binder?

He can put me in a binder full of women that despise him.

[Ian]

Damn, I wish I had thought about this costume idea for Halloween:

Thanks, Mitt. Big Bird costumes sell out
http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/24/smallbu ... ?hpt=hp_t2

[Coito ergo sum]

To Ian, regarding Rasmussen -- context, right?

There was a Fordham University analysis of the accuracy of the polls from the 2008 presidential election.... http://www.fordham.edu/images/academics ... ection.pdf

1. Rasmussen (11/1-3)**
1. Pew (10/29-11/1)**
2. YouGov/Polimetrix (10/18-11/1)
3. Harris Interactive (10/20-27)
4. GWU (Lake/Tarrance) (11/2-3)*
5. Diageo/Hotline (10/31-11/2)*
5. ARG (10/25-27)*
6. CNN (10/30-11/1)
6. Ipsos/McClatchy (10/30-11/1)
7. DailyKos.com (D)/Research 2000 (11/1-3)
8. AP/Yahoo/KN (10/17-27)
9. Democracy Corps (D) (10/30-11/2)
10. FOX (11/1-2)
11. Economist/YouGov (10/25-27)
12. IBD/TIPP (11/1-3)
13. NBC/WSJ (11/1-2)
14. ABC/Post (10/30-11/2)
15. Marist College (11/3)
16. CBS (10/31-11/2)
17. Gallup (10/31-11/2)
18. Reuters/ C-SPAN/ Zogby (10/31-11/3)
19. CBS/Times (10/25-29)
20. Newsweek (10/22-23)

And, here is another one:

The table below is an assessment of pollster performance in the 2008 Presidential election. The pollsters were graded on both the accuracy of their final poll (popular vote) and the consistency of their polling during the month of October. The overall score is a weighted average of their Accuracy and Consistency numbers. The weighting is 75% accuracy and 25% consistency. Formula details are at the bottom of this page.

Overall



Poll Score Grade
Accuracy Consistency
Rasmussen Reports 91% A-
92% 86%
Ipsos/McClatchy 89% B+
92% 79%
CNN/Opinion Research 88% B+
92% 77%
Fox News 84% B
92% 61%
Pew 83% B-
92% 56%
GWU/Battleground 79% C+
92% 41%
Diageo/Hotline 77% C+
77% 79%
NBC News / Wall St. Journal 76% C
77% 75%
Gallup Traditional 73% C-
77% 63%
Marist 67% D+
62% 82%
ABC News / Wash Post 67% D+
62% 82%
IBD/TIPP 66% D
77% 34%
Gallup Expanded 66% D
62% 78%
CBS News / NYT 60% D-
62% 56%
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby 35% F
31% 48%

Continue reading at NowPublic.com: Analysis: Most Accurate polls from 2008 presidential election | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/analysis ... z2AEuXLaGk

The List: Which presidential polls were most accurate?

The Pew Research Center and Rasmussen Reports were the most accurate in predicting the results of the 2008 election, according to a new analysis by Fordham University political scientist Costas Panagopoulos.

Slate Magazine and The Wall Street Journal reported that Rasmussen Reports was one of the most accurate polling firms for the 2004 United States presidential election and 2006 United States general elections. According to Politico, Rasmussen's 2008 presidential-election polls "closely mirrored the election's outcome"

At the end of the 2008 presidential election, there were eight national tracking polls and many other polls conducted on a regular basis. Polling analyst [p]Nate Silver [/p]reviewed the tracking polls and said that while none were perfect, and Rasmussen was "frequently reputed to have a Republican lean", the "house effect" in their tracking poll was small and "with its large sample size and high pollster rating it would probably be the one I'd want with me on a desert island." http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/ ... rimer.html

Journalist Mickey Kaus said, "If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the prestigious New York Times, go with Rasmussen."

In June 2012, Nate Silver wrote that "Rasmussen Reports, which has had Republican-leaning results in the past, does so again this year. However, the tendency is not very strong – a Republican lean of about 1.3 points." Silver ranked Rasmussen Reports as having the third lowest house effect of the 12 polling firms that Silver analyzed. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.co ... ing-firms/

As Ian pointed out in isolation, Nate Silver went after Rasmussen after the 2010 midterms -- http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.co ... -strongly/ But, Silver is apparently not without his bias when it comes to ranking Rasmussen in this way - Mark Blumenthal, publisher of Pollster.com, wrote that Silver's methodology, in which he awards bonus points to pollsters based on their membership in the National Council on Public Polls and their endorsement of the American Association for Public Opinion Research Transparency Initiative, "appear to significantly and dramatically alter rankings prominently promoted as "pollster ratings," ratings that are already having an impact on the reputations and livelihoods of individual pollsters. That's a problem." Blumenthal noted, "My bottom line: These sort of pollster ratings and rankings are interesting, but they are of very limited utility in sorting out "good" pollsters from "bad." http://www.pollster.com/blogs/rating_po ... i.php?nr=1

So, Ian, you say you like context. There is some context for you.

[Ian]

2010 is more recent than 2008.

And who cares about analysis from this past June, when there is no election against which to form a comparison?

I've not made any case that Rasmussen has been totally biased right form the start - I think their bias increased after the 2008 election. They were pretty good in 2008 and distinctly biased in 2010. 2012 will prove that they continue to be so or it won't. I'm betting their bias will be shown to be +2% Republican at a minimum.

[Gerald McGrew]

Jon Stewart (and the Daily Show) did a fantastic job last night of juxtaposing conservatives declaring Obama to be the worst foreign policy president ever, with Romney agreeing and echoing Obama's actual foreign policies at the last debate.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-stew ... ma-2012-10

[Coito ergo sum]

2010 is more recent than 2008.

Of course, but 2008 is the most recent Presidential election, 2012 (see above) is more recent than 2010, and I addressed Nate Silver's analysis of 2010 above as well.

And who cares about analysis from this past June, when there is no election against which to form a comparison?

Just giving you your beloved Nate Silver's analysis. He seems to love Rasmussen reports in general, with the except of 2010, and there were issues with Silver's own objectivity in doing is analysis of the polls.

It seems Rasmussen has a long, accurate and well-respected history when it comes to polls, and he appears to be far more accurate than NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC polls, among others, which don't earn your ire at all.

I've not made any case that Rasmussen has been totally biased right form the start

Ah, but you consistently hand-waive their results away, as if they are in somebody's pocket. And, you don't give similar treatment to mainstream polls listed in the bottom third in accuracy above, which are far less accurate. When CBSNews's poll was cited earlier in the thread -- despite CBS's dismal history, you did not suggest that it be thrown out and disregarded, and how dare we cite it at all -- despite it not being very accurate over time.

- I think their bias increased after the 2008 election. They were pretty good in 2008 and distinctly biased in 2010. 2012 will prove that they continue to be so or it won't. I'm betting their bias will be shown to be +2% Republican at a minimum.

Bet all you want. And, time will tell. But, overall, both before and after 2010, Nate Silver was pretty complimentary of Rasumussen. It is quite an indictment that you make of him -- and even Nate Silver's own criticisms were cautioned that any bias was fairly small -- and there were explanations offered. One of the main issues over time has been methodologies, and Rasmussen reports pretty much always polls "likely voters" and many other polls just poll Americans or registered voters. This has, from the material I've linked to above, tends to result in better polling results for Republicans because apparently many Democrat supporters are less likely to get out and vote -- not my allegation, that comes from the material I cited to and it is a principle adhered to by Nate Silver too.

So -- I think my suggestion that Rasmussen can be seen as "leaning right" a little, but that it is not at all improper to review Rasmussen's results in conjunction with other available polling data is clearly supported here. I did not say Rasmussen was gospel, not like you present 538 and all. I just suggested it is one of many data points. You, of course, wanted to just hand wave it away.

[Wumbologist]

Nobody answered my question. I'm having a hard time figuring out who you guys are voting for. I like to think my vote is pretty obvious though.

I'll be voting for Obama.

However, seeing as how I live in Maryland where an Obama victory is already a foregone conclusion, there is a slight temptation for me to put in a cheeky protest vote for Jill Stein (Green Party), knowing that my one vote not going to Obama won't make much of a difference in this state. But I'll probably just vote for Obama anyway. He's the Man.

I'm pretty sold on Gary Johnson at this point.

[Ian]

Coito, I'd be happy to dismiss any of the other unreliable polls you mentioned if they were the ones you often (yes, often!) mention in your posts. That I haven't done so doesn't mean I accept them at face value at the expense of Rasmussen. It just means I haven't done so. But the 2010 results, the nature of Rasmussen and who pays for them, and the right-leaning bias they've shown so far in 2012 (compared to most other polls) are all pretty good reasons to take Rasmussen numbers with a grain of salt.

Like I said, +2%R at a minimum. I think +3%R or higher is more likely. We'll see in two weeks.

[Coito ergo sum]

Nobody answered my question. I'm having a hard time figuring out who you guys are voting for. I like to think my vote is pretty obvious though.

As CES would say, I'm an Obama cheerleader!

As long as you'll wear the outfit, I'm happy.

[Coito ergo sum]

Coito, I'd be happy to dismiss any of the other unreliable polls you mentioned if they were the ones you often (yes, often!) mention in your posts. That I haven't done so doesn't mean I accept them at face value at the expense of Rasmussen. It just means I haven't done so. But the 2010 results, the nature of Rasmussen and who pays for them, and the right-leaning bias they've shown so far in 2012 (compared to most other polls) are all pretty good reasons to take Rasmussen numbers with a grain of salt.

Like I said, +2%R at a minimum. I think +3%R or higher is more likely. We'll see in two weeks.

Actually, I do mention them just as "often" because like Gallup (less accurate than Rasmussen) and CBSNews (less accurate than Rasmussen) I HAVE cited them, because even though they are inaccurate, they are the polls we have, and it's worth looking at them.

I don't rely heavily on Rasmussen and I never cite them in a vacuum or without also citing other polls. That's what is irking me right now. You pretend that I am some sort of Cheerleader for Rasmussen, when in fact I cite other polls far more often than Rasmussen and I am careful to always cite other available polls when citing Rasmussen.

You don't take that kind of care. You think the New York Times is gospel, and you've said so, heaping laurels upon Nate Silver. And, silver found about 1.3% leaning Republican, which is negligable and which he said was accountable to polling "likely voters."

But, once again -- you are arguing with me as if I'm advancing Rasmussen as something we or you or anyone else have to believe, or as somehow definitive. I never said that. And, all I did was cite them in conjunction with other polls. So stop fucking trying to make me out to be a Rasmussen cheerleader. You claim to be fair and you claim to want context, but the reality is, as I see it, that you only really want fairness and context when anything is said about Obama. You've not shown one shred of similar fairness, objectivity or devotion to context when it comes to Romney at all.

[Drewish]