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| But PPP Has Obama Up 5 in Ohio! It's Over, Dude! |
Yesterday at various blogs I read over and over again that the Dem convention gave Obama a big bounce, that he’s winning, that his approval is now over 50%, that their enthusiasm is as high as that of the Republican crowd, that–I've noticed it, too. In some respects I think some Republican partisans are echoing the lament that we heard coming from Jon Lovitz, when he played Michael Dukakis back in 1988 -- "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!"
And then you look at the polls that caused this “sky is falling” fit. What are those polls? Those polls are, in fact, the same old sh*te. They poll all adults, which you KNOW skews Democrat. They poll registered voters, which you know skews Democrat. They poll with a skew of 4% Democrats over Republicans as though this were still 2008, as if 2010 had never happened.
Then all the people on the right echo these as though they were legitimate and say “oh, but the polls were correct before.”
Bottom line is this -- while Mitt Romney is no one's idea of the perfect candidate, the incumbent president is one of the weakest presidents we've ever had. He's in Franklin Pierce territory. The leaks coming out from Bob Woodward's book are absolutely devastating, Friday's jobs report was disastrous and Europe is on the verge of implosion again. The convention bump isn't going to last very long. Back to Hoyt:
I don’t think it is done. I don’t believe we are done. I’m not ready to lie down and die. I don’t think Obama is surging – unless you make him. So, stop doing that. Like the recovery which has been touted for three years and which the first time around was all over every paper, Obama’s surge is a mirage.Yep. And this advice from Hoyt, via Instapundit, also rings true to me:
The great and powerful Oz is a little man behind a curtain. Obama is worse than that. He’s the little man who wasn’t there. A creation of the media and propaganda. There’s nothing there. Stop shaking in your boots and pull back the curtain.
Romney is better than Obama. He’s not ideal — who is? — but we’re not (thank heavens) a monarchy looking for a perfect king. We’re a sovereign people looking for the best of two candidates. We can’t go back to sleep after he’s elected. We have to stay awake, watch over our employee and make him fear our wrath and our firing him if he goes astray. But first we get rid of the total dud we (well, not me, but…) hired in 08. Frankly, I’m looking forward to the Tea Parties to keep Romney in line. But first I donate and I campaign so we can hire him. THEN we keep him in line.Even in a time of rampant inflation, the price of liberty -- eternal vigilance -- remains the same.
8 comments:
I stand by my year-long prediction: Obama will lose and it won't be close. With all due respect to Rich, we'd have to be retarded to re-elect this president. (With the caveat that if one prioritizes liberal social issues over employment/economy Obama is the clear choice.)
They poll all adults, which you KNOW skews Democrat. They poll registered voters, which you know skews Democrat.
I don't "KNOW" either of those things, and neither does the blogger.
It's beside the point, though, because national polls are meaningless at this stage. Each candidate has roughly 160 electoral votes more or less guaranteed already.
The polls that matter are those in (roughly in order of importance) FL, OH, VA, NC, and CO, and to a lesser extent IA, WI, NV, and *maybe* NH, TN, and GA (though I as I pointed out at my place, I don't think those last two are really up for grabs.)
In other words, "up 5 in Ohio" is actually a pretty big deal.
In other words, "up 5 in Ohio" is actually a pretty big deal.
If it's true, yes. The poll had a +4D sample. Hard to know.
My larger point is that panicking about a series of polls in September is silly. And I think we agree about that.
This is the sort of stuff that always frustrates me with political analysis. Campaigns must produce some sort of byproduct which results in a four-year long collective amnesia for both sides. Every campaign, we see pundits make the same mistake of predicting outcomes based on a straight line trajectory from current events.
To wit:
* 1976: Carter held a 33% lead on Gerald Ford after the Democratic National Convention.
* 1980: Carter held a 4% lead on Reagan after the conventions.
* 1984: Reagan led by 9% late in the summer.
* 1988: Dukasis led by 15% according to Gallup in the summer and after the conventions.
* 1992: Clinton trailed by 6% to a tied Bush Sr. & Ross Perot.
* 1996: Clinton led by 17% over Dole after both conventions wrapped up.
* 2000: Bush had a 17%(!) lead in the late summer according to Gallup. It had been a two point race before and was a one point race after both conventions.
* 2004: Bush jumped out to a 7% lead after the GOP convention.
* 2008: McCain grabbed a 5% lead according to Gallup after both conventions finished.
Out of the 9 campaigns listed here in the modern campaign era, the post convention results correctly identified 5 of the winners but none of them by similar margins to their leads. You could expand those percentages by including '72, '68 & '64 if you want, but the margins were still widely off in many cases.
Would I prefer to see Romney leading right now? Sure. But it's a shame no one calls out the prognosticators who make such lazy, partisan electoral calls and call it analysis.
what really shocks me: CA is over 12% actual unemployment, yet i know very few who are willing to commit publically to the challenger,...
...and most everyone else proudly proclaims support for the status quo.
wierd shit, i tell ya. CA should be a battleground. and it is not.
CA should be a battleground. and it is not.
California has to crash hard before there will be any changes. That day is coming soon.
Regarding crashing hard, Roosevelt kept unemployment over 12% for a decade (until Hirohito bailed him out), and people kept electing him. Like P.T. Barnum said, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
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