Arkansas Blog

Yeah, and they quit asking HST in 1948 and the Chicago Tribune bought into it. *grin*

Click on Cato

So how long will it be before the corporate media and Polls will announce dirty mouth McCain our next president?

Let's face it the media elected bush in 00/04 and supported invasion of Iraq, sending thousands of our young men/women to their deaths because they neglected to do their job -- protecting Americans by asking questions. Apparently greed and power is the ultimate in importance to them.

Associated Press News Analysis: 'Hillary Democrats' could be up for grabs

"Yeah, and they quit asking HST in 1948 and the Chicago Tribune bought into it."

It ain't the same. Poor polling before the actual election (Hewey vs. Truman) vs. the fact that the delegates have already been allocated (Obama vs. Clinton) post-election (other than a handful of states). (Besides, sampling methods have improved vastly since then.)

"Part of the reason Truman's victory came as such a shock was because of as-yet uncorrected flaws in the emerging craft of public opinion polling. Many of the supposedly reliable polls of voter's preferences in the race had been based on phone surveys-which, in 1948, produced a biased sample of affluent voters (who could afford telephones and also maintain a stable address). These voters were more likely to support Dewey. Much of Truman's support came from the lower and middle class voting blocs, who were often less able to afford telephones and missed being surveyed by the pollsters. Also, some pollsters were so confident of Dewey's victory that they simply stopped polling voters weeks before the election, and thus missed a last-minute surge of support for the Democrats. After 1948, pollsters would survey voters until the day before the election: they would also announce their results on television, in real time, more or less."-Wikipedia

Wow, BWC. So Rasmussen points out that it's impossible for Clinton to win (uhh, go to CNN delegate calculator if those big bad profit-driven polling firms don't convince you) and they won't waste money on polling the Democratic race, and you brand them as part of the group that helped elect Bush. I don't deny corporate media helped Bush win, but I think polling firms are generally reputable because they are constrained by scientific methods of statistical analysis. If their polls turn out wrong due to poor methods, they're discredited and no longer used.

CNN delegate calculator: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/29/delegate.counter/

P.S. The latest Rasmussen poll shows with Obama in the lead (within the margin of error).

I'm sorta old fashioned, 20th century person. I just went off the wire, no more ma bell. No more phone listings. So how will my friendly polling company identify and/or locate me? How will robo calling get my number? How will politicos locate me for campaigning?

Multiply my number and my 10 friends who are off the wire by several million and then answer.

I wonder what constitutes a valid sample size for such polls?

I'm not sure, but that's certainly a problem L Wood. However, it's mostly curtailed by different polling methods, such as stratified sampling (I just took this final so I'll indulge myself and sound like a cocky jerk). Statified sampling divides the population into various categories, such as by race, income, etc, then takes random polling samples from within those groups to ensure that those groups are fairly represented. But it's not as if people who don't use phones tend to vote in similar ways and therefore we're missing an important electorate (as those of a specific income level do, for example), so I doubt that would pose much of a problem. Besides, I don't think all polling firms use phone calls to contact people.

The valid sample size is calculated depending on the confidence interval wanted. This basically means the most conservative estimate possible, based on a formula. These are formulas involved based on the "normal model." So in other words, it's as scientific as possible and "conservative" in it's methods.

"(Besides, sampling methods have improved vastly since then.)"

Yeah, I know JD, and they said the same thing in 1948 after the disasterous polls of 1936 showed Alf Landon defeating FDR by a landslide. All the pundits were against FDR. Dorothy Thompson, H.L. Mencken, and others. Historian Charles Beard wrote that "this burlesque of civilized government is about to come to an end." Workers received notices in their pay envelopes that beginning Jan. 1, 1937, a new one percent payroll tax would be taken from their weekly checks and the only way to stop it was to vote against FDR. The right wing of the GOP labeled FDR a commie and his New Deal something straight out of the Communist Manifesto.

We all know FDR won by a landslide, carrying 46 states to Landon's 2. Landon didn't even carry his home state of Kansas, if I recall my history correctly.

The NY Times is reporting tonight (11:20 p.m.) that for the first time Obama is leading Clinton in superdelegates, 266 to 264: "Democratic officials said what had been a trickle of superdelegates declaring for Mr. Obama was turning into a steady stream in the wake of Tuesday's primaries, when Mrs. Clinton lost by 14 percentage points in North Carolina and narrowly won Indiana. Mr. Obama is just 166 delegates away from the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the nomination."

Investors over on Iowa Electronic Markets have tanked HRC and BO is off the charts. IEM has the highest accuracy in outcome predictions.

blue name

That makes me wish I'd bought Obama back in October when he was selling at about $15, L.Wood. It would be about a 6:1 return. $500 is the max trade amount, so we'd be looking at about 3 grand right now.

In the national market, I think O. is a steal at $60 right now. it looks like it's up about $5 from a few days ago. That trend is going to continue.

But I'm afraid if I buy into the market it's going to jinx the Dems.

YA' KNOW JD, YOU AND EUREKA AND THE OBAMA-5 HAVE COMPLETELY TURNED ME OFF BARACK!!!!

AND THE 'DEMANDOCAT' PARTY!!!!