Everybody is talking about this poll from CNN declaring victory for Obama’s debate performance last night with an article titled “Round 1 in debates goes to Obama, poll says.”
Noah Pollak reads the fine print of the article and takes a few notes from deeper down into the specifics.
Buried way, way down at the bottom of the story — hopefully, one surmises, past the point where anyone would read — is the following:
The results may be favoring Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tuned in to the debate. Of the debate-watchers questioned in this poll, 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 27 percent as Republicans and 30 percent as independents.
I’m far from being a polling expert, but this is obviously a slanted poll. A 14-point split between Republican and Democrat respondents? And what percentage of those “independents” were leaners for Obama?
That’s bad enough, but the really egregious part is CNN’s blatant reportage of opinion as fact, which allowed the creation of a news story announcing Obama’s victory.
So much for that poll. The truth is that Obama had many, many gaffes. The media won't report on those. Instead they will trumpet misleading headlines on skewed polls.
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huh?
September 27, 2008 - 12:04 ET by arkansaszippersSo all the facts are there then. Of the poll of their viewers, which they clearly state are mostly Democrat or Independant, Obama was the winner. How is that bias? They polled their viewers. They gave the viewers' party preferences. They gave the results. What's the big deal? The poll of Fox News viewers had McCain winning by 82%. Their viewers are probably mostly Republican. So is neither network supposed to poll their viewers?
How is that bias?How is it
September 27, 2008 - 12:17 ET by NewsbusterbrownHow is that bias?
How is it indicative of reality?
So is neither network supposed to poll their viewers?
If the polls are not accurate, then the obvious answer is no.
“There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.” - Ronald Reagan (1964 Republican Convention)
Open your eyes.
September 27, 2008 - 12:21 ET by pbthinkerOf course the Fox poll was skewed, which may be why they didn't make it a news story the next day, like CNN did. It should be obvious, to the most casual observer, that the MSM has given Obama a pass. Sarah Palin has been asked more tough questions, in less than a month, than Obama has been asked in two years. Do you actually believe that's just the luck of the draw? Do you actually believe that Obama has so much experience that no one should question his ability to be President of the United States? Do you actually believe that, given his experience plus 143 days in the Senate, makes him qualified to run for President?
You really have to stretch credibility to think the MSM has vetted Senator Obama, during the many opportunities they've had. Are you comfortable, with the level of vetting, Senator Obama has had since he announced for President? I'm not. You may ask why it's important that I be satisfied? It's quite simple, he's supposed to be President of the whole country, red and blue states. If the MSM does their job, and our candidate loses, we can just say the best man won. If the MSM doesn't do their job, we just say the voters got sandbagged by the press and we elected someone that no one knew what he believed. Is that what you want?
Democrats: Stuck on Stupid since 2000.
last night's snapshot poll
September 27, 2008 - 13:29 ET by wdhorningBoth CNN and Fox had "punch in" polling. Here were the numbers about midnight:
: CNN FoxNews TOTALS
McCain 30317 73800 104117
Obama 73250 15300 88550
These results show a few things:
1) for the total of all Democrats and Republicans and Independents, more voted for McCain where the vote ratio was 44% for Obama, but 56% percent for McCain.
2) CNN has a viewership that is mostly Democrats, that is a ratio of 3:1 over Republicans, yet Obama only got 7:3 ratio which, when a common denominator is used, yields 7:3 ratio out of 9:3 proving that many Democrats switched sides, at least when looking at debate performance. (A tie ratio would have been 9:3, but Obama only got 7:3).
3) FoxNews viewship is mostly Republicans, and that ratio is about 7:5 over Democrats according to recent viewer's survey. In this case McCain got a ratio of 3:1 and when the common denominator is changed for comparison we see that with a viewership of 7:5 McCain got a vote of confidence of 15:5 which exceeds a tie of 7:5 by 2 to 1
4) There was of course some independent voters in the mix, so the ratios are not perfect, but still close
5) Finally, the FoxNews poll also shows a much larger percentage of Democrats watch FoxNews than the percentage of Republicans that watch CNN. Could it be that FoxNews presents both sides more fairly that CNN?
Ans: I watched the interviews after the debate and very strong arguments were allowed to be made by spokespersons from both McCain and Obama camps on FoxNews. I have watched CNN on occasion in the past, just to compare, and sure enough, CNN lets a Republicn who is a "numb nuts" speak on behalf of McCain/Palin, but picks the brightest Democrat to speak for Obama/Biden.
7) I believe it was 6 times Obama had to say something like, "Sen McCain is absolutely right", while McCain only agreed with Obama ever so slightly on a few key points (like doing something about the financial crisis). It seems McCain articulated much better, which was not just debating skills alone, but he has more knowledge in the background of all issues.
8) This simple survey shows that all the MSM commentators are clearly in the Obama camp, because they all said Obama won the debates, but the combined Democrat-Republican survey I just did proves them to be biased at bias can get.
9) I watched a discussion afterwards, where Juan Williams could NOT look anyone in the face when he said Obama won the debate and also while explaining why, showing Mr Williams, in truth, did not believe what he was saying. He finally did look the moderator in the face for those things that were simple statements of fact, however, proving he was embarassed when he lacked confidence in his support of Obama, but OK when what he said was just a statement of fact. All the other commentators looked the moderator in the face, because they all provided more balanced comments that were fairly truthful, including those comments favoring Obama. No one looked down or away when providing favorable comments for McCain.
"So all the facts are there
September 27, 2008 - 13:30 ET by ckc1227"So all the facts are there then. Of the poll of their viewers, which
they clearly state are mostly Democrat or Independant, Obama was the
winner. How is that bias?"
Because it's misleading. It's like asking death row criminals if they are for or against the death penalty, then running a story saying 90% are against the death penalty while hiding at the bottom who it was you polled. What's the point? If you ask democrats who they think won, of course they're going to choose their candidate. There's no story there, but they try to make it one to help their candidate.
"The poll of Fox News viewers had McCain winning by 82%. Their viewers are probably mostly Republican."
The Fox poll was a text poll where anyone can vote as often as they want. There is nothing scientific about it, and they don't pass it off as official, or write a story claiming victory for McCain based on it.
THANKS! ckc1227...
September 27, 2008 - 14:37 ET by MrShy"What's the point?"
I meant to add that to the bottom of my post, below, which sort of renders all the other debating over the use of this laughable poll mute.
Not only "what's the point"... it's totally irresponsible to even be conducting such a poll (that goes for Fox, too) let alone treat it like it's an official and fair one the way CNN has -- plastering it on their website AND peddling it on TV (saw a few stupid talking heads presenting it earlier today...)
It's downright corrupt!
NOW PLAYING:
Governor Palin Get Your Gun
hey zippers
September 27, 2008 - 14:25 ET by MrShySo all the facts are there then. Of the poll of their viewers, which they clearly state are mostly Democrat or Independant, Obama was the winner.
Are you kidding? Please, for the love of humanity, take off your blinders...
CNN's headline, which is featured in their top list of headlines both on the main homepage and their "Politics" homepage, is this:
Round 1 in debates goes to Obama, poll says
Nope. The headline makes no mention of what kind of poll this is, as you can obviously see, using just "poll says".
Their 19 paragraph-long article lets us in on the demographics of what the party leanings are of the people surveyed...... in paragraphs.... 18 and 19!!
Yes. You got it. That is NOT "clearly stating" this very vital piece of information that, if CNN was a responsible news organization, would "clearly state" for its readers when they begin the article with a simple, generic "A national poll of people...." in the first paragraph.
Only to someone who doesn't want to accept that there is blatant bias going on here, is it not obvious that just going with "poll of people" by default conveys that it's an even-handed poll.
How is that bias?
That's how that's bias.
NOW PLAYING:
Governor Palin Get Your Gun
MrShy
September 27, 2008 - 19:58 ET by arkansaszippersSo it wasn't mentioned in the first sentence - I still don't think they're really fooling anybody. Any intelligent person can read an entire article. I mean, all of you did.
From those Wonderful People Who Give You Campbell Brown
September 27, 2008 - 12:10 ET by BW222What can you expect from a network that gives you Election Edition, hosted by someone as biased and dishonest as Campbell Brown?
Is it just me, or does Campbell have the most annoying voice on network television?
BW222
URGENT !!! BAILOUT $ GOING TO OBAMA FRAUD GROUP
September 27, 2008 - 12:21 ET by john5750TIME TO WRITE AND CALL CONGRESS.
THEY WANT TO GIVE 20% OF BAILOUT BILLIONS TO ACORN - OBAMA'S FRONT FOR ELECTION FRAUD AND MONEY LAUNDERING............just google obama money laundering and election fraud.
Last night, Greta Van Susteran interviewed Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an ardent McCain supporter. When I heard Sen. Graham refer to ACORN, I perked up. As it stands, if the bailout proposal goes through with the counter-proposals from Sen. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Del.), ACORN would receive 20% of 700 billion dollars of the bailout money.
Curious to learn more about Graham’s references, I also read “Kill the bailout: More ACORN funding?!,” which offers this explanation of the Dodd counter-proposal:
And this morning I found another mention of ACORN at HotAir in this article, The Democratic ACORN bailout. Ed Morrisey had this to say:
I went to PublicMarkup.org to read the counterproposal, which includes comments from citizens.
a href=”http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/25/kill-the-bailout-more-acorn-funding”>Here’s more on the development:
There will be more on ACORN and ACORN Housing Corporation as the day rolls on!
ALSO: Check out Memeorandum.com for more stories on the Acorn controversy.
SusanUnPC’s Note: NancyA has more pieces coming up on Acorn that will be posted throughout the evening, hopefully before tomorrow.
www.NoQuarterUSA.net
Dodd is the only senator who has taken more Fannie/Freddie money than Obama. The two of them are the greedy corrupt pigs who created this crisis..........AND THEY WANT MORE !!!!
McCAIN-PALIN 2008 and HILLARY-ANYBODY 2012
OUR BAILOUT BILLIONS GOING TO OBAMA FRAUD GROUP
September 27, 2008 - 12:30 ET by john5750OBAMA USES ACORN FOR ELECTION FRAUD AND MONEY LAUNDERING
But laundering payments to ACORN through a front company, in a conspiracy to defraud the FEC is a crime.
Another glaring oddity is Stage, Lighting and Sound (SLS) %u2013 also a service never previously reported as a CSI offering. Obama made two payments for SLS to CSI within two days of each other. These payments were the largest checks made for "concerts" throughout the entire campaign calendar. CSI received $310,000 followed by $160,000 two days later. Two days after that, CSI got a $98,000 check for Travel/Lodging. Two weeks after that another $74,000 was paid to CSI for SLS. Two weeks later, $18,000 for Polling was reported, followed by another $18,000 for SLS the following day. All of the above payments went to a company that admits they provide none of the above services.
There are numerous federal offenses that may have been committed by the Obama campaign.
A complaint to the FEC is being prepared and could be filed soon.
OBAMA-ACORN IS STEALING ELECTION AGAIN
September 27, 2008 - 12:33 ET by john5750MORE OBAMA ELECTON FRAUD
Municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group.
The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program.
ACORN''s Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly with the use of paid, part-time employees.
"There appears to be a sizeable number of fraudulent applications," said Kelly Chesney, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State''s Office. "And it appears to be widespread."
Recently, ACORN''s voter registration programs have come under investigation with some employees convicted of voter fraud.
In Pontiac, where several thousand applications have been submitted by ACORN in the last few weeks for the November election, the clerk''s office is finding that numerous applications are sometimes filed under one name. "They''re steadily coming in, and we are finding a huge number of duplications.
In Oak Park, clerk Sandra Gadd said they have been seeing "lots of duplication" from ACORN in recent months.
ACORN is the nation''s largest community organization for low-income families.
Lagstein said ACORN''s Detroit office has hired dozens of employees for the voter registration program.
MORE OF OBAMA''S GOOD OLD "COMMUNITY ORGANIZING".
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McCAIN-PALIN 2008 and HILLARY-ANYBODY 2012
"30 percent as
September 27, 2008 - 13:35 ET by ckc1227"30 percent as independents."
Independants are usually democrats who are afraid to admit they are democrats, so this poll was likely skewed 60% dems to 30% repubs.
Just another reason why I
September 27, 2008 - 14:25 ET by Clear thinkerJust another reason why I do not put any stock in polls. Poll results can depend on so many factors, like the one discussed in this peice, but my main objection goes to a deeper reason why I think polls are worthless... The majority of people in this country still get their news from liberal biased media outlets, TV, News Papers, etc. These outlets use misleading info, biased info, and at times, info that is just flat out false. If this is what the majority of Americans get as News, it means that the majority of Americans have bad info to make decisions with. So when one of these Americans answers a poll question they are giving their answers based on bad info. This means that polls are not an honest measure of anything, unless you want to measure how badly people have been fooled.
A Breakthrough Night for Obama?
Making Fun of AGW http://giovanniworld.wordpress.com/
How About Those Independents?
September 27, 2008 - 19:41 ET by SkipJust to reinforce a little something: In this CNN poll, 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 27 percent as Republicans and 30 percent as Independents. If voters who openly identify themselves as Republicans can be expected to vote Republican and Democrats Democrat, the true question is how did the 30% independents answer the poll? ANSWER: Since Obama cleared 51% in this poll, then 20% of Independents apparently believed McCain won the debate and 10% thought Obama won. Unless Obama converted some Republicans and McCain garnered even MORE independents. So what we have from CNN is a headline claiming a debate victory for Barak Obama that was, in reality, a 2-1 loss for Obama among voters whose votes can swing either way. That, friends, is media bias.
I have followed this poll
September 27, 2008 - 22:27 ET by RHRobinsonMDI have followed this poll intermittently for about a month and what I find striking in this most recent one is the low polling numbers for the Sarah Palin questions. What that says to me is that these steady landslide results for McCain/Palin are MORE realistic than any ABC/CBS/Zog/Ras/TIME etc. polls. Clearly AOL is not just registering M/P zealots.
First, what is it you want us to pay taxes for? Tell me what I get and perhaps I'll buy it. - Robert Heinlein
I'm no mathemetician, but I
September 29, 2008 - 02:47 ET by entI'm no mathemetician, but I just did some back-of-the-envelope calculations that attempt to factor in the uneven distribution of Democrats vs. Republicans and deal with the independants in various ways, and I came up with:
0.95 vs 0.84 in favor of McCain
1.40 vs 1.24 in favor of McCain
0.97 vs 0.84 in favor of McCain
which is a 6-8% lead for McCain in all cases. Their statement that "after accounting for the slight Democratic bias in the survey, we witnessed a tie" is wishful thinking.