CNN released a poll on the 16th that claims that 53% of Americans don't trust the U.S. Military assessment of what is going on in Iraq and that 72% won't have their mind changed on their view of the war no matter what General Petraeus says about the surge next month. But if one reviews the questions of the poll and the method by which it was conducted is considered (at least the only hint of that method that was released), it makes one suspicious that it was anywhere near a fair and balanced scheme. In fact, there are so many questions about how this poll was carried out that the results must be viewed with skepticism.
To start with, of course, the poll is conducted by Hillary Clinton supporter Vin Gupta's Opinion Research Corporation, the organization CNN has hired to run their political polling -- a convenient situation for the Clinton campaign, to be sure. This single fact alone is enough to inform that the poll could likely be weighted to skew toward the ideas that Hillary Clinton is propagating in her campaign.
According to the front page of the partial downloadable PDF file of the poll, it was compiled from "interviews with 1,029 adult Americans" by telephone between August 6th thru the 8th with a plus or minus 3 percentage points.
There is no indication what party the respondents claimed to be members of, there is no mention if they were voters, registered, or likely. No geographic region is identified, no age bracket and no gender info for the poll is offered. This also causes skepticism. After all, they could have asked all Democrats, or weighted the Democrats to be a higher percentage. Maybe more women than men were asked? Maybe all the respondents were in the environs of Washington D.C., or maybe they were all women in Austin, Texas!? We have no idea as no facts of the sample size are revealed.
Only half of sample asked certain questions?
Then we get to the odd choice of asking only half those interviewed some of the questions from the poll. What was the deal with this? At least questions 28 through 33 were only presented to half those interviewed. One of those questions pertained to how respondents viewed the report general Petraeus would be giving next month.
33. As you may know, in September the top U.S. commander in Iraq will report to the President and Congress about how the war is going. Do you trust him to report what's really going on in Iraq without making the situation sound better than it actually is, or don't you feel that way? (ASKED OF HALF SAMPLE)
The half of the 1,029 interviewed that were asked this question ended up giving the following results:
- Trust him to report what’s really going on 43%
- Do not trust him to report what’s really going on 53%
- No opinion 4%
But which half were asked this question? Was the question asked of women and not men? Was the question asked of Democrats and not Republicans? How do we know how this question was weighted so that we might assess the legitimacy of the results?
Further, if many of the questions were only asked of half the respondents, doesn't that mean that the poll was not conducted among 1,029 adult Americans, but was really only conducted among some 514 adults, roughly half the claimed sample size?
As Duane Patterson of radioblogger says, "It's hard to take a poll seriously when on the one hand, 50% can support the war or say they're open minded to change their mind, and then in the next breath say 72% wouldn't change their mind on Iraq regardles of what General Petraeus might say, because most people don't trust him anyway."
And who could disagree with that?
All in all, what we have here is another questionable CNN poll by Clintonista, Gupta, that is possibly weighted toward the antiwar side and one that should be viewed with a healthy skepticism... not that any of CNN's viewers and readers would be aware of the problems here.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
The beauty of consumer
August 17, 2007 - 05:46 ET by Gat New YorkThe beauty of consumer research is that you can get whatever results you want from a survey or poll based on what question you ask, how you ask them, and to whom you are asking them to. This survey is typical. What should also not be surprise is that shenanigans like this are directly tied to Hillary Clinton - old news.
Who said "three types of
August 17, 2007 - 06:12 ET by motherbeltWho said "three types of lies...lies, damn lies, and statistics? Same goes for polls. This poll is nonsense on stilts. I can't wait to see the results he gets for Clinton as her campaign rolls along....he'll have her, as one of the Beatles once described the group "more popular than Jesus."
}}---> Mark Twain said it
August 17, 2007 - 07:01 ET by Cool ArrowIs this an old picture taken while Hillary was carrying Chelsea?
I didn't realize that outfit was so old.
~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~
Twain also said...
August 17, 2007 - 07:14 ET by sarcasmoThe government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.
- Roughing It
That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.
- A Tramp Abroad
...no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.
- The Gilded Age
The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivaly of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in fine, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.
- "Official Physic," reprinted in The Twainian, 11/1943
Quite a thinker & quite a patriot, I'd say...
JMR
Rally online with fans of Dr. Ron Paul.
* LOL
August 17, 2007 - 09:06 ET by rob6677Are you suggesting that Joan Rivers should start covering political functions?
" Ohh, here she comes with that same tired outfit! Isn't that how the Nazi's got into fashion, by wearing the same thing?"
"I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice." Clint Eastwood
DANGER -- Liberal
August 17, 2007 - 07:06 ET by Jack BauerI think the word corrupt is an apt and fair description of this poll and the people behind it.
DANGER -- Liberal
August 17, 2007 - 08:55 ET by motherbeltDANGER -- Liberal Corruption At Work... Jack Bauer
Wow, Jack, that's a masterpiece....double redundancy and oxymoron all in one phrase....
Unique
August 17, 2007 - 07:19 ET by allanfThe news business is unique. No where else in the American economy would a product so patently defective be tolerated.
Most firms want their market research to be accurate. Not the news media.
Most firms want their product to work. Not the news media. It doesn't report news, it just packages snippets of information to tell a predefined story. It's accuracy does not matter.
I don't know about the news
August 17, 2007 - 07:24 ET by Warner Todd HustonI don't know about the news business being unique. I can name two others jobs where you can be wrong EVERY day and never get fired. Politician and weatherman!
And, maybe husband.... at least as far as MY wife is concerned!
Shame
August 17, 2007 - 08:37 ET by cvgbuckeyeTo the MSM:
Have you no shame sir? After all is said and done; have you no shame? Have you no regard for the truth left at all; oh ye who claims to be the seeker and protecter of truth?
Have you now also partnered with those who seek to destroy those who still seek the truth?
No, no, no, and yes!
Surge Report
August 17, 2007 - 08:45 ET by pocomocoThe Democrats are in the process of creating a ‘surge’ of their own as they gather their forces, aka MSM, for a 'preemptive smear' of the Petraeus report. Reid and Pelosi, Dumb and Dumber, no doubt, have been spending much of their August vacation in ‘preemptive smear’ meetings getting ready to suggest that Petraeus is lying. Is it any wonder that their personal ratings are lower than whale dung.
Many blog comments over the years have suggested that what they are doing is tantamount to treason. I whole-heartedly agree.
from Scrappleface: With a
August 17, 2007 - 09:51 ET by Del Dolemontefrom Scrappleface:
With a new CNN poll showing that 53 percent of Americans plan to reject the upcoming Iraq progress report by the top U.S. military commander and the U.S. ambassador there, President George Bush today announced he had contracted with several CNN reporters and anchors to write the final version of the report “in order to salvage a shred of credibility.”
“I can understand why the American people don’t believe Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker — men who lay their lives on the line daily to bring peace and justice to Iraq,” said President Bush. “That’s why I’m hiring these journalism boys from Atlanta to write this report.”
The president, explaining the 11th-hour decision, said, “Americans trust the kind of men whose faces wear the stain of heavy cosmetic makeup, whose heads have born the burden of daily conditioning rinses and relentless doses of hairspray. But guys like Petraeus and Crocker — who live in Kevlar vests, floss the sand out of their teeth at night and make daily life-and-death choices — may be prone to stretch the truth. That’s why my fellow Americans put their faith in the men of CNN; men who employ people to choose their neckties, who wear earphones so others can tell them what to say and which way to turn. These are the kind of men who pour their blood, sweat and tears into devising a clever way to transition from a car-bombing story to the latest compelling video of Elvis impersonators. These are men of integrity, men who talk-the-walk and, therefore, men who have earned our trust.”
Meanwhile, the latest CNN poll shows that 92 percent of the people who get their news from CNN believe the results of the latest CNN poll.
* Just Asking
August 17, 2007 - 09:01 ET by rob6677Does anyone know of a poll taken regarding media bias?
I don't mean one of the NB polls though, and something with legitimate tactics and common sense applied.
"I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice." Clint Eastwood
My Favorite: 89% of
August 17, 2007 - 10:27 ET by pbanks7My Favorite:
89% of Washington reporters voted for Bill Clinton in 1992.
7% voted for George Bush in 1992.
This was the year Clinton won with 43% of the popular vote.
Ignorance is bliss. It's easier to repeat a mindless slogan than to do some actual research.
I wasn't as politically
August 17, 2007 - 10:39 ET by drillanwrI wasn't as politically aware back in that decade, but wasn't that with only roughly 50% of registered voters voting ... or was that the following election vs. Bob Dole?
* Yep
August 17, 2007 - 10:57 ET by rob6677That was the election I voted for , dare I say........Perot
Which in some circles is regarded as a vote for Clinton, I at least learned from my mistake. These reporters have no excuse!
"I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice." Clint Eastwood
A little analysis of the
August 17, 2007 - 09:04 ET by fosstenA little analysis of the poll question itself would have been helpful, Warner. But no matter, I shall help you.
33. As you may know, in September the top U.S. commander in Iraq will report to the President and Congress about how the war is going. Do you trust him to report what's really going on in Iraq without making the situation sound better than it actually is, or don't you feel that way?
Dick Morris has debunked these types of questions in the past. Look at the wording. The first part of the question itself casts doubt on the truthfulness of Petraeus by implying that the situation in Iraq is not good, which is leading the pollee to one conclusion. The question then delivers the coup de grace with a flourish, "...or don't you feel that way?" Don't you feel that way is a trick phrase because unless the person asked wholly agrees with the first part of the statement, he/she will answer in the negative. And the extreme nature of the first part of the question makes it difficult to pigeonhole most people's beliefs. Most people have varying degrees of trust, and they will not agree with such an extreme statement, especially when it has already been laced with doubt. To do so would make them feel stupid, which is what the question is designed to do.
To use polling to gauge the trust of the people is disingenuous, especially when using a format where it's all or nothing. Moreover, all skewed poll questions are structured like this: Do you blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah...or NOT? It's designed to get one answer. I'm impressed that fully 43% of the people asked didn't give the answer CNN wanted.
Forget 911, I dial 9MM.
Sounds like sloppy poll
August 17, 2007 - 10:27 ET by drillanwrSounds like sloppy poll dancing to me ...
CNN better watch out. ABC's 20/20 is investigating NBC ... and then there is MSNBC's Morning Joe S. admitting the newsroom's bias yesterday ... not to mention the latest revelations regarding newspaper sloppiness in errors and fudged stories and pictures, and news room bias. Not to mention Bill O. has been hounding NBC and other news sources for quite a while now.
THIS is why the MSM hates the blogs so much. Sites such as NB are the scalpel by which the MSM is being surgically laid open for all to see the cancer within.
It's simple.
August 17, 2007 - 10:58 ET by c5thenThe poll questions and methodology (I hate that word) were designed to generate a predetermined result. The reason that only half the respondents were asked the "rest of the questions" depended upon their responses to the previous questions. It's a typical behavior in polls, unfortunately. If your answers to the early questions showed that you were conservative, or pro-military, you would not be asked questions 28-33.
Statistically, if only half the respondents were asked some of the questions, then the standard deviation (statistical error %) goes up by 4x. It should be reported as +/- 12% which makes it a completely useless poll.
The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic
Margin of Error of Sample of 500
August 17, 2007 - 12:04 ET by Dr_Libertyc5then, the standard deviation (SD) doesn't go up 4 times. Moreover, the margin of error (MoE) is related to the standard error of the sample, which is determined more by sample size than by standard deviation (although the standard deviation is part of the equation.
For reference, the standard error formula is:
SD divided by the square root of the sample size
Most polling houses assume a "largest SD" in a binomial poll question (yes or no) and thus the SD is 0.5.
Working through the equation, the standard error (SE) of the sample will be about 0.022, which translates to 2.2% in the sample. But this only represents one SE.
The MoE is built around a 95% confidence interval, which means you roughly double the SE.
In this case the MoE for a sample of 514 is roughly +/- 4.4%
While I know you hate the word methodology, it is an important part of the whole research process and as informed conservatives we need to be able to make accurate critiques of the methodology.
<insert witty signature here>
OK, my math may have been off a bit (been awhile)
August 17, 2007 - 12:18 ET by c5thenBut you failed to take into account that 50% of the responders were asked 28 questions and 50% of the responders were asked 34 or more questions, based on their responses to the first 28 questions. Then the whole group was combined into a single "result". That doubles, at least, the margin of error for the questions that were asked conditionally and skews the result.
And I hate the word "methodology" because it is almost always used grammatically incorrectly. The ending "ology" is "the study of". So methodology is the study of method or methods. The way you do something is the method by which you do it.
Someone who looks at the methods of many polls is studying methodology. Someone who conducts a poll, employs a method, not a methodology.
The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic
What are you talking about
August 18, 2007 - 00:34 ET by Warner Todd HustonWhat are you talking about with this whole "methodology" business?
LOL
Isn't there's another name
August 17, 2007 - 12:24 ET by Jack BauerIsn't there's another name for a poll with a whopping margin of error of +/- 4.4%.
Seriously I'm thinking that most informed people could come up with a guess about most topics with that degree of inaccuracy.
Two Comments on Surge Poll
August 17, 2007 - 12:13 ET by Dr_Liberty1) Fossten noted the subtle bias in the question above. Well done. I've always suspected (but haven't tested) whether there is another bias to the "as you know" questions. When you start a question stating "as you know" you put the respondent in a difficult situation if they actually don't know about X. If they admit that they don't know about X (e.g., the Petreaus report) then they appear dumb to the poll taker. Such people will tend to feign knowledge then. If you don't know about the report being talked about and you they ask you if you trust it, you will probably have an incentive to say you don't trust the report; skepticism is a psychologically safer response to uncertainty. This may be going on in this poll, but that is only speculation.
2) Gupta is not doing Clinton of the Dems any favor by "juicing" the poll results to support the Dems current position. This may just give them false assurance that their position is correct and in line with public opinion when it is not. When the "real poll" (i.e., election) is conducted, they may find that they were out-of-step with public opinion based on poor polling. (Think about Kerry's "early victories" as reported by pollsters in the 2004 election.)
It may be the case that Gupta is trying to juice the question in order to affect the public's opinion writ large. If people hear that other people are skeptical of the surge report, they too will tend to be skeptical. However, I don't think enough people pay attention to this to make it an effective strategy.
<insert witty signature here>
No Surprise
August 17, 2007 - 12:16 ET by mattmIt's not surprising that CNN would weight their poll against the surge report seeing as how the Demogogues (er, ah, crats) are already dismissing it as a "White House con job" before even seeing it. This, despite the fact that the Administration has said that both Petraeus and ambassador Crocker are available to testify before Congress.
But that won't do for the Dimo's because that would require an actual desire to ascertain the truth. They're not interested in the truth, only their own version of it...So, they dismiss the report before ever seeing it, as per usual.
Connecting the Obvious Dots ...
August 17, 2007 - 15:45 ET by BondPlainBondCNN -> Opinion Research Corporation -> InfoUSA -> Vin Gupta -> Paul Pelosi -> Nancy Pelosi -> Hillary Clinton -> George Soros
CNN hires (or were they directed to hire?) Vin Gupta, owner of Opinion Research Corporation (and owner of InfoUSA) to do the polling
InfoUSA, where the son of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Paul (who is a close and personal friend of Gupta, as is his mother) was hired personally by Gupta (the day Pelosi was "crowned" Speaker of the House) to be the director of InfoUSA's national polling division where Paul Pelosi has unfettered access to all polling information (names, addresses, and phone numbers)
To promote the "ideals" of Hillary Clinton in pushing her forward in her campaign for the presidency via the limitless money and influence of George Soros (also connected to Gupta)
Conflict of interest? Nah. Couldn't be. Could it?
*chuckle* What's that saying? Hide in plain sight?
Were CNN Poll Questions Weighted Against Surge Report? Of course they were!
As far as journalistic integrity... You have to have a conscience or, at the very least, a working moral compass before you can speak about integrity. Leftist organzations and "journalists" are completely devoid of both.
With the plethora of knowingly calculated and deliberate false reporting, deliberately doctored pictures and documents, and falsely conjured-up non-existent sources pushed on them by the major news networks, newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc of the Leftist MSM, it's no wonder that those on the political Left are of completely hobbled mind. To so willingly buy into the lies, slander, and obfuscations so blatantly presented to them as "news" each and every hour of the day and night (when it is only "opinion") it's no wonder those on the Left only understand "spin".