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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Women's Rights / The War On Women / Chill Out About the Women

Chill Out About the Women

by @heymistermix.com|  October 16, 20128:35 am| 110 Comments

This post is in: The War On Women

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That Gallup poll that John wrote about last night, which showed Obama one point ahead among women in a survey of a dozen swing states, is an outlier. The Obama campaign sent around a memo from Joel Benenson, Obama’s pollster, and the key fact in that memo is that 14 swing state polls in the field during the first two weeks of October, in 8 different states, have an average Obama lead of 10.3% among women. If you read the memo, he has a bunch of issues with Gallup’s sampling that I don’t know enough to interpret, but the comparison with other polls is pretty solid proof that there hasn’t been a huge erosion of support for Obama among women, or if there has, it’s isolated to a couple of states.

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Reader Interactions

110Comments

  1. 1.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 16, 2012 at 8:37 am

    I am beginning to despise the entire polling industry. Not because they’re swinging one way or another, but because there are so many of them, and they are all so contradictory and EVERY FUCKING DAY.

  2. 2.

    dr. bloor

    October 16, 2012 at 8:40 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: Don’t read them.

  3. 3.

    Ash Can

    October 16, 2012 at 8:40 am

    The only value in polls is what they say in aggregate, over time. Any single poll could be an outlier when it’s first reported. The only way to tell what it’s saying is to view it in context.

  4. 4.

    amk

    October 16, 2012 at 8:41 am

    Thanks mm. I thought this was somewhat reality based blog. The past few days seem to question my belief.

  5. 5.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    October 16, 2012 at 8:41 am

    I swung into the McDonald’s to get breakfast, and the Fox morning people were saying how the “main stream media cannot allow Obama to lose two in a row” and I’m thinking: What are you, Fox, if not part of the MSM?

  6. 6.

    arguingwithsignposts

    October 16, 2012 at 8:42 am

    @dr. bloor: I don’t. But all the fainting couches have moved to BJ.

    ETA: It’s kind of hard to miss all this stuff when they are all over the place, even if I wanted to not read the polls themselves. Part of the horse-race thing.

  7. 7.

    Cassidy

    October 16, 2012 at 8:44 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: Hell, we needed them after the “ZOMG! DICKS” freakout. I’d still like ot know who the hell these lurkers are that think we have community standards. We gave up standards like poanties on prom night.

    Anyway…women, voting like they drive. :D

  8. 8.

    The Other Bob

    October 16, 2012 at 8:44 am

    Nate Silver rips apart these “swing state” polls in his most recent column.

    Regarding polls that use a portion of their sample to segregate out results for just the swing states, he says:

    “For example, Monday’s Washington Post poll had Mr. Obama performing better in what it termed swing states than in the country as a whole; the Gallup poll showed just the opposite.

    This data is largely useless. A typical national poll might interview 1,000 people, of which perhaps 250 or 300 will live in swing states, depending on exactly how it defines them.
    The margin of error on a 250- or 300-person subsample is enormous: about plus or minus six percentage points. (The swing state sample from the Gallup poll was somewhat larger, but still small as compared to the 3,000 or so voters that it interviews for each instance of its national tracking poll.)

    In contrast, in the state polls, there are often tens of thousands of people interviewed in polls of battleground states on a given day. (There were about 2,500 on Monday, for example, despite its having a relatively low volume of state polling.)”

  9. 9.

    Chyron HR

    October 16, 2012 at 8:46 am

    14 swing state polls in the field during the first two weeks of October, in 8 different states, have an average Obama lead of 10.3% among women.

    OH MY GOD it swung 9 points to Romney in just two weeks? We’re doomed!

  10. 10.

    scott

    October 16, 2012 at 8:47 am

    While I don’t agree with Gallup that the drop is as stark as they say, this is a more general phenomenon. With one pollster (PPP) who does lots of state work, it was striking to me that in pretty much every state poll they’ve done post-debate that the erosion is pretty dramatic from 2 or 3 weeks ago to today among women. Panicking isn’t an appropriate response to that, but I trust that Obama and co. can read polls and draw appropriate conclusions about who he really needs to talk to during tonight’s debate. I hope so.

  11. 11.

    The Red Pen

    October 16, 2012 at 8:48 am

    I, for one, welcome our new Mormon overlords.

  12. 12.

    Bernard Finel

    October 16, 2012 at 8:49 am

    or if there has, it’s isolated to a couple of states.

    Wow. Scratching the bottom of the barrel in terms of spin here, no?

    I still am not sure how this sort of denial is helpful to our cause. The good news is that the race seems to have stabilized. The bad news is that it has stabilized into a dead heat.

    Instead of trying to explain away every bad poll, we’d be better off acknowledging them and redoubling our efforts to recover lost ground.

    I know, I know, fainting couch, bedwetting, etc. etc. Never mind, you’re all right. Let’s just bury our heads in the sand. No one could ever like Romney. Obama will win handily. 11 dimensional chess. Whew, now I can sleep easy again.

  13. 13.

    pseudonymous in nc

    October 16, 2012 at 8:54 am

    Again, read Nate Silver: “battleground” subsamples are bullshit; subsamples of those subsamples are even worse:

    It is bad enough to focus on one poll when 20 of them are published on a given day. It is much worse to focus on one of the 20 demographic subsamples within one of the 20 polls, which gives you 400 options to pick from. These stories are fake news that have no value to consumers. But it is often the outliers that make for better arguments, and better headlines.

    National polls. State polls. They’re the ones to look at, and they’re the ones that the Obama campaign is looking at. Anything that attempts to aggregate “swing states” or “battleground states” is just offering Crystal Pepsi to impress dumb journalists.

  14. 14.

    amk

    October 16, 2012 at 8:55 am

    @Bernard Finel: wow, you’re all about ‘analysis’, aren’t ya ? Fuck off kid.

  15. 15.

    Chris T.

    October 16, 2012 at 8:55 am

    In my poll of one undecided voter, the results swing from 100% Romney to 100% Obama and back twice a day!

  16. 16.

    pseudonymous in nc

    October 16, 2012 at 8:56 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    I know, I know, fainting couch, bedwetting, etc. etc.

    Actually, yeah. Also: patronising much?

  17. 17.

    Linda Featheringill

    October 16, 2012 at 8:58 am

    I could be wrong, as I frequently am. But I just don’t see a whole lot of women switching over to Romney. Anybody who has ever been chased by a sleazy bastard should be able to see right through Mitt’s pretend-to-be-normal games.

  18. 18.

    mistermix

    October 16, 2012 at 8:58 am

    @Bernard Finel: I’m not trying to explain anything away, just put it in context.

    That sentence that you quote must not have been clear, but here was my meaning. There were 14 states in the Gallup poll. Benenson showed that a dozen recent polls in 8 different states, with larger sample sizes in each state than the Gallup poll, showed an average of a 10.3% margin for Obama among women. So either Gallup’s methodology is wrong, or the other six swing states went so far in the other direction that they made up for the polling in the other 8. I think that’s unlikely but I wanted to acknowledge that maybe it could be true. In any case, in key swing states like Ohio, there’s been no major erosion in Obama support among women.

    Identifying a poll as an outlier is a far cry from denial. It’s trying to understand the reality of the race.

  19. 19.

    master c

    October 16, 2012 at 8:58 am

    we got this.
    C’mon ladies. Lemme at this early voting.

  20. 20.

    Donut

    October 16, 2012 at 8:59 am

    Read Sam Wang, people. He cuts out the noise and looks at hard data, period. He still had Obama with an 84% chance at winning. See also his Russian Roulette analogy.

    Is there anyone who does not know yet what the President needs to do, both tonight and over the next three weeks? Anyone?

    No.

    If you’re still wringing your hands an reaching for smelling salts at this point? You’re fucking hopeless and useless. If that’s you, please go away until 11/8. Kthxbai.

  21. 21.

    max

    October 16, 2012 at 8:59 am

    If you read the memo, he has a bunch of issues with Gallup’s sampling that I don’t know enough to interpret, but the comparison with other polls is pretty solid proof that there hasn’t been a huge erosion of support for Obama among women, or if there has, it’s isolated to a couple of states.

    {reads PDF} More interesting to me was the fact that the October Gallup LV from 2008 was outstanding on McCain’s final outcome but lousy on Obama’s. Whereas the registered voters poll was too low by 2-3% across the board. (The Gallup LV polls from October 2008 showed a 4-5% on average between McCain and Obama, until the last five days. The RV polls showed and 8% gap which was pretty close to correct.)

    Going by the RV poll and adding 2.5 to both sides gives me ~51-48 for Obama for Nov. 6th. That compares pretty neatly to Romney’s LV result which would be averaging ~48.5%. (That’s going solely by early October when Romney is having a good time.) That also would be pretty closely comparable to the WaPo poll.

    That’s not a Romney victory. That’s a Romney loss. (But an unlikely and surprising improvement over McCain.)

    max
    [‘So what’s with the fainting already?’]

  22. 22.

    Chyron HR

    October 16, 2012 at 8:59 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    I know, I know, Obama’s too dumb to speak without a teleprompter and also he wants to lose and besides, drones.

    Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize only you were allowed to do that.

  23. 23.

    General Stuck

    October 16, 2012 at 9:00 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    Wow, dude. There’s enough straw men in that bitter gumbo for a Riverdance.

  24. 24.

    Emma

    October 16, 2012 at 9:03 am

    @Bernard Finel: Somebody piss in your oatmeal?

    Look. If you really believed that it would be anything less than a dead heat from the gitgo, you haven’t been getting out of your cave much. Between the relentless nastiness pouring out of the Republican party for four years, the MSM need to have a “horse race,” and the so-called liberals who would rather scream at the president because he didn’t get them the pony of their choice than do the heavy lifting to change the way people perceive progressive causes — and let’s not mention the wide swath of the country who seems to think that a black man is really not meant to be president of these here Yewnited States — it was never going to be a romp. No matter how good Obama is or how much he has accomplished.

  25. 25.

    mai naem

    October 16, 2012 at 9:04 am

    How much does a poll cost? Maybe BJ can do a poll if it doesn’t cost too much. Kos has done polls. I would be willing to pitch in.

    Also too, I think the MSM is ripe to be punked by a made up poll. It sounds like you just have to have a non descript geographical name with some reasonable sounding questions, stick some numbers in some tables and voila! you got a poll. I think I should send this to Colbert or the Daily Show. Hell, Colbert’s still got some money in the Superpac. About time something gets done with that money. He can be a job creator.

  26. 26.

    General Stuck

    October 16, 2012 at 9:06 am

    The ‘lost ground’ was a stretch of yellow brick road. The race is what it was 6 months ago or 6 years ago. Even steven nationally. The electoral college is still smiling on us and Obama, however. It will be more so after Obama makes Mitt squeal like a little piggy tonight.

  27. 27.

    Donut

    October 16, 2012 at 9:08 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    I’d like to join the chorus telling you to fuck off.

    What do you think Chicago and the Prez have been doing for the last two weeks? Would you feel better if Plouffe and/or Axelrod called you with personal updates on a daily basis?

    Can we please get it our heads that Romney managed to reset the race to where we were pre-conventions.

    A big move for him? Yes. Troubling? Yes.

    Is the Obama team working to take back their losses? Yes.

    If Obama bombs tonight, then ok, I will concede he’s not up to the task on some level. Let’s talk then. If the GOTV efforts in swing states, let’s talk then.

    UNTIL then – you’re just flapping your proverbial gums – as am I.

    I am putting some more dough in the kitty now. Thanks for reminding me that the campaign still needs cash and volunteers.

  28. 28.

    Runningonfull

    October 16, 2012 at 9:08 am

    @amk: Where did you learn such smart comebacks, over at Free Republic? I always love the attitude “I don’t agree with you, so shut up or get the fuck out”.

    So here’s my take: if you don’t like dissenting opinions, you should shut up or get the fuck out

  29. 29.

    The Other Bob

    October 16, 2012 at 9:10 am

    I will help pay for a poll that asks:

    “If a candidate believes that man originated on the planet Kolob would you:

    a) Be more likely to vote for him/her.
    b) Less likely to vote for him/her.
    c) No difference.”

  30. 30.

    magurakurin

    October 16, 2012 at 9:11 am

    @General Stuck:

    There’s enough straw men in that bitter gumbo for a Riverdance.

    damn! damnit! And I was going to say just that. You always get the best one liners.

    LOL

  31. 31.

    some guy

    October 16, 2012 at 9:11 am

    The race here in Florida is decidedly NOT where it was 6 months ago, or 6 weeks ago. O has lost support among women (now down to a +3 or a +4) but more ominously, has lost support among Hispanic voters.

    Hopefully, tonight he can recover the ground he has lost, but if he doesn’t Florida may go red. I am betting the ground game here will be the ultimate decider, and that is working like a well-oiled machine, but his drops among women/Hispanics is very problematic, as is the 4 point swing from O to Rmoney in less than two weeks

  32. 32.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 9:13 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    I still am not sure how this sort of denial is helpful to our cause

    People who are politically active on the ground read polls. They’re political junkies. They know what’s going on. They know campaigns spin and they know when the candidate is up and down. They rely on some polls, they reject others. They use their own judgment.

    They don’t need to be told. I just find it absolutely breathtaking that you believe they are following some “lead” (denial! truth!) on the internet. If you lead them to “believe” one thing they will swallow that, and if you lead them the other way they will “know” and that will somehow affect their behavior?

    Why do you believe this? It isn’t true. These polling narratives are not about actual activists. They never have been. They’re used to influence people who don’t pay attention. That’s how campaigns use them.

  33. 33.

    SenyorDave

    October 16, 2012 at 9:13 am

    @mai naem: A methodologically correct poll is fairly expensive. Two major problems:

    1. Households that don’t have a landline. Those housholds are extremely expensive to contact because there is no available cell phone registry.

    2. Demopraphic representation greatly increases the costs. If you need 13% blacks, but 1/4 of those need to between 18 and 34, you might have to spend a lot of money to find households containg those demos.

  34. 34.

    magurakurin

    October 16, 2012 at 9:17 am

    If I got to ask a question I would ask this:

    Gov. Romney, as you well know, your running mate Paul Ryan is a Roman Catholic. And the Roman Catholic church holds a very clear position that no one who has been exposed to the Gospel of Christ can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without the sacrament of Baptism. It is also a well known fact that the official position of the RCC is that a Mormon baptism is not recognized as a genuine sacrament. It’s clear then that Congressmen Ryan must realize that your soul is in danger of eternal damnation. My question is, has he ever asked you to receive a true Christian baptism in order to save your immortal soul?

  35. 35.

    low-tech cyclist

    October 16, 2012 at 9:17 am

    The aggregation of swing states into a single poll number is really kinda ridiculous anyway. Different pollsters include different states (is Wisconsin a swing state this week?) and the assorted swing states fall along a continuum from the most Obama-leaning (NH, probably, if we exclude WI, PA, MI) to the most Romney-leaning (NC, assuming AZ, IN, MO are excluded).

    To some extent, Obama’s fortunes in these states rise and fall together, just at different points on the continuum, but often an issue strikes a chord in one state more than others, and the polls change more strongly in that state than others. Aggregating the swing states hides both of these factors.

    And probably because the samples are small, the swing state polls come up with silly results oftentimes. Shortly before the debates, a swing state breakout from one national poll (can’t remember which) gave Obama a double-digit lead among swing state voters. The problem with this was simple: he couldn’t be that far ahead among swing state voters generally, given that his lead among voters in Florida and NC was probably still in the low single digits, unless he was up by nearly 20 points in some other swing states, in which case they were hardly swing states.

    Really the only thing to do with swing state aggregate polls is ignore them. This goes double or triple for when they’re subsamples of national polls.

  36. 36.

    low-tech cyclist

    October 16, 2012 at 9:22 am

    @SenyorDave:

    1. Households that don’t have a landline. Those housholds are extremely expensive to contact because there is no available cell phone registry.

    \
    It’s not the registry; pollsters do random digit dialing (RDD) whether they’re calling landlines or cell phones. It’s that pollsters are forbidden to robocall cell phones, and human callers are more expensive.

  37. 37.

    jwb

    October 16, 2012 at 9:22 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: Actually, polling (relatively) all over the place is what you’d expect if the pollsters are being honest. Given MOEs of 3-5% we *should* be seeing a lot noisier polling than we are getting (1 in 20 data points should fall outside the margin of error.) I suspect the fact that we don’t see that much noise, especially in the better known ones, is attributable to the demographic weightings most pollsters apply.

  38. 38.

    geg6

    October 16, 2012 at 9:26 am

    @Kay:

    THIS.

    Jeebus, talk about a pretentious douche. Got to ask Bernard if he spends any time on the ground doing GOTV or just wanks condescendingly about those of us who do.

  39. 39.

    jwb

    October 16, 2012 at 9:33 am

    @Bernard Finel: I’m pretty sure ripping on Obama and being obsessed about falling polls is a most excellent way of helping the cause.

    Seriously, dude, think about this. Unless you are in the campaign or have influence with someone who is, it is absolutely useless to the cause to either rip on Obama or to obsess about the polls. You may want to do it for fun (like yelling at the TV during a football game) or you might want to do it for your own personal mental health, but it can have no positive effect on the larger political situation and has a good chance of having a negative effect by driving down enthusiasm.

    If you want to do something useful, go volunteer, give money and encourage others to do the same. That’s the most effective thing you can do. Beyond that when you are out and about on the internet, push negative Romney memes and positive Obama memes. At least then you won’t be doing any damage.

  40. 40.

    Bernard Finel

    October 16, 2012 at 9:33 am

    @Kay: I didn’t actually say anything about what the campaign was or was not doing. I’m not close enough to the campaign to have any real visibility on that.

    My only point, I guess, is that I don’t see what benefit there is in an activist community like BJ to downplay the polls. Quite the contrary, it seems to me we should be highlighting them and using that to encourage ourselves to redouble our effort.

    Blogging about how the polls are meaningless and how Obama has “got it,” seems to me to work in direct opposition to getting ourselves mobilized.

    I agree, it is easy to wallow is despair and discouragement. We need to guard against that. But complacency is the opposite risk, and I fear that in an effort to avoid despair, we’re spinning stories that encourage a certain complacency.

  41. 41.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 16, 2012 at 9:35 am

    Do Freddie and Bernard like each other? Because they sure like themselves a whole lot, and see themselves as ether martyrs or crusaders for… something… And whatever it is, it’s very important to them and it has never been done with such care and, when you get right down to it, it’s the central issue of our times, if only you would see it instead of scoffing.

  42. 42.

    1badbaba3

    October 16, 2012 at 9:35 am

    UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH. LIBERAL MEDIA. UNDECIDED VOTERS. SWING STATES. FAINTING COUCHES. WIMMENS FOR ROMNEY. STOOPID DEMON(C)RATS. OBAMA REALLY DOESN’T KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING! ! ! HORSE RACE! ! ! OH NOES! ! ! !

    Wake me when this Henny Penny bullshit is over.

  43. 43.

    mai naem

    October 16, 2012 at 9:37 am

    @SenyorDave: I am not interested in a methodologically correct poll. I am interested in a hack poll. We don’t do enough hackish stuff on our side.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 9:37 am

    @geg6:

    See? You always have to go overboard :)

    I wouldn’t go that far. I just think it’s clear how they use these things. Romney is using one number to tell casual listeners that it’s okay for women to vote for Romney, and Obama is pushing back against that.

    None of that has anything to do with what someone in a county campaign office in Ohio “thinks” or “believes” or “denies”.

    It’s like “complacency”. We must guard against “complacency”.

    Jesus Christ. Have you ever, once in your LIFE met a “complacent” activist? They’re all nervous wrecks. I don’t know that adding to the angst serves any purpose at all. They know.

  45. 45.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 16, 2012 at 9:38 am

    @Bernard Finel: The issue is at least in part the trustworthiness of the media, which polls they decide to hype and throw analysts at and which ones pass by unremarked. It’s not “Obama’s doing fine,” it’s “This thing they’re trying to say is an issue is made up.”

  46. 46.

    Bernard Finel

    October 16, 2012 at 9:38 am

    @FlipYrWhig: Lol. It’s true. It is all about me. Thanks for noticing.

  47. 47.

    Xenos

    October 16, 2012 at 9:39 am

    @The Other Bob:

    I will help pay for a poll that asks:
    ..
    “If a candidate believes that man originated on the planet Kolob would you:

    Even betterer, ask

    “If a candidate believes that Satan is Jesus’ older brother, would you…

  48. 48.

    kd bart

    October 16, 2012 at 9:40 am

    @jwb:

    Speaking of polling all over the place, Kos has their latest PPP poll up showing Romney +4 at 50-46. It’s how it arrives at that number that is strange. The polling was done over 3 days, Friday thru Sunday, with the individual days broken down as:

    Friday (38%) Romney 49 Obama 47
    Saturday (395) Obama 49 Romney 47
    Sunday (24%) Romney 55 Obama 43

    The results from Sunday, which make up about a quarter of the poll, accounts for the entire 4 point Romney lead. Since, there was not any kind of major external event this weekend that could even remotely account for a double digit shift in the polls, it’s not that hard to conclude that Sunday’s result is an outlier and thus the poll as a whole showing Romney at +4 is an outlier. I would believe the poll a lot more if the results of each day showed Romney with a 3-4 point lead. But it’s hard to believe one that goes R+2,O+2,R+12 with a sample size on the last day that is only 60 percent of what each of the first two days were.

  49. 49.

    mai naem

    October 16, 2012 at 9:42 am

    @Bernard Finel: You must not be coming here that often. Jeezus, there was a guy posting last Fri(?) who I wanted to grab though my laptop screen and shake. OMG! Obama’s gonna lose! What are we gonna do?!?! Bam’s gonna lose lose lose. My coworkers are telling me Obama’s gonna lose!!! What am I supposed to do?!? Wah!Wah!Wah!
    Chill the fvck out!

  50. 50.

    Linda

    October 16, 2012 at 9:44 am

    I used to work part time at small local pollsters who, during campaign seasons, would get contracts from the big outfits such as Gallup. When we did not get enough participants from a particular demographic, a few of the companies (not all, or even most) would have the phone room supervisor fill out the appropriate number of surveys for left-handed Samoan worm farmers or whomever they’d come up short on. I have no idea if this is even possible these days, but I have regarded all polls with some skepticism ever since.

  51. 51.

    1badbaba3

    October 16, 2012 at 9:45 am

    No@Bernard Finel: No, it’s not. Thanks for playing.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 9:45 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    My only point, I guess, is that I don’t see what benefit there is in an activist community like BJ to downplay the polls. Quite the contrary, it seems to me we should be highlighting them and using that to encourage ourselves to redouble our effort.

    We’re very far apart because I think “complacency” is nonsense, too. “Complacency” isn’t what one has to guard against with Democrats. Just look around. They were despairing yesterday and Obama was at 66% to win. 66% ! Those are good odds!

    “We better hang it up. It’s not 80%”

    “Complacency” isn’t where Democrats go. Despair is. It’s so widely accepted it’s a joke! It’s what we joke about! We’re the definition of nervous nellies. If we weren’t despairing over polls, we’d move IMMEDIATELY to Diebold. “Activists” are the same way. They just don’t announce it, because it’s contagious.

  53. 53.

    Chris

    October 16, 2012 at 9:46 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    I generally like Bernard’s posts, but damn. Who peed in your Cheerios?

  54. 54.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 16, 2012 at 9:47 am

    @Bernard Finel: So you decided to just go all in on “smirky trolltastic dickface,” I see. We’re all very fortunate to have you aboard, along with the 10 other people who were already playing that role before you graced us with your heroic presence.

  55. 55.

    Chris

    October 16, 2012 at 9:48 am

    @Emma:

    Somebody piss in your oatmeal?

    I swear I didn’t read this post before posting my inquiry about the gentleman’s Cheerios.

    (Also, oatmeal? I’ve always heard it about Cheerios. I think I might like yours better, though).

  56. 56.

    magurakurin

    October 16, 2012 at 9:51 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    Blogging about how the polls are meaningless

    People aren’t saying it’s meaningless, they are saying that taken outside of the aggregate and context it doesn’t provide a whole lot in the way of information by itself. There are a couple of really smart people, Nate Silver and Sam Wang who have some very sophisticated models that are taking it hundreds and hundreds of polls, crunching the data and trying to draw conclusions and prediction. Neither of those models has had Rmoney in the lead ever. They aren’t ignoring this poll you are going on about, but neither are they assigning it anymore special importance than they do the hundreds of other polls they are feeding into the model.

    Obama owned his poor performance at the last debate. I have to believe that he and his advisers are well aware of their slide in the polls and are taking steps to improve it. Most of us here believe that they are actually better at it than us. Our job is to give money, vote, get others to vote, and provide a strong and positive face about winning. If I seriously thought that the campaign really needed advice from me (or you) I pretty much wouldn’t believe that they had much of chance anyway.

    Maybe I’m a dupe, a rube, a douchnoozle, or just a plain old dumb fuck, but I genuinely believe that Obama and his crew are the smartest people in the room about this shit.

    Obviously you don’t. Not sure what your best course of action is from there. Badger the collection of posters at this blog, however, doesn’t strike me as the winning answer.

  57. 57.

    Can't Be Bothered

    October 16, 2012 at 9:51 am

    @Bernard Finel:
    You’re barking up the wrong tree. This particular poll is absolute garbage bc of its sample size methodology and timeframe in the field. You’re right that its a dead heat. But the bigger picture is that after a republican wet dream Romney 10 days, its tied narionally with a severe O EC advantage. The race is looking more and more like 2004 every day.

  58. 58.

    General Stuck

    October 16, 2012 at 9:52 am

    Blogging about how the polls are meaningless and how Obama has “got it,” seems to me to work in direct opposition to getting ourselves mobilized.

    I’m mobilized. Had some coffee and working on a righteous shit, before cracking the knuckles for another day saving the world by blogging. Polls are bottle flies on my monitor. You swat one, and two more take it’s place. Life goes on in the jungle. The reason Obama has “got this”, is because he’s earned it.

  59. 59.

    1badbaba3

    October 16, 2012 at 9:53 am

    Hey, enough with the bodily fluids and breakfast foods, please. Some of us are trying to eat. Thank you.

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 16, 2012 at 9:58 am

    @Bernard Finel: Trying to determine whether the reporting based on a particular poll or trend is valid is, IMHO, a useful activity. A lot of crap gets thrown around and shifting through it for kernels of truth is necessary.

    Has the race tightened? Yes. Am I shocked by this? No. Are the fundamentals still in Obama’s favor? Yes. Is this why I am not panicking? You betcha.

  61. 61.

    General Stuck

    October 16, 2012 at 9:58 am

    @1badbaba3:

    Thank you.

    You are verily welcome.

    Want to see my Unicorn tattoo?

  62. 62.

    Bernard Finel

    October 16, 2012 at 9:59 am

    @Kay: Fair enough.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 10:09 am

    @Bernard Finel:

    If I had to say, I would say that people are generally motivated by either fear or hope, two kinds of people, and the whole “complacency”, be very afraid, chorus energizes the “fear” group but is really, really dispiriting and draining to the “hope” group.

    In my opinion, Democratic activists on the ground are much more likely to be in the hope group, so that’s why I wouldn’t rely on fear to guard against “complacency” or “denial”. It simply doesn’t work. It makes them feel beaten.

    In addition. It isn’t rational to be so down. If this is a 50/50 race, it isn’t, yet, but it may well be, why would we give up and hand it to Romney? That’s crazy.

  64. 64.

    CaseyL

    October 16, 2012 at 10:18 am

    Pollsters, like everyone else these days, are looking for hits and clicks.

    That being said, nitpicking polls to explain away results we don’t like smacks of whistling past the graveyard. Over the last decade, the times we’ve nitpicked polls led up to the times our candidates have lost – the polls were correct, not the analysis-by-minutiae.

    Nate Silver is the gold standard of analysts. I’ll trust his work over anyone else’s. He isn’t prophesying doom, as he did (accurately) in 2010, but he is calling this a very, very tight race.

    I’m too nervous about tonight’s debate; might wind up following the live-blogging, and only tune in if Obama is pounding Romney into pulp, rhetorically speaking.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 10:27 am

    @General Stuck:

    The reason Obama has “got this”, is because he’s earned it.

    That’s my big fear, actually. That Mitt Romney walzes into a recovery he had nothing to do with and it’s credited to “austerity” and “conservatism” and his alleged business acumen.

    THAT will be dispiriting, because it goes against the whole notion of “earning” anything. Handing him this, too, in addition to everything else he’s been handed is repugnant to me.

  66. 66.

    Joel

    October 16, 2012 at 10:30 am

    Polling is an inexact science. Read Sam Wang and comfort yourself.

  67. 67.

    schrodinger's cat

    October 16, 2012 at 10:30 am

    I say forget the polls and get working, whether or not in Obama’s favor. Do something, anything that increases Obama’s chances to win.

  68. 68.

    Joel

    October 16, 2012 at 10:31 am

    @Kay: And I’m with Kay here. Or in other words:

    Suck it up. Be a man. etc. etc.

    Of course, internet fora are usually self-selecting for the “despair” type, from my observation. Alone together, as they say.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 10:38 am

    @Joel:

    Do Republicans have an equivalent term for “handwringer”? No, they do not. There’s a reason for that. ALL Democrats are handwringers. They relive every loss, over and over and over. “Worrying” they have. They got that. I just don’t think they need any help in that particular area.

  70. 70.

    Ash Can

    October 16, 2012 at 10:40 am

    @magurakurin: Roman Catholics are not evangelists. On top of that, Ryan is obviously as much of a cafeteria Catholic as any other of his fellow Catholics (including the pope these days). This would be a non-issue for both of them.

  71. 71.

    Paul

    October 16, 2012 at 10:47 am

    When Republicans didn’t liked the polling, they blamed the pollsters. They even created their own unskewed polling websites. I thought they were alone in this. Sadly apparently the left is no different.

    The author here quotes Gallup. But sadly it is not just Gallup that shows women coming back to Romney. Just about every other polls does the same. Is the author going to criticize those as well?

    More importantly, whether 49% or 40% supports Romney is to me irrelevant. It is just mind-boggling to me that even 40% of women intend to vote against their own self-interest. They apparently agree with the GOP that there was never any need for the Domestic Violence Act in the first place.

  72. 72.

    General Stuck

    October 16, 2012 at 10:54 am

    @Kay:

    That’s my big fear, actually. That Mitt Romney walzes into a recovery he had nothing to do with and it’s credited to “austerity” and “conservatism” and his alleged business acumen.

    It is a reasonable fear, but I really liked your comment

    If I had to say, I would say that people are generally motivated by either fear or hope, two kinds of people, and the whole “complacency”, be very afraid, chorus energizes the “fear” group but is really, really dispiriting and draining to the “hope” group.

    This is spot on, imo. Of course, it’s all a balance toward a healthy outlook. But we live in a politically confused country right now, on the cusp of even more confusion, to sort out what matters and what doesn’t matter. Democracies make mistakes sometimes, and they rarely end up with the ideal for any single action. And the mistakes are vital for finally getting it right over time.

    And sometimes the mistakes are big ones. Republicans are terrible at about everything that has to do with governing, and in general for being decent human beings. Especially these days. But they are very good at getting themselves elected. There is a reason for that.

    Obama had a bad debate, and the status quo got its legs back. He said he will do better this time, and I believe him. The rest is up to voters, of course. Unless you cheat, that is all there is, imo.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 11:11 am

    @General Stuck:

    If you’re a liberal in this country you’re probably motivated by hope, or you would have given up a long time ago :)

    Just sunk into despair, never to get out of bed again. All the yelling and threats in the world wouldn’t get you out.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    October 16, 2012 at 11:11 am

    @Paul:

    But sadly it is not just Gallup that shows women coming back to Romney.

    Actually, as with the other numbers that are in Romney’s favor, I haven’t seen very much evidence for women changing their vote from Obama to Romney. The evidence seems to be that women who were not “likely voters” in the previous models were energized by Romney’s performance and have been telling pollsters that they’re more likely to vote, which moves them into the “likely voter” column.

    Romney’s swing seems to be formerly discouraged conservative white men and white women now deciding that they will probably vote after all. That’s not at all the same thing as people switching their vote from one candidate to the other.

  75. 75.

    General Stuck

    October 16, 2012 at 11:18 am

    @Kay:

    Just sunk into despair, never to get out of bed again. All the yelling and threats in the world wouldn’t get you out.

    LOL, an apt description of me in the wake of the 2004 election. Until it dawned what a useless reaction that was.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    October 16, 2012 at 11:18 am

    @Kay:

    If I had to say, I would say that people are generally motivated by either fear or hope, two kinds of people, and the whole “complacency”, be very afraid, chorus energizes the “fear” group but is really, really dispiriting and draining to the “hope” group.

    Yes, this right here. Frankly, fear rarely motivates me to do anything other than crawl back into bed with the covers over my head and wait for the end. If I have some hope that things will get better, it’s a helluva lot easier for me to motivate myself to take action.

    In fact, I would probably say this is the primary difference between conservative and liberal voters — IMO, conservatives are more likely to be motivated by fear than liberals, and liberals are more likely to be discouraged by fear-mongering than conservatives. That’s why it’s been (relatively) easy for conservatives to win elections — the fear-creating techniques that motivate their voters to go to the polls are the same ones that discourage liberals and get them to not vote. Win/win for conservatives.

  77. 77.

    nastybrutishntall

    October 16, 2012 at 11:21 am

    This NPR piece is hilariously discouraging.

    Romney’s debate performance wowed her due to “his strength, his voice and just his appearance.” So when pollsters called her last week, she told them she was casting her vote for Romney. She told NPR, though, that she may still change her mind.

    This is what we’re up against, as usual. Can we send these “educated voters” a coupon for a free Acai carb-free Christian slushie they can collect by showing they voted on Wed, Nov. 7th? Because I think we’d have a 60% redemption rate.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 11:30 am

    @Mnemosyne:

    In fact, I would probably say this is the primary difference between conservative and liberal voters—IMO, conservatives are more likely to be motivated by fear than liberals, and liberals are more likely to be discouraged by fear-mongering than conservatives. That’s why it’s been (relatively) easy for conservatives to win elections—the fear-creating techniques that motivate their voters to go to the polls are the same ones that discourage liberals and get them to not vote. Win/win for conservatives.

    I agree. Also. There’s just no harm in it. There’s no harm in ordinarily nervous Democrats feeling like they just might win. Where’s the proof of this “reality-based” complacency theory? What election was lost due to excess “complacency”?

    No one does this, in any field, because it doesn’t work. No one says “get out there and vote, because you are going to lose!”

    I don’t think it has anything to do with “complacency”. I think it has to do with being deeply uncomfortable with risk, with wanting certainty, and that’s a conservative tendency, not a liberal one.

  79. 79.

    NA

    October 16, 2012 at 11:31 am

    @Kay:
    Could you front-page your comment here? Really well put.

  80. 80.

    NA

    October 16, 2012 at 11:38 am

    @Mnemosyne:
    Yes, this seems far more likely. Far far more likely.

  81. 81.

    1badbaba3

    October 16, 2012 at 11:45 am

    @General Stuck: I’ll show you mine if…

    @Kay: Thank you Kay for that much needed voice of reason thing that you do. Would it be inappropriate to talk about the growing crush I have for you due to your reasoned discourse? If so, chalk it up to pre-election jitters. If not, hey girl, let me holla atcha. : )

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 16, 2012 at 11:46 am

    @Mnemosyne: The fear and/or yelling approach has never worked well on me. Positive reinforcement and encouragement can work wonders.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 11:51 am

    @NA:

    No, but thank you. This isn’t generally my thing, electoral psychology :)

    I hate the words we use: “complacent” “denial” “enthusiasm”. I don’t know what they mean. I just did want to say that the idea that Democrats (in my experience) are very vulnerable to “excess confidence” is really ludicrous.

    I spoke with one of ours yesterday, Sandra, she’s been active here for 15 years and she was literally wringing her hands. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I thought “a handwringer!”

    I love her, but the idea that she spends 20 seconds “complacent” is silly. I’m not sure she’s going to last the last 3 weeks.

  84. 84.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 16, 2012 at 11:52 am

    @Mnemosyne: Yes, this seems to me to be the entire explanation for all the Romney gains — not that Obama was so lousy that he started shedding votes (the Sullivan premise) but that Romney was good enough to gain votes from people who hadn’t seen much of him before.

  85. 85.

    shortstop

    October 16, 2012 at 11:52 am

    @1badbaba3: The day they put Kay on the front page was one of BJ’s finest moments.

  86. 86.

    shortstop

    October 16, 2012 at 11:57 am

    @FlipYrWhig: And who were looking for any excuse, any excuse at all, to vote for the Republican.

  87. 87.

    Bernard Finel

    October 16, 2012 at 12:01 pm

    @Kay: Okay, I’m convinced about the “complacency” argument. I’ll try to avoid it in the future.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 12:01 pm

    @1badbaba3:

    Thanks. This was fun and sort of cathartic. I’m feeling better already! We just needed someone to fight with, really.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 12:03 pm

    @Bernard Finel:

    Sorry. I get going and then I rapidly accelerate to “harangue”.

    I’d be following you out of the building if this was face to face. “And another thing!”

  90. 90.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 16, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    @shortstop: I am much more able to imagine a person saying, “This Romney guy is a lot more competent and polished than I realized — I think I could vote for him after all” than “I was for Obama, but then he seemed apathetic and lethargic, so, fuck him, it’s Romney all the way for me.”

  91. 91.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 16, 2012 at 12:11 pm

    @Kay: Don’t apologize. Bernard goes into Condescension Mode way too easily.

  92. 92.

    Bernard Finel

    October 16, 2012 at 12:14 pm

    @Kay: No worries. I have (a) a thick skin, (b) enjoy being shown the errors of my ways, and (c) am usually happy to admit when I’m wrong. In short, I like a good argument, passionately engaged.

  93. 93.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 16, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    @Bernard Finel: Check the thickness of that skin, dude. You’ve been nursing grudges with every post.

  94. 94.

    blingee

    October 16, 2012 at 12:32 pm

    I don’t trust any of the polls as much as I do the aggregators who have good track records such as Nate Silvers site or the the princeton guy who I have been using more than Nate lately since Nate started selling books. Both have good histories of being quite accurate.

    Princeton guy rates Obama’s chances higher than Nate does.
    http://election.princeton.edu/history-of-electoral-votes-for-obama/

  95. 95.

    shortstop

    October 16, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    @Bernard Finel: Oh, my. The “Reality is what I say it is, not what can be objectively shown to be true” thread is upstairs.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 12:42 pm

    @blingee:

    76 is fantastic. I just start with “it will be 50/50” and then anything above that is a gift.

    50/50 is better than I ever get in my chosen line of work, so that may have something to do with it. It’s all relative.

  97. 97.

    Bernard Finel

    October 16, 2012 at 12:44 pm

    @shortstop: I don’t know what that means. But I’m going to take it as a compliment. Thanks!

  98. 98.

    ThresherK

    October 16, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    Hey, we’re pretty chill on this. Now if I can just get TV news managing editors to take their Thorazine…

    And what sin did Nate Silver commit in 2008 to fall off the radar this year? (A rhetorical question, yes.)

  99. 99.

    Linda

    October 16, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    Kay, I am sorry I advised liberals against complacency. May I change my suggestion to, be mindful of those Romney signs popping up weed like? How’s that?

  100. 100.

    shortstop

    October 16, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    @Bernard Finel: Point, illustrated.

  101. 101.

    Omnes Omnibus

    October 16, 2012 at 12:56 pm

    @ThresherK: Some folks want to freak out. They need drama. Me, I think life injects enough drama on its own and I generally have no interest in stirring it up for its own sake.

  102. 102.

    ThresherK

    October 16, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: “Has the race tightened? Yes. Am I shocked by this? No. Are the fundamentals still in Obama’s favor? Yes. Is this why I am not panicking? You betcha.”

    The same here. Now if we can only get one Beltway Inbred to stop projecting their presumed panicking on us.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    October 16, 2012 at 1:13 pm

    @Linda:

    No, it’s fine. I’m just saying it doesn’t do anything for me. It isn’t what motivates me. I just have a finite amount of concern. It can’t go up and up. It quickly reaches “energy-draining fretting”.

    It’s not like I was lackadaisical and happy go lucky and there was a lot of room to grow there:)

    I’m at MAX concern, be assured. I honestly see it as nervousness and blowing off steam, which is fine, but that’s different than “helpful to unnamed others”, is it not?

  104. 104.

    Tom Q

    October 16, 2012 at 1:18 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: How about something in the middle? My take is, the debate was very similar to the first Mondale/Reagan debate in ’84. Reagan went in being seen as the clear re-election favorite, but had an uncharacteristically horrible night, seeming to lose the plot completely by the time of his closing statement. The electorate that up till that moment was solid for him suddenly became leery…and Mondale looked completely acceptable by contrast.

    Obama went in two weeks ago similarly well-positioned (though in a more ideologically-closely-divided time, his numbers weren’t as emphatic as Reagan’s). But viewers saw an Obama they simply hadn’t seen before, and it shook their confidence and enthusiasm. As in ’84, the challenger benefitted from the introduction of doubt (and, like Mondale, Romney looked less objectionable than he had previous).

    All it took for Reagan to regain his position was to prove that the guy voters saw in the first debate was not the new normal. He accomplished this with a prepared one-liner, and a general sense of being his usual self. For all the talk about what Obama “must do” tonight, I think he’s in a similar position: if he comes out and delivers 90 minutes of the guy the country (in majority) likes and was prepared to re-elect prior to the deadly debate, I think he’ll recapture most of his polling position (and definitely do better among likely voters, because Dem-leaning enthusiasm will be rstored).

    And as far as fundamentals: has anyone noticed that consumer confidence went to a five-year high last week? Match that to the clearly improving job numbers, and you really don’t have a situation where the country typically changes presidents, regardless of what Romney says or does. I remain far more a believer in fundamentals dictating elections than in what ephemeral polls say. Mondale still got his ass kicked, despite looking seriously competitive for two weeks.

  105. 105.

    Joel

    October 16, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    @Linda: News flash: In democracy, some people have different opinions. Even harmful ones!

  106. 106.

    Joel

    October 16, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    @Linda: News flash: In democracy, some people have different opinions. Even harmful ones!

  107. 107.

    McJulie

    October 16, 2012 at 2:07 pm

    @Kay:

    people are generally motivated by either fear or hope, two kinds of people, and the whole “complacency”, be very afraid, chorus energizes the “fear” group but is really, really dispiriting and draining to the “hope” group.

    In my opinion, Democratic activists on the ground are much more likely to be in the hope group, so that’s why I wouldn’t rely on fear to guard against “complacency” or “denial”. It simply doesn’t work. It makes them feel beaten.

    Quoted for extreme truth. Democrats and liberals have to be much more on guard against despair-based complacency, otherwise known as giving up.

  108. 108.

    fuckwit

    October 16, 2012 at 2:16 pm

    Folks, polls are an EFFECT, not a cause.

    YOU are the cause. If the polls look bad, then DO something about it.

    Get on the fucking telephone and make phonebank calls. http://my.barackobama.com . See? It’s easy. If you’re in a swing state, get out on the streets. They need your help.

    Giving money is good too, but, really, what’s most needed is people talking to people. All y’all are pretty articulate and well-versed in the issues. Get out there and spread the knowledge!

  109. 109.

    Brachiator

    October 16, 2012 at 2:57 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    I am beginning to despise the entire polling industry. Not because they’re swinging one way or another, but because there are so many of them, and they are all so contradictory and EVERY FUCKING DAY.

    A lot of people, including many Balloon Juicers, confuse polls with prophecy. You want some absolute, ironclad, guarantee in a lockbox, that the future, the election, will turn out a certain way. The way you want it.

    This is one reason that people have latched onto Nate Silver. His good analytical techniques and accuracy have transformed him into an Oracle for some people.

    At best, polls are insider shit that may be of some use to political strategists. But polls ain’t magic. And polls ain’t fortune telling.

    @Bernard Finel:

    but the comparison with other polls is pretty solid proof that there hasn’t been a huge erosion of support for Obama among women, or if there has, it’s isolated to a couple of states.

    A good reporter or pundit or political strategist would want to know which it was. Any real erosion of support, given the clear anti-woman message of the GOP, should be investigated or dealt with.

    This is probably just statistical noise. That’s one thing. But to suggest that a real erosion is unimportant because it is isolated to a couple of states is kinda lame.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    October 16, 2012 at 3:03 pm

    ETA: Could not edit my previous post to correct a couple of things, including correctly attributing a statement to Mistermix and not Bernard.

    Sometimes technology is strangely unresponsive.

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