A Fitting Coda To The Gut Vs. Data Slap Fight

 SIMON MALOY/Media Matters for America:

After a week of comically inept warfare between the gut vs. data camps regarding the state of the 2012 race, Washington Post political writer Chris Cillizza takes stock of it all and declares a loser: polls.

Remember those golden days of this election season when a poll or two came out each week, and we political junkies pored over it with the glee of 5-year-olds at Christmas?
That joy has turned to ash in our mouths of late as each day is packed full of competing poll numbers that often seem to tell contradictory stories.
In the past week alone, at least nine polls have been released on where the presidential race stands in Ohio, and at least seven have come out in Virginia. A CBS News-Quinnipiac-New York Times poll in Virginia said that President Obama led by two points; in a Roanoke College survey, it was Mitt Romney by five. And the pollsters were in the field at the same time!
What all of that polling means is that partisans, who already live in a choose-your-own-political-reality world, can select the numbers that comply with their view of the race and pooh-pooh the data that suggest anything different.

Let's break this down. Cillizza's argument against the surfeit of polling data is that silly partisans can simply "select the numbers that comply with their view of the race and pooh-pooh the data that suggest anything different." True enough! But what is Chris Cilllizza's view of the race? Well, he thinks it's "tight as a tick," according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post national tracking poll showing a virtual tie. In keeping with that view, he looks this past week's glut of polling data from Virginia, selects two polls that suggest a tight-as-a-tick race, and blows off the rest of the data. Meanwhile, a look at the average of all the latest Virginia polling shows something different.
So in bemoaning the partisans who cherry-pick poll data that confirm their views of the race, pundit Chris Cillizza cherry-picked data that confirm his view of the race, and then awarded the data itself the winner of "the worst week in Washington."
Because it's the numbers that screwed up, not the people whose job it is to interpret them.

What the "Likely Voter" Models are Missing: Obama's Legendary Ground Game

by Deaniac83/The People's View

The media and the pollsters, as if right on queue, have started feeding the masses the "news" that the "race for president is tightening." I have made the case that most of that is horse manure, but I have also made the case in the same breath that the universe of who votes will determine who wins this election. In that vein, let's talk a little bit about the polling universes. Gallup recently switched to hilighting "likely voter" numbers rather than registered voters, but today's numbers from Gallup shows a tie on likely voters while the president is ahead 50-45 nationally among registered voters. A CNN/ORC poll from Ohio put Mitt Romney within 4 points of the President (51-47) among who they consider "likely" voters, whereas the same poll's registered voter preferences showed the president with a commanding 10-point (53-43) lead.

So, why does that matter? Aren't likely voters what should be looked at this late in the game? Not exactly. Firstly, the newly registered are almost never considered 'likely', since they have no voting history (it's like having no credit). Given the way pollsters determine who is a likely voter - which includes a given person's voting history - the "likely" voter universe is always skewed towards conservatives. This is one of the pitfalls of the Left - we're good at yelling loudly and shooting our own people in a circular firing squad, but we are not good at voting. Conservatives vote far more consistently than liberals. Want evidence? See 2010, when Democrats, at the insistence of the loud, whiny media voices, stayed home handed the Speakership to John Boehner.

But in terms of polling, that still makes sense, right? I mean, if liberals don't vote as often, it's no wonder they don't count as likely to vote. Right, except for one thing: the OFA turnout machine. President Obama's ground-game is legendary, and the most overlooked story of this election cycle. Here's how the ground-game is playing out in numbers right now, by a couple of metrics.

Number of campaign workers employed in battleground states (courtesy of The Washington Post):

Next, we have the numbers for the number of field offices for both Romney and Obama (courtesy of Seth Masket of The Mischiefs of Faction):

This is where the ground game stands. Or rather, this is where the ground game stood approximately at the end of August. My guess would be that if anything, the Obama campaign has extended that advantage.

It shouldn't come to anyone as a surprise that the President's campaign has a much superior ground organization. What Mitt Romney was hoping to beat that out with was lies amplified by the media and a gob of money. Much of the media does seem to be going along nicely with Romney's lies of late, but the money thing hasn't turned out as advantageous for Romney as he'd hoped. Last month, Obama raised a whopping $181 million, 98% of it in small chunks of $250 or less. While Romney has yet to release his September numbers, he'd have to have raised an impossible $360 million in the month to pull even with the president's total over this campaign.

The flip side of this is, of course, the Super PACs, which have heavily favored Romney. But even they cannot make up for the campaign cash advantage. Here's why: that money is mostly spent in ads, and they do not get the same legally mandated low advertising rates that campaigns get. Campaign money always gets more bang for the buck.

The campaign cash advantage and the advantage in the ground game are critical when it comes to getting out the vote. Especially when it comes to getting out the vote of the people who pollsters don't consider 'likely' to vote. Young people, poor people, ethnic minorities. A stunning number came out of Arizona today showing the President with a 80-percent support among Latino voters in the state, while Romney is in danger of falling into single digits (wonder why no one is talking about that). Arizona is not a special case. Latino voters everywhere know and remember their scapegoating by Romney and the Republicans. And you can be damn sure the Obama campaign will get them out to vote, regardless of whether pollsters think they are 'likely' to vote.

I would contend that in this election, the registered voter numbers are more important than usual. Because in this election, pollsters are more likely to discount Democratic enthusiasm as a part of their discounting of 'unlikely' voters. In this election, pollsters are not likely to pick up on the minority, youth and poor groundswell (overlay this with women - especially young women) with their predictive models. In this election, the Obama campaign is getting those voters out. People are already voting in many battle ground states. In Iowa, four times as many Democrats requested vote-by-mail ballots as Republicans, for example. The Obama campaign has pushed the same thing in Florida. The President was getting the early vote out in Ohio himself yesterday.

The media has written and talked about Obama's doomsday before. People have bet against this president before. Exactly zero of those bets ever paid off. Get. Out. The Vote!

Ron Reagan: Poll truthers smoking ‘giant crack pipe’ in Fox News green room

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Ron Reagan, the liberal son of former President Ronald Reagan, on Thursday said that the so-called ‘poll truthers’ at Fox News like Karl Rove and Dick Morris who deny any poll that says President Barack Obama is ahead were so out of touch that they must be smoking a crack pipe in the network’s green room.

During a Monday segment on Fox News, Morris had claimed that Romney was “in a very strong position” even though polls showed him down in all nine battleground states.

“I believe if the election were held today, I believe Romney would win by four or five points,” Morris explained. “I believe he would carry Florida, Ohio, Virginia. I believe he would carry Nevada. I believe he would carry Pennsylvania — Pennsylvania. And I believe he would be competitive in Michigan.”

“People need to understand that the polling this year is the worst it’s ever been,” he insisted. “Because this is the first election where if I tell you who’s going to vote, I can tell you how they’re going to vote. … And the models these folks are using are crazy. They assume a Democratic edge of six or seven points.”

On Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Matthews asked Reagan why Fox News would invite Morris on to slam even their own poll — which showed Obama leading Romney nationally, 48-43.

“You sometimes imagine that back in the Republican green room, there’s this giant crack pipe that they’re all hitting on constantly, hitting it hard,” Reagan joked.

“It’s time to say, ‘Don’t bogart that, Morris’ because I think he’s been on that pipe longer than most,” Matthews agreed.

“It’s true, he bought the pipe, I think,” Reagan added. “But let’s not give them too much credit here. The rank and file actually believes some of this nonsense. They believe that evolution didn’t happen, global warming is a hoax, Obama is a Kenyan. But the people like Dick Morris — and Sean Hannity for that matter, who has spread a lot of this kind of propaganda — they know better than this and there is a method to their madness here.”

“They’re not delusional, they’re dishonest. They’re not crazy, they’re craven… What they’re trying to do here and accomplish here is to say in advance, if President Obama wins this election, it’s because the pollsters suppressed the Republican vote, it’s therefore an illegitimate election, he’s not really president. They’re setting the table for that.”

Watch this video from MSNBC’s Hardball, broadcast Sept. 28, 2012.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fox News Polls Glenn Beck’s Fear That ‘The Whole U.S. Economic System Could Breakdown’

By Matt Corley

On the November 23, 2009, the New York Times published an article warning about the “wave of debt payments facing the U.S. government.” Later that day, on his Fox News show, Glenn Beck used the article as a jumping off point to discuss “the three scenarios that we could be facing: recession, depression, or collapse.” In the case of potential “collapse,” Beck recommended his audience follow “the 3G system” of “God, gold and guns.” Watch it:

The “3G” show was hardly the only time Beck warned of total breakdown of the U.S. economy. On June 5, 2009 Beck declared that “if we don’t come to some common sense, we’re facing the destruction of our country.” Weeks later, he predicted that “we’re all going to be living under a bridge soon, fending off bums with a bear bottle.”

Now, it appears that Beck’s employer is taking his fearmongering seriously. On Friday, Fox News released a poll in which it asked respondents if they’ve taken particular actions “out of concern the whole U.S. economic system could breakdown.” The public, it seems, has largely ignored Beck’s advice:

Unfortunately, the Fox poll did not ask whether the gold and gun-buying respondents watch Beck’s show. As ThinkProgress has previously noted, though Beck’s often combines economic fearmongering with gold advocacy, he rarely mentions that he receives financial support from gold companies.

Media advance dubious claim that MA Senate election was a referendum on Obama

The Associated Press, the New York Post, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough advanced the claim that the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election was, in Scarborough's words, "a rejection of Barack Obama." But election night polling showing that the majority of Massachusetts voters approve of Obama's job performance undermines this claim, and Scott Brown himself has stated that the race was "not a referendum on Obama." Media advance claim that MA election was referendum on Obama AP: "Race seen as a referendum on Obama's first year in office." The AP wrote in a January 20 article that the Massachusetts Senate race was "seen as a referendum on Obama's first year in office." NY Post: "Republicans said the race was a referendum on Obama." A January 20 New York Post article claimed that "[g]leeful Republicans said the race was a referendum on Obama." The Post then quoted a National Republican Senatorial Committee statement as saying, "Democrats nationwide should be on notice." Scarborough: Election a "rejection of Barack Obama." On the January 20 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Scarborough said of the Senate race, "[A]nyway you look at it, this is a rejection of Barack Obama." Exit polls of MA voters show majority support for Obama Rasmussen: Fifty-three percent of MA voters approve of Obama job performance. In its election night polling, Rasmussen Reports found that 53 percent of Massachusetts voters "approve of the way that Barack Obama has handled his job as President." As Media Matters for America has documented, pollster Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, reportedly worked for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign and for the Republican National Committee in 2003 and 2004. Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates: Obama held a 59 percent favorability mark and 55 percent job approval rating among MA voters. A January 20 Politico article reported that a Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates exit poll found that "Obama's personal favorability remained high with voters." The poll found that "Obama boasted a 59 percent favorability mark" and "Obama's job approval rating even stayed at a respectable 55 percent as voters trekked to the ballot box to oppose the candidate he campaigned for just two days earlier. The president even earned a passing mark on his handling of the economy (50 percent approval) and received a clear majority's support for his work in the war in Afghanistan (59 percent approval)." Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates is a Republican polling firm. Even Brown himself stated that the election was "not a referendum on the president" Brown's "Last Pitch": "It's not a referendum on the president. There are many issues." In his January 18 "Last Pitch" interview with Boston's ABC affiliate, Brown said of the race: "It's not a referendum on the president. There are many issues; you're talking about national security, taxes, spending -- the health care plan certainly is important." M.C.L comment: Like Ed Schultz said on his show Scott Brown didn't run like a Republican plus Brown didn't run as the tea bag candidate. Brown used the Ronald Reagan/George W. Bush playbook look pretty for the camera, drive a pick up truck cuz those indie voters love a man in a truck and be very vague on your personal beliefs and be generic as possible when you talk public policy.. But if President Obama wants to take something out of the election from last night it should be this, forget the Republicans they want the country to crash and burn around him so he should fight for the average person that means be tougher on the banks, push a more progressive health care bill with 51 democrats instead of the weaker senate bill and work on a strong progressive jobs bill. Because right now the Republicans funded tea parties are clouding the real debate and the corporate media have no interest in setting the record straight about them. And what progressive should take from this election if you want a more progressive Democratic party you have to fight for it, somebody had to pick Martha Coakley in the primary and if there was a candidate that truly embodied Ted Kennedy vision where were progressive in Massachusetts? Progressives can't take their ball and go home because they didn't get 100% in the first year, if progressives sit at home for the 2010 and the 2012 election you're placing us at the mercy of the misinform and the dumb. And I know progressives don't want to see another Ronald Reagan/George W. Bush type being swore in on January 20, 2013.. Be active, be honest and fight like those bastards stole money from you.