I read an interesting commentary on the latest poll or polls that shows O up. The commentary was on one specifically a few days ago and the first one to show O up. They basically oversampled registered Democrats by 11% (yet O was only up 6%) and polls that sample by registration are notoriously inaccurate. The polling of likely voters does not show O up.
This was from 6 days ago and was written by Gary Bauer (yes he is a partisan)
Polling As Propaganda
There is a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll out that is making a lot of headlines today. And I want to take it apart for you because it is a bunch of junk. According to the poll, Barack Obama is leaving Mitt Romney in the dust. In June the candidates were basically tied, but now the claim is that Obama is leading by six points – 49%-to-43% – and closing in on that ever crucial 50% mark.
That’s terrible news for Team Romney, right? Wrong! Let’s take a closer look at the data. Obama’s 6-point lead comes from a survey that oversampled Democrats by 11 points!
It is unimaginable that Democrats would have such an advantage at the polls on Election Day. As Breitbart.com reports, that is “a level we haven’t seen in the electorate since the post-Watergate GOP meltdown.” In fact, Gallup is currently reporting a massive 12-point enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to voting this November, and it’s Democrats who are demoralized right now!
But even with that biased sample, there are bright spots in the poll for Romney.
Only 32% of registered voters think the country is headed in the right direction, while 60% say America is “on the wrong track” under Obama’s leadership.
Only 44% of voters approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, while 53% disapprove. And that’s supposed to be the biggest issue of this campaign, right?
When asked what worries them most about the future of the country, the decline of moral values tied with the growing federal deficit. (Note to the Romney campaign: Don’t neglect values issues!)
55% of voters are less optimistic about the direction of the economy.
By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, voters think Obama is running a more negative campaign than Mitt Romney. That makes sense because Obama can’t campaign on his record, which voters disapprove of and don’t have much hope for anymore.
Things got really interesting when the pollsters tried to measure Obama’s popularity versus his policies. Two-thirds of voters said they liked Obama personally. The media have repeatedly seized on such findings to suggest that Obama is cruising toward reelection, if not sainthood. But 55% said they disapprove of many of Obama’s policies!
Think about that. If you need surgery, what’s most important to you: your doctor’s personality or his skill? If you’re going on a business trip, do you care more about your pilot’s sense of humor or his competence?
While Obama’s 6-point lead among registered voters made the headlines, when the pollsters narrowed it down to “high interest voters,” those most likely to vote, Romney led 48%-to-46%. That fact got buried in the tenth paragraph of the NBC News report.
Normally, my friends, I would tell you to dismiss this biased poll as worthless. But I think it is very valuable as an example of how the media uses polling to mold public opinion, not to measure it. It shows us just how desperate the media elites are to cause us to sink into despair, while doing everything they can to convince liberals that all is well.
But the “Polling as Propoganda” is verity apt and true.
