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Why Ron Paul has a VERY GOOD CHANCE of winning BOTH IOWA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE:What I’m about to say is preface to three larger points which I'll enumerate afterwards concerning the polls per se and Ron’s chances of winning not only Iowa, Wyoming (Sat. Jan. 5) and New Hampshire but ALL the primaries and indeed the national election:Fox’s OWN POLL, two weeks ago, showed that Ron Paul is WAY ahead of Fred Thompson (doing FOUR TIMES AS WELL) and just BARELY behind Huckabee in New Hampshire, placing him at fifth, but almost fourth, in the polls. Here's the poll:http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/FOX_NH-2_DEC_RELEASE_WEB.pdf
A poll two weeks ago by Boston Globe/UNH found the same results - that Fred Thompson was not only way behind Ron Paul but barely ahead of Duncan Hunter in NH, with Ron Paul just barely behind Huckabee: http://www.unh.edu/survey-center/news/pdf/primary2008_nhprim122307.pdfAs you'll also see if you look at Fox’s OWN POLL, Ron Paul voters were, as my son would say, "off the chain" on income compared to other candidates. If you take the ratio of the percentage of voters ABOVE $50,000 per annum versus the percentage of voters BELOW $50,000 per annum who supported Ron Paul, the ratio for Ron Paul is 8, for Huckabee it's 1.09, for Romney it's 1.064, for lower-end demographic candidates Giuliani and McCain it's 0.75 and 0.7241 respectively.
You'll notice I left off Fred Thompson because his numbers are so pathetic (once again, ACCORDING TO FOX’S OWN POLL) that they're almost as pathetic as Duncan Hunter's numbers and Tom Tancredo's numbers. Of course, Tancredo dropped out, and frankly, maybe Hunter and Thompson (Hunter Thompson?! ROTFLMAO) ought to drop out as well. Fred really is just 'cluttering up the stage' for the New Hampshire Primary, and arguably for Iowa as well.
I invite you to perform the same exercise for "college" versus "no college" and you'll once again find Paul at 1.8, Huckabee at 1.714 (so much for the theory that they're all snake-handling hillbillies), and bringing up the lower-end demographic candidates Romney at 0.9705, Giuliani at 0.9411, and McCain at 0.76.
Now, if you've read the above, you're ready for the three larger points concerning the polls which I'd like to enumerate:
1) Since Ron Paul supporters are at least approximately eight times more likely to be higher end than lower end relative to other candidates, this tends to correlate with the affordability of technology and not only the likelihood of being sampled but the likelihood of voting, since high-income folks are more likely to vote but will perhaps not be sampled:A) Many people are likely to have cell phones if they're well-off but may also want to conserve (even if they're well -off) on minutes, but tend to exclusively use land lines if they're poor. Thus, you can't look up Ron Paul voters up in the phone book, and even if they gave their cell phone number to the local GOP as a 'likely GOP voter' they may not choose to answer a phone call to conserve minutes, especially if they don't know who it is;
B) Really poorly off folks who only have a land line may not have callerid or voice messaging. Thus, even if a Ron Paul voter is at home, he may let the phone call roll over while a Rudy or McCain voter may not have that luxury;
C) Really poorly off folks who only have a land line are much more likely to be home by a reasonable hour because they only have a 'nine-to-five' job and aren't likely to be going out to eat, even at McDonald's. A typical Ron Paul voter may be working late on his newest C++ algorithm or doing an after-work presentation on her company's mutual funds to a potential client.
2) In general, many of the polls are sampling 'likely GOP voters' from the primaries in 2004 and 2006 - but the whole point is that many Ron Paul voters are against the war in Iraq and thus may not have voted GOP in either year, or they may even be 'Reagan Democrats' who haven't voted GOP since 1994, or even 1984! They may even be cross-over Dems who have NEVER voted GOP! The very young would be another group which have never voted, period, and are thus missed by polling 'likely GOP voters.' If you think that young voters AREN'T a disproportionate part of Ron Paul's support, I invite you to go to your nearest Ron Paul meetup and see for yourself. There's usually one every week in your area.
3) FORGETTING about WHY the polls consistently underestimate Ron Paul's support, let's simply remember how far off some of the polls have already PROVABLY been, consistently, in underestimating real votes not only for Ron Paul but similar candidates such as Pat Buchanan:
A) In 1996 the world was astounded when isolationist Pat Buchanan won the NH primary since NONE of the polls predicted it. Clearly, the same could happen for Ron Paul since his views on most topics are identical to Pat's, and Pat has, on TV, admitted he prefers Ron Paul to all other GOP candidates - here's a news item from three years ago reminding voters in New Hampshire that Bob Dole was 2 to 1 ahead in New Hampshire a month before the New Hampshire Primary but was defeated by Pat Buchanan:
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=8e369f70-6c86-418f-97ae-0b91207b6bad
B) The WaPo/Selzer poll for the Iowa Straw Poll, a week before the actual Straw Poll, predicted Ron Paul would only get 2%. In fact, while there were still 10 declared candidates who had actually ever been elected dog-catcher (e.g., excluding Alan Keyes), the only candidate that was given a lower number by Selzer was Duncan Hunter at 1%. A week later, at the actual Iowa Straw Poll, not only did Fred, McCain, and Rudy do disastrously, getting about a tenth of the numbers Selzer predicted, but Ron Paul got 9.1%, or 4.55 times as well as predicted, despite the fact that his wife had a heart attack the day of the Straw Poll. Duncan Hunter, by the way, actually did get 1%, just as predicted. Since Ron Paul is getting 7% now in the Selzer Poll for the upcoming Iowa Caucus, you can virtually add another 7% to that (9.1 - 2), or double it (also giving 14%) which would give Ron Paul a third place finish, or possibly a second if Mitt Romney's numbers keep declining, which is even more likely once last minute attack ads replay his old debate from 1994 where he tries to out-Kennedy Kennedy. By the way, if you take the original 4.55 number and multiply Ron Paul's current 7% number in Iowa, Ron Paul would win the Iowa Caucus, and would definitely come in second if you triple rather than double his current 7% polling number;
C) Consider that in actual Straw Polls, where you don't merely answer a phone call but get off your keister and vote, Ron Paul has done better than any of the other candidates, though Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson have done well also. Check for yourself the entry on Straw Polls on Wikipedia. By the way, in the only two Straw Polls that have been done in New Hampshire, Ron Paul won both of them.
