The New Hampshire polls weren't wrong. It was just that the Mainstream Media (MSM) didn't know how to read them.
Let's analyze rather than blindly follow the MSM make believe fallacies.
The results of the election were:
Clinton 39%
Obama 37%
Edwards 17%
Richardson 5%
Kucinich 1%
(unassigned 1%)
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#NH
The Real Clear Politics (RCP) pre-election polling averages had for 01/05 to 01/07 was:
Obama: 38.3
Clinton: 30.0
Edwards: 18.3
Richardson 5.7
(unassigned 7.7)
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_primary-194.html
First, in the polling average there is only one figure (Clinton's) out of four that is outside the expected margin of error. Obama, Edwards and Richardson were within a reasonable margin of error. So how is that "completely" messing up? It's not.
Next, how do the numbers in the poll add up? 38.3+30.0+18.3+5.7= 92.3 leaving 7.7 unassigned going to either "undecided" or Kucinich or other candidates like write-ins.
Compared to the poll, the results showed that Kucinich got 1% leaving 6.7% unaccounted for. Those 6.7 added to the poll's 30.0 for Hillary gives 36.7% for Clinton. Then add the 1.3 from Obama and 1.3 from Edwards and the 0.7 from Richardson's (all three were within the margin of error but they went to Clinton) for 3.3 and then subtract the 1% not assigned and you have 39% which is the actual result.
So, the polls weren't wrong at all for Obama and Edwards, it was only that of the 7.7% of the "undecided" and "other" most of it went to Clinton and none to Obama, Edwards, or Richardson.. That is not a big mix up in the polls.That is a jump to a conclusion by the MSM reporters who don't know how to read polls.
If the media had analyzed the polls correctly instead of focusing on the number that Obama appeared to be ahead, they would have focused on the 7.7% of unassigned voters. Has that large number of 7.7% been correctly reported there would have been speculation about which candidate would get it. Even if people speculated that it would all go to Obama, or be evenly distributed, the only surprise compared to the polling is that this number went all to Clinton.
But under no circumstances if the polling was read correctly, should the media have reported that this 7.7% was a lock for any of the candidates and it should have been reported that the 7.7% was the wild card that meant the election could go any direction.
But because the MSM wanted a story, it created its own narrative of a big swing to Obama in the polls and totally ignored the 7.7% that was unaccounted for. By ignoring that 7.7% the media created the story instead of reporting it.
Now, the media and pundits of the MSM are once again creating a story, this time that the polls were wrong, when in fact it was not the polls that were wrong but only their mistaken interpretation of the polls.
Gregory Wonderwheel
Santa Rosa CA
http://wonderwheels.blogspot.com
Buddha said that there are no beings to liberate, thus all beings are liberated. In the mean time while trying to realize this in daily life, I'm against the two-party dictaotrship and friendly fascism of the ruling plutocrats and their corporations. I agree with George Carlin who said, "The owners of this country know the truth: its called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."
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i am a former teacher of 30 years with a history and political science major.I started getting politically active when Ronnie Regan ended my social security hopes for teahers |
gregory"s wrong If you look at Mr. Wonderwheels argument their is only one hugh,glaring thing wrong with his logic.His argument is that Hillary Clinton and no one else got all 7 percent of the undecided voters and nobody else received any,an argument as illogical as believing computer voting machines are 100% accurate and honest. by
liberalsrock (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 108 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 8:59:16 AM
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Buddha said that there are no beings to liberate, thus all beings are liberated. In the mean time while trying to realize this in daily life, I'm against the two-party dictaotrship and friendly fascism of the ruling plutocrats and their corporations. I agree with George Carlin who said, "The owners of this country know the truth: its called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." |
Thanks for the comment Liberalsrock, By your example, you have demonstrated exactly how the MSM and even liberals fail to understand the nature of polls and how to read them. A poll provides an abstract snapshot using numbers. Each number has a margin of error. Add to each number's margin of error the number of undecided and you have the number range that the poll must be considered to have. Yes, if there is a number of undecided, then logic dictates that all the undecided may go to only one candidate, so that number must be added to each candidate's margin of error number to know what the possible swing is that is portrayed by the poll's snapshot. That is the "logic". Now, what you have mistakenly called "logic" is actually probability. Yes the probability is more unlikely than likely that the undecideds will all go to one candidate, but before an election that is not a question of logic. Before an election, logic dictates that even improbable but not impossible outcomes must be considered to be within what the poll is reporting. Therefore before the election, anyone interpreting the poll as it is (not as they wish it to be) must not say "this poll predicts Obama will win," but can only say, "this poll shows a likelihood of Obama winning but also it is possible within the margin of error and if the undecideds break for Clinton that Clinton could win." Then it is up to the audience to decide how probable or not that the undecideds would break for Clintion or that people would switch between the time of the poll and the election. By the same token, the poll showed that even if all the undecideds went to Edwards and the margin of error was considered, that he would not win. The point I am making is that the poll acurately reflected the leanings of the voters at the time before the election. It was the mistake of the MSM to think the poll predicted an Obama win because there were too many unknown variables in the poll to make such a prediction. The MSM should have reported that the polls showed both Obama and Clinton in a close race to the finish and that due to the number of undecideds and the margin of error it was still too close to call. As we have seen, it looks like most of the undecided voters and a few of the voters for each candidate shifted to Clinton. By the way, I am not saying that in fact all the undecided voters went to Clinton. I am saying that any amount of the undecided voters who went to other candidates can be accounted for by a shift from those canidates to Clinton that is well within both the general margin of error and the considerations of "soft" support which a poll must also take into account. If the MSM knew how to read polls this way, then they would not have created the hype about the swing in the polls. We must also remember that there is no longer the length of time between Iowa and NH there used to be. Thus the Iowa "bounce" for Obama was not able to be polled in a stable state. The MSM should have known and reported that any bounce toward Obama would, like a pendulum, necessarily have some amount of back swing, and this was shown on election day when people were in the privacy of the booth to make their decision. It looks like a completely reasonable number of poeple who had polled in the bounce for Obama, came back to their pre-Iowa feelings and voted for Clinton. All this should have been considered in reading the polls, but this is too complicated for the MSM which hates complicatios and must find a single simple story line that is no more complex than a slogan to sell to the masses as the view of reality. by
Gregory Wonderwheel (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 99 comments)
on Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 12:59:27 PM
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