Clarence Page has also weighed in on this issue, and his assessment is the same as Juan Williams.

"In fact, if he fails to show at least a six-point advantage in the polls by Election Day, I expect John McCain to be our next president.

Where do I get that number? I'm no math whiz, but it did not take numerical genius for me to notice that Obama fared best in caucus states, where the voting happens to be conducted in public. Where votes were cast in the privacy of voting booths, Obama tended to do worse than polls predicted. When Obama showed a lead in the polls that fell within the margin of error, it tended to mean a victory for his principal opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton."

"Obama vs.'Bubba' Vote" - by Clarence Page

I don't think that's necessarily true. Sure there were some states where Obama underperformed the poll numbers (New Hampshire, California, West Virginia, Kentucky), but there are quite a few where he outperformed his polling numbers...


If anything, it shows that pollsters may severely be underrepresenting the African-American vote.

Biden was caught in yet another 'oops' moment yesterday when talking to a crowd where he gave this response in relation to a gun control question........

“Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don't buy that malarkey,” he said. “If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he's got a problem.”

How quickly Mr. Biden forgets the whole YouTube debate snafu in 2007 where he gave a much more different toned response in another classic 'Biden' moment........

AirCongress » Blog Archive » Michigan Man To Biden: Come See ‘My Baby’

So I suppose you'd say that if I murder somebody and there hasn't been a warrant issued for my arrest, I haven't broken the law?

No, but I'd call you an idiot, whether innocent or not, if you walked in and started talking to the police without representation just because they asked you to do so. The investigative process allows for a lot of checks and balances, which often include avoiding certain situations if the law allows for it. That's just the way the game is played.

well you certainly wouldnt want to cooperate with the investigation, and thats the truth. ;)

The problem, for me, is that she is a candidate for VP so I want her to be completely upfront and honest which means cooperating fully. The second part is that prior to being selected she was all about cooperating and whether or not French was involved or the legislature was biased, or the whole world was biased or sexist, wasnt an issue and she stood up, loud and proud, and said, "hold me accountable." That was a GOOD moment. Wiggling out under the whole "Left wing conspiracy" crap shows how fast 'big time' politics can infect ya.

She should cooperate fully and when the report clears her she'll even have a bigger 'bounce'.

But that's the entire point. The liberal supporters right now are all about one thing.....extending this situation as long as they can. It doesn't matter whether the allegations are fair or not. The longer that this situation can drag on, the more mud that can be slung, and the better it is for the Obama campaign.

Similarly, the stakes are just as high in Alaska and anyone who can't see that is out of touch with the political machine. The Alaskan Congress and many political lobbyists and executives in Alaska have been severely undercut by the reform movement pushed by Palin in Alaska over her first two years in office. The people that she nailed to the wall are now using 'Troopergate' to further their own ambitions. If they can drag on this situation and drag Palin through the mud, they may be able to make a dent in her 80% approval rating and damage her politically if she were to return to office as governor. But if Palin is elected as VP, they will all be scrutinized by a federal government (rather than a governor) who has a VP that knows exactly how their tomfoolery is accomplished and how big oil plays their game. They don't want that by any stretch of the imagination.

I could give a fuck about the subpoenas and the internal workings of Alaska politics. My issue is she's a compulsive liar even for a pol. All of this nonsense simply adds to the case against her.

If you can make a case against her being a compulsive liar I'd love to hear it.

Anybody who assumed that InTrade trading was any form of a good prediction model is a fool.

Interesting comments from Michelle Obama about the upcoming debate..........


Really confusing message here. On one side, the Obama ticket refutes the arguments that they haven't had many specifics, but now Michelle says that most people don't know about his plans. Not only that, but this kind of a comment raises expectations that Obama will provide a lot of specifics in a debate forum that he doesn't directly control like he would a speech. I'm not sure that you want to make these kinds of expectations for a debate.

Here's the full message for those that are interested. Big kudos for the possible first lady who uses the word 'gonna' in a formal release........

That's really interesting to say the least, but I'd imagine this is less of a political story and more of a guy-trying-to-game-intrade story.

More interesting polling methods on today's Washington Post poll. Initially, it looks like great news for Obama. +9 advantage......

Washington Post-ABC News (washingtonpost.com)

But the numbers in the poll are assigned as follows:

Democrat: 38%

Republican 28%

Independent: 29%

That doesn't even come close to mirroring what election day turnout breakdown percentages usually look like. In addition, the poll's independents are much more left-leaning than the election day independents. 54% of the independents in this poll usually lean Democrat while only 38% of the independents in this poll usually lean Republican.

Honestly, if the Democrats fall on election day, their supporters should blame these kinds of weighted polls for raising expectations that never should have been raised in the first place. This is just terribly bad polling methodology.

So Palin is meeting with Bono today. I don't understand why she's getting her foreign policy advice from celebrities.

It was beyond excellent on super Tuesday. Constantly ahead of the news and wire services by about an hour. It needs to be highly liquid to work though. If the idea about a rogue trader is correct, then I'd say it's working well enough here too. Plus I like betting bad lines. More here.

Do you have a link to the full message?

It's listed in the post from Michelle. It's on the Obama website.

The final numbers may or may not be accurate, but the trend is still clear. McCain went from 2 up to 9 back and the sample only swung 2 points towards the Democrats among registered voters.

Or the meeting could have been arranged by Bono under the false pretense that he would somehow be able to convince her of every supporting any of his causes when he doesn't actually have a prayer of changing her opinion. That's a much more likely scenario.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I saw your text, but I still can't find it on the Obama website. Little help? I'm just curious, since the version I've seen doesn't have the word "gonna" in it, so one of us has a fake.

Well reasoned.

I guess I just worry about undue celebrity influence in a McCain/Palin administration. Are they going to base their Mid-East policy on phone calls from Bono?

Apologies. I'll spell it out SLOWLY.

There's no disagreement that the Democrat/Republican/Independent turnout is off by 2/3 points. With that said, the independent percentage are WAY out of line with the general election day turnout.

Put another way, if we were to use the Washington Poll percentages as a predictor given that the Democrats traditionally constitute roughly 4% more of the voters than the Republicans, a 54% leaning independent segment would virtually guarantee a Democrat in the White House each and every time. That doesn't happen. The higher number of Democrat voters is always offset by a independent electorate that usually votes slightly to the right.

Is it an interesting poll? Yes. Does it resemble anything close to reality given the weight used? Not really.

Exhibit A: When liberal attempts at humor fall flat on their face.

Correct. It's fair to call it a formal release as it was certainly meant to be released via the internet for distribution. Both campaigns have distributed attack ads in a similar method.

I'm not arguing whether the sample will reflect the actual voting. The point is that the sample is very close to the sample used when McCain had a +2 advantage. Any individual poll isn't very useful, but a trend among a very similar sample is useful. This poll does tell us that within the WaPo sample it's likely that over the past couple of weeks McCain has lost a lot of ground.

That's what's important, not the overall numbers.

If anyone's interested, here's the e-mail I got that accompanied the video -- still not sure where MBBF's version came from.

Not meant to be humor. I'm just as concerned by this as you are by Clooney's influence on Obama.

Exhibit B: When a liberal makes a bad joke worse.

I'm assuming you have a link for that poll with McCain up 2 points. Could you post that just to verify that breakdown? Thanks.

I'm not sure where that differs from what I posted. The point remains that she states that the public doesn't know where Barack stands on the issues, which is a pretty shocking frank admission given the Obama campaign has argued that they HAVE been clear on those issues.

You're the one who commented on the use of the word "gonna" -- just seemed odd, since that's not in the version I have. It's one of the two points you made about it.

I am not sure how anyone can say that either candidate has not expressed their policy proposals. I have found a couple of great websites that do a very good job of showing their proposals, and then I can break them down side by side if I care to.

Welcome to Obama for America
www.johnmccain.com

and as far as her using the word gonna

how about Palin adressing a crowd as "Guys and Gals" ?? That seemed pretty...dumbed-down to me too. (clip was on ABC news a few days ago)

Agreed. That was my whole point. I'm surprised that Michelle Obama would make that kind of comment given the options available. The campaign believes that Obama has been very specific about the issues, yet Michelle's comments contradict that message.

Do you really think that last bit is true? That being cleared would matter in any significant way at all?

Seems far more likely to me that a report clearing her would
-- be praised as miraculous justice by supporters, along with a health does of I-told-you-so
-- be decried by detractors as being flawed in some way
-- barely a blip on the radar of anyone else

Got it. Looks like I made the assumption as you. The video was in the email I posted -- I just didn't bother reading it.

A couple of other interesting notes regarding the Washington Post/ABCNews poll from this morning.

-24% of the people polled are not registered to vote. So 1/4 of those polled will likely not even vote.

-Note the following in the poll information:


So the pollster actively found 163 African-Americans to include in the poll rather than a random sample of the population. That means that the poll had 15% of its respondants who were African-American, which is significantly higher than the 12% of the sample population that should be represented. Should we be shocked that the increased numbers of Democrats and AA's resulted in a poll favoring Obama by a wide margin?

I'm hoping JPhillips will post the previous sampling he mentioned where the statistical breakdown was the same when McCain was up 2 points. Would love to compare with this sampling.

It's in the link to the WaPo poll you posted.

9/22 Registered voters 38/28 Dem/Rep
9/7 Registered voters 36/28 Dem/Rep

Why is that shocking? According to the Census in 2005 72% of the adult population was registered to vote.

Also, the numbers break down into likely and registered voters. The poll doesn't include non-registered voters in the McCain/Obama numbers.

I actually see the breakdown on 9/7 as 36/26 in favor of democrats. In addition, we have a poll where the African-American vote is over-represented by 3% and the independent leanings have shifted 4%. Toss in a poll that has 1/4 of the people who are not registered voters and it's really hard to draw much at all from this poll. As I stated before, this is an attack on the poll methodologies more than any attack on the results. I'd be shocked if there hadn't been some movement toward Obama over the past couple of weeks, but polls like this aren't even close to telling the true story.

Wrong. Do you consider me a liberal supporter? ill bet you do, and I dont care if the results come out tomorrow of this damned thing or in 2 years as long as everyone involved fully cooperates and the TRUTH comes out. Period!

If the report comes out and clears her, and Im in the McCain camp I use that as a springboard into the 'liberal media conspiracy' crap. How theyre attacking her on frivolous this and that. I would absolutely turn that into a huge bounce, but instead I think theyre completely botching this in an effort to stifle the investigation until it either isnt resolved before the election or becomes so buried under rhetoric that people cant even 'see or hear' the truth when it is found out, whatever the results. Regardless, it's shameful IMO.

Um, I'm wondering if MBBF is intentionally leaving out pertinent information, or is he just reading sentences that support his position in saying the poll is wrong.


Is this where we bring out the icons?

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

My understanding (admittedly based only on what I've read online) is that the Alaska legislature is out of session until January and therefore can not take action to enforce the subpoenas until then.

That's a convinient stance to take in this case.

"I'm not stirring the pot! I just want the TRUTH!"

Yeah, ummmmm, OK.

You're correct. I missed that point. Thanks for the correction note.

you call it stirring, the world calls it an investigation.

You have to look at the registered voter lines as those are the numbers used to get to the final number. As I stated earlier the inclusion of non-registered voters isn't an issue either. Keep in mind that this poll is about more than voting prefeerence, so a close to accurate distribution of non-registered voters is appropriate. They aren't represented in the horserace numbers as those are clearly marked as only asked of registered voters.

There's no conspiracy about the methodology. It may or may not be accurate, but the internals look consistent with other polling operations.