The American Spectator

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Do the Math

7.31.08 @ 12:01AM

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Re: Robert Stacy McCain's Live by the Poll, Die by the Poll:

Can you really invoke Hillary Clinton? It's not so much that she got behind in the polls, but that her strategy stunk, fueled by her and her husband's assumption that she was entitled to win and the apparent dislike of them both within the Democrat party that neither apparently saw or understood.

As for the polls now? Given that it appears that some have been cooked liberally with essence of Obama to give unbelievable numbers, who can trust any of them -- except those, perhaps, that do show McCain in the lead or essentially even with Obama?

After all, that goes against all the MSM-promoted fantasy that voters absolutely love Obama and that he is actually now president with one teensy-weensy glitch -- he has yet be nominated and elected.
-- C. Kenna Amos
Princeton, West Virginia

Polling is not an exact science? I disagree. Polling as done in America is not a science, it's a scam. Seriously. You call less than 1,000 people who agree to be polled and this is supposed to represent the over-all desires of over three hundred million people? Does anyone really think these things are accurate? Most of them tell us they have a margin of error of 3-5 points. In a poll where the results over in the mid forties, that's as much as a ten percent margin of error. The difference between the two Gallup polls mentioned is more than twenty-five percent.

No, I would say that polling is not exact, and it's certainly not a science.
-- Charles Campbell
Austin, Texas

Bandwagon psychology, that of wanting to vote for a winner, surely does not apply to an overwhelming majority of Democrats. Their self-immolation mind-set, demonstrated in the last two elections does not seem to have changed. In fact it has worsened, fueled by the vitriol of Daily Kos and MoveOn.

When this nightmare has ended, if Republicans prevail at the polls once again, Dems will have a new wound to nurse. We will have proven that we are RACISTS as well as every other despicable figment of their imaginations.

Obama is their Pied Piper. They are they are his entranced rats.

"To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled...
And ere three notes his pipe had uttered...
Out of the houses rats came tumbling--
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
And step by step they followed him dancing,
Till they came to the voting booth, prancing."

With apologies to Robert Browning.

If we thought Gore died hard in 2000 or Kerry went less than gently in 2004, just wait for an Obama narrow loss!
-- Diane Smith

Polling data will matter only if there is a significant enough bump for McCain -- as perceived by Obama's strategists -- that it forces head-to-head debate. Considering Obama's track record minus a Teleprompter, that bump would have to be significant.

Without that, direct contact between the two candidates will be kept to an absolute minimum.
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

I have no idea why I punish myself by reading anything about political polls -- especially those for presidential campaigns. Twisted sense of humor is my best guess.

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