How in the hell is McCain tied w/ Obama?
 

And what will Obama and Bill eat for lunch on Thursday? I'm guessing a pastrami on rye from Katz'.

Actually he is ahead by most of todays polls by a fair margin.

I just saw that... I wonder how it will all end up.

mmmmmmmmm ......... pastrami on rye from Katz's :mad:

Those are the bomb... everytime im in NY i eat there... weird to pay around $30+ for 2 sandwiches hehe

temporary bounce from palin that will end the momnt she sits down with the media


followed by the debates..... i predict a 20 point obama biden lead after the debates

The Republican propaganda, marketing and mobilizing machine at it's finest. Dems should learn from the Reps, they keep bringing knives to gunfights..

That sounds like a deal. Last time I bought breakfast in NYC it cost close to $40 for two orders of eggs and bacon.

I think he'll eat fries... :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

they are cocks, both

I really don't trust the polls. First, I don't know anyone that has ever been called and polled for the elections. With that, they always ask the question in stupid ways.

Instead of just asking, who would you vote for now. It's always bs like, did you think McCain made a good choice with Palin after the speech? Enough people say yes, the ratings for McCain go up.

I really think the Media is trying to down play Obama so they don't seem like they are hugging only him. They know he has this wrapped up but the Republican party would go to hell and back to make sure the People see it a different way.

Yep.

If Dems just kept saying "Well Republicans aren't very patriotic, and they are linked to terrorism. McCain is an Irish name we linked to the IRA which are terrorists" they might have a fighting chance.

Also the average American is a sheeple, who can not think for himself. FORCE them to think how you want them to through fear, panic and chaos... and you will win elections.

How do you know what questions are asked or what format if you have never been called or know anyone that has been?

THEDOC AND BADDOG SOAP PILLOW FIGHTTTT!!!!
:thumbsup

I don't know if he will be up by 20 points, but I think it is a temporary bounce. Check out the graph here http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...obama-225.html

You can see a huge spike of about 4 points for Obama during the democrat convention, the the next week McCain gets a big spike. Obama has returned to around normal and McCain will too.

Because it's not a blind poll, and none of them ever are.

Go poll 1000 executives making 300,000k+ per year, now go poll 1000 minimum wage people.

Would you have faith that the results would show anything valuable?

The only value would be if it was a hardcopy and you made a hell of a basket with the wadded up results from across the room.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the republican party is an election machine. What other political party on earth could get GWB elected twice? They are masters of actually getting people out to the polls to vote and of building and maintaining a central fortress of support.

As we get closer to election time, the republicans will be better at solidifying their core support and ensuring they vote, and will spend less time trying to woo the independent and fringe voters.

The dems simply have a smaller and more volatile voting core and need those independent and fringe votes to win. Didn't anyone else dabble in poli-sci in university?? :P

Thats the advantage of catering to the religious. They use their churches as rallying points to discuss "values" and other code words.

What is this big giant web spider net thing I'm typing into?

yeah it looks like whatever happened on 08/02/ was a major factor

going to look it up now

ok i found the problem as it relates to the data displayed in the above graph

2 things

the rat

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...berman.600.jpg

Let's take a look at some of those questions, they 'build' the ratings on. In short, if one question / idea comes out a little off or if one thing happens, to move the understanding of one idea, the entire thing changes.

Again, they do not ask the most basic question, over and over: Now, who are you planing on voting for? Which is the only poll question that makes a difference.

Let's see:
?Obama eliminated McCain's advantage as "a strong and decisive leader." By 46%-44%, those surveyed says that characteristic applies more to Obama than McCain. Before the convention, McCain held an 8-point advantage. Obama has a 13-point advantage as someone who "shares your values," almost double the edge he held before. He has an 8-point advantage as someone who is "honest and trustworthy"; pre-convention, they were equal.

Wow, ratings based on "honest and trustworthy" and "shares your values" - Election is over!


And more:
? Obama has eased concerns about experience, but they remain a significant factor. Fifty percent of those surveyed say they are very or somewhat concerned about his experience. Before the convention, 57% were.

? McCain's favorable-unfavorable rating was 54%-38%, a healthy mark but his highest unfavorable this year. Obama's rating was 61%-32%.

In the poll, Democrats continue to benefit from an "enthusiasm gap." By 57%-28%, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they are more enthusiastic than usual this year. By 47%-39%, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they are less enthusiastic than usual.

The poll of 2,035 adults has a margin of error of +/?2 percentage points. The sample of 1,835 registered voters has an error margin of +/?3 points.



Make sure you read through that to see all the odd and stupid questions they ask to build the polls with.

Just the idea that these stats are allowed with 2035 votes, from prob Colorado, it's just trash data to feed you people trash information.

Obama is killing McCain, straight up he has already left the gate and won the race.

3 people full lunch with a soda for my son yesterday evening. 31$ ( Not in NY )

according to cnn 48/48
 

"The poll was based on 1,022 telephone interviews. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/...rap/index.html


If you missed the call it might be because you were working :1orglaugh

my sig and avatar really pushed him over the top:thumbsup

everyone is mesmerized with Sarah Palin's bikini picture and McCain seized the opportunity and positioned himself ahead in the polls.... sneaky old guy ....

They almost got me too, I bet I was #1023, ugg.. Actually, I don't even have a home phone and when I did it wasn't like I answered it :)

I love it too, 1022 people "actually" moves the polls, really - amazing and mind blowing to me all the same time. 300 million and the opinion of 1022 swings things.


The Media should be banned from Politics.

I don't know about 20 point leads. I think it's going to be close all the way.

Anyway, they're pouncing on Palin's first gaffe already:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_124792.html

If it's a completely random sample of 1000 respondents, it will accurately reflect the rest of the nation.

1022.. statistically insignificant as usual. But "worth it" for the newsdogs.

Hey, lets not forget, these are the same assholes who figured it was "fair" to pose the hypothetical question "should hillary quit" on march 15th.

It's not completely random and it never is. Not "blind" as I said up farther. It's ALWAYS what they refer to with phrases like "likely voters" (dozens of qualifications to be one of those) or "registered voters" (could be any number of qualifications and you could label them "registered").

Each poll is so skewed out of the box by it's prequalifications/prejudices, that it is entirely non-representative and literally almost the furthest thing possible from "completely random" as you can get.

The more she opens her mouth, the more she will end it for them both. She will never do anything but an assigned Q&A, I bet she never goes on free mic time with any real talk show host.

Palin said, "The fact is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help."

And to think, some people want this grade A moron running for VP and even having a possible chance at president.

Let me guess... you don't actually know all that much about statistics, do you?

If the 1022 is a random sample, then it has validity. If not, then it really doesn't say much.

"The method pollsters use to pick interviewees relies on the bedrock of mathematical reality: when the chance of selecting each person in the target population is known, then and only then do the results of the sample survey reflect the entire population. This is called a random sample or a probability sample. This is the reason that interviews with 1,000 American adults can accurately reflect the opinions of more than 210 million American adults." - http://www.ncpp.org/?q=node/4

It's a counter-intuitive statistical reality that a random sample of 1000 people will accurately reflect millions. I didn't know this either until I took a stats course, and I never would have guessed it on my own.

Yep, both spikes came right after that candidate's convention. It just goes to show how short of memory people have. They were in love with Obama a few weeks ago, then they were in love with Palin and now it is McCain. It seems like whatever happened most recently is what people take into consideration. That is why the October surprises always seem to work. In the last election there was that sudden Bin Laden tape that happened to show up a few weeks before the election which somehow gave Bush a little bump and helped him. I won't be surprised at all if suddenly we catch a major terrorist or convict a major terrorist or something big regarding Iraq is announced about 2-3 weeks before the election.

Over the last 20 years or so polls have become very accurate. Some are not, depending on the company that does them and how they do them, but most have a pretty good science of it and they tend to be pretty accurate.

Yes, I see what you are talking about. I could also refer to a sample as "random" if I know I'm only calling registered republicans.

"4. How were those people chosen?
The key reason that some polls reflect public opinion accurately and other polls are unscientific junk is how people were chosen to be interviewed. In scientific polls, the pollster uses a specific statistical method for picking respondents. In unscientific polls, the person picks himself to participate.

The method pollsters use to pick interviewees relies on the bedrock of mathematical reality: when the chance of selecting each person in the target population is known, then and only then do the results of the sample survey reflect the entire population. This is called a random sample or a probability sample. This is the reason that interviews with 1,000 American adults can accurately reflect the opinions of more than 210 million American adults.

Most scientific samples use special techniques to be economically feasible.
For example, some sampling methods for telephone interviewing do not just pick randomly generated telephone numbers. Only telephone exchanges that are known to contain working residential numbers are selected, reducing the number of wasted calls. This still produces a random sample. But samples of only listed telephone numbers do not produce a random sample of all working telephone numbers.

But even a random sample cannot be purely random in practice as some people don't have phones, refuse to answer, or aren't home.

Surveys conducted in countries other than the United States may use different but still valid scientific sampling techniques, for example, because relatively few residents have telephones. In surveys in other countries, the same questions about sampling should be asked before reporting a survey."

Republicans would vote for the devil before they would vote for a minority:2 cents: first ones who say that blacks are violent and will rob u blind add it up who spending the billions and trillions:winkwink:

My views are as follows..

Republicans are willing to get into a dirty street fight if need be to get elected, Democrats would rather get their asses kicked hoping 'the truth will come out' and that they'll have 'their day in court'..meanwhile, they still got their asses kicked and time is not on their side.

The bottom line is, anyone who thinks elections are mostly about issues (and I speak in a non-partisan manner like even Bill Clinton's election as well), they live in fantasy world.