Grading the Pollsters - Part 1: Popular Vote

Hello World! Say Hi to a New America! Hearty Congratulations to President Elect Barack Obama. As you may have realized from my earlier posts, I am very excited that my candidate won and won quite handily, contrary to what some of the polls were indicating towards the end.

Speaking of which, I decided to put my limited Excel skills to use and try to come up with a Report Card for the 12341521 pollsters (seemingly) that covered this election. In this post, I have compiled a list of all the final National Polls (courtesy realclearpolitics.com) and have tried to rank the pollsters based upon the proximity of their numbers to the actual results.

First, here's the table that I use (Click on the picture for a larger view). The tan row is the RCP average. The green row is the actuals. The yellow highlights indicate the numbers/pollsters who are closest to the actuals.




(Click on the Picture for a larger view).

As you can see, when it came to estimating Obama's support, the top 3 were CNN/Opinion Research, Ipsos/McClatchy and ABC News/Washington Post. They were all only 0.17 percentage points off the actual number (53.17%).

When it ccame to estimating Sen. McCain's support, the top spot goes to Battleground (Lake) who were off by 0.17 percentage points and the second spot is shared by 4 pollsters - Rasmussen Reports, Ipsos/McClatchy, CNN/Opinion Research and Pew Research, who were all off by 0.83 percentage points.

Finally, when it came to estimating the spread, the top spot is shared by Rasmussen Reports and Pew Research who were off just by 0.34 percentage points and the third place is tied between Fox News, Ipsos/McClatchy and CNN/Opinion Research, who were all off by 0.66 percentage points.

So, if we were to grade these pollsters using some basic ranking logic, here's how it would look like:

First Place: Tied between CNN/Opinion Research AND Ipsos/McClatchy
Third Place: Tied between Rasmussen Reports AND Pew Research

Occupying the bottom rungs would be Battleground (Tarrance), Reuters/C-Span/Zogby (no surprise here, Zogby is a really bad pollster by any measure), Diageo/Hotline and Gallup (that's a surprise!).

Some additional thoughts:
1. The narrow margins by which these polls were off tells us how far along election polling has come in this country.
2. None of the polls were incorrect when it came to predicting the winner.
3. We can officially put the Bradley Effect to rest.

In Part 2, I'll look into how the pollsters did in the so-called "battleground" states (mental video of Sen. McCain drawing air-quotes).
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Joe the Plumber to go Shopping at Neiman Marcus

Irked by the fact that Sarah Palin got to go shopping and drop $150K on a wardrobe reset, media darling and Republican star, Joe the Plumber has decided to do some shopping of his own.

In addition to Saks and Neiman Marcus, Mr. Plumber plans on shopping at Mark Shale and Armani. Mr. Plumber is reportedly looking for suits more expensive than Obama's Hartmarxs and shoes more expensive than McCain's Ferrangamos. When asked about his shopping budget, he replied, "Considering the fact that I am doing more interviews daily than Mrs. Palin has done since the beginning of this campaign, my budget will be at least twice that of her's". Reporters pointed out that while Mr. Obama's suits were purchased out his own money (proceeds from the sale of his two books) and that Mr. McCain's suits were purchased using his wife's beer money, Ms. Palin's clothes were charged to McCain's campaign which has accepted federal funding (taxpayer money). An irritated Mr. Plumber fumed and said, "So it's taxpayer money. Big deal. Aren't taxes supposed to be a redistribution of wealth? How about distributing some of that to me?".

Upon hearing those comments from Mr. Plumber, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt quickly annointed Steve the Electrician as the official campaign spokesman, saying that Mr. Plumber was becoming increasingly erratic. Backing up Mr. Schmidt's claim are statements from Mr. Plumber such as "You shall refer to me as the 'Maverick formerly known as Joe the Plumber' " and "I'm suspending all my interviews with Fox News and going to Washington to solve the economic crisis".

In other news, Ms. Palin has reportedly setup a 'Presidential Exploratory Committee' named 'Palin 2012'. When asked about her initial thoughts on a running mate, she replied, "I already have a mate, Todd Palin, and Boy, can he run! He's got more executive experience than me, since he's the one really running the governor's office in Alaska now anyway!" Sphere: Related Content

Lehman Brothers CEO attempts suicide - Wachovia forgives luxury Yacht Loan

Richard Fuld, CEO of bankrupt Wall Street Investment firm Lehman Brothers, attempted suicide in his $60M luxury yacht today off the coast of Miami, FL. According to the US Coast Guard who arrived on the scene within 10 minutes of receiving a call from another yacht owner sailing close by, ex-WAMU CEO, Alan Fishman, Fuld had shot himself twice in his upper body.

With the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Fuld has lost millions in stock and had fallen back on his yacht loan payments. Repeated attempts by Wachovia Bank who owns the loan, and the Miami Police Department over the past couple of months had been unsuccessful. Fuld owns a 20-bedroom vacation home on the Intercoastal in Miami.

Neighbors said that they have seen mail and packages disappear from the front door and believe that Fuld does indeed inhabit the house from time to time and has been coming out in the dead of the night to clear the mail.

At the time of posting this blog, the news from Miami-Dade County Hospital was that Fuld was recovering well after surgery and had reportedly asked for a bottle of his favorite wine from his vacation home, a 1787 Chateau Lafite. In an extraordinary show of solidarity and bipartisanship, Congress today passed unanimously the Millionaire Yacht Bailout Bill. The bill is designed to ensure that all loans on luxury yachts bought by CEOs/CFOs of troubled Wall Street Firms are forgiven by using taxpayer money to pay them off.

In justifying the loan forgiveness, President Bush explained at a White House Press Conference that this was a great example of trickle-down economics working. Govt. bails out Wall Street and Wall Street bails out their CEOs and CFOs. He added, "What could be a better example of Reaganomical success?".

Meanwhile, Addie Polk, the 90yr old Ohio woman who had her own mortgage forgiven by Fannie Mae after she shot herself in an attempt to commit suicide because of impending foreclosure of her house, is contemplating suicide again as she realized after regaining consciousness that her insurance company had canceled her health insurance and that she'd be left to pay the $234,000 hospital bill herself. Incidentally, the hospital bill was more that 5 times the mortgage payoff, which was $45,000.

Asked by reporters what other homeowners facing foreclosure of their homes would have to do in order to obtain loan forgiveness from Fannie Mae, republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said that he empathized with them and that he and his wife have had to put one of their 12 houses, a 13bdr ranch in Sedona, AZ on sale themselves because of a dip in beer sales, but told the American people not to worry and that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. In responding to the same question, his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said, "Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions.". While most reporters left the room scratching their heads, Fox News commentators Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity were all in praise of Palin's answer, critizing those that questioned her of "gotcha journalism".
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McCain calls for Monopoly Bank Bailout Package

In a startling move, presidential candidate Senator John McCain, for a second time in two weeks, announced today that he is suspending his campaign to go to Washington and support the bailout.

This time however, the bailout he is referring to is for the bank in the game of Monopoly. After a rash of defaults by players that made some dubious investments, such as building houses and hotels on Mediterranean abd Baltic Avenues, the bank has run out of cash. Their premise that other players would eventually land on these properties and would pay out has repeatedly been thwarted by bizarre behavior by the dice. Players are now jumping from Community Chest to Just Visiting the Jail to Free Parking. Some are even happy to end up in jail and lose 3 turns, so long as they don't have to pay the rent OR do maintenance on their properties.

Even the cards in community chest and chance are coming up as favorable to players. Consider this one that came up recently to a woman from Alaska, "Congratulations! You've won second prize in a beauty contest. Collect VP Nomination!".

Adding to the bank's woes are players that steal from the bank while others aren't looking. Many blame it on the bank for lack of regulation and oversight, Sen. McCain, who has repatedly voted in the past against regulation, is now calling for stringent regulation and oversight of the bank.

In Washington, Sen. McCain hopes to convince members of his own party, many of whom are skittish about supporting a bailout of the Monopoly Bank using taxpayer money. McCain however hopes to have better luck this time around since many Republicans have houses and hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place and don't like to see the value of their own properties go down.

Analysts say that this is a last ditch effort by the senator from Arizona to revive his campaign from the disastrous interviews that his running mate has given on Network television.

In a related piece of news, lukewarm cadavers around the nation are revolting en masse against Scott Adams, the creator of comic strip Dilbert, after Adams reportedly referred to Sen. McCain as one. Lukewarm cadavers feel deeply insulted by the name-calling since they strongly believe that they have a much better economic plan to offer than the republican presidential candidate.
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Lou Dobbs: Rebel without a cause

I'm exaggerating of course. He looks nothing like Marlon Brando. But seriously....When have you ever ever ever heard Lou Dobbs be pro anything? He's anti-immigration, anti-outsourcing, anti-taxcuts, anti-free-trade, anti-Bush, anti-Gore, anti-Kerry, anti-Clinton, anti-Obama, anti-you, anti-me and the latest, anti-bailout.

There's one thing to be anti-something and pro-other, but to pull off anti-everything requires a special talent and of all the people that I know, only Lou has that. Why, yesterday, he even wrote a commentary against adopting abandoned puppies saying that it would amount to blanket amnesty for people that abandon puppies.

According to insider sources within CNN, Lou is working on a commentary railing against commentaries. Out to prove a point, he's put his own commentaries top on the list of commentaries he's against. The entire country is eagerly awaiting this anti-commentary commentary. Commentators on both ends of the political spectrum are busy commentating on the pros and cons of such a bold tactic, one that is even more bold than John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate (In case you are wondering... Lou is anti-McCain and anti-Palin as well). How he's going to pull this one off has all the makings of a prime-time reality show (he's against those as well).

In other news, there are reports of a spike in binocular sales in the 49th state as more and more Alaskans look West towards Russia in order to gain better foreign policy experience, in case McCain-Palin get elected and they are called upon to staff the State Department. Sphere: Related Content

Pants on Fire!!

OK. There have been half-truths and embellishment in the past by both campaigns; something that we have come to expect from political campaigns; but the lies from the "Straight Talk Express" have reached a new low this week.

From Palin's "Bridge to Nowhere" lie to "Obama wants to have sex-ed for Kindergartners", the republican presidential ticket has now thrown the truth completely out of their ads and are basically resorting to a bad imitation of the Swift Boat tactics of 2004. The lies have reached such embarrassing proportions that even their own party members are cringing at some of these ads.

For someone who absolutely hated Karl Rove for what he did to his candidacy in 2000, McCain sure is embracing all of Rove's tactics eagerly. How America can vote for a two-faced liar like him is beyond my comprehension.

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Of Lipstick, Pigs and Politics

The 2008 election campaign has officially hit its lowest point today after the "Lipstick Gate" controversy. For those few lucky ones that are unaware, uninitiated OR uninterested, Barack Obama called McCain's economic policies the same as Bush and used the Lipstick on a Pig phrase to illustrate his point.

Today, McCain's campaign feigned outrage saying that Obama's comments were in reference to the lipstick comments by Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin at the recently concluded Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN.

So, it has started. The mud-slinging, the lies, the swift-boating, the deceit and the smears. Just when I thought that this election was a bit different, I have been proven soundly wrong. Beneath all the shiny suits, the $400 loafers and polished talk, every politician has a streetfighter's mentality and in times such as these (http://www.gallup.com/poll/107674/Gallup-Daily-Election-2008.aspx), it comes out and rears its ugly head.

I am not going to start debating on who was right and who is wrong. I think it would do the citizens of this country a lot of good if the discussion were to get back to the issues (the economy, the nation's security and energy policy), rather than this "you said, she said, I said" Kindergarten routine that we're in right now.

The one interesting thing though is that amidst all this noise, we seem to have completely lost track of the other VP candidate, Joe Biden. Where is he? Wasn't he supposed to be Obama's "Attack Dog"? Isn't he the "loud-mouthed" one? Maybe Obama needs to focus his attacks on McCain and Biden on Palin. The more Obama attacks Palin, the more he frames the comparison in people's mind's between himself and Palin, rather than himself and McCain. The odds for Obama in a comparison against McCain are good but not so against Palin. Likewise, Biden against Palin is a cake-walk for Biden BUT the Republicans are cleverly framing this as Palin vs. Obama rather than Palin vs. Biden and looks like the Dems are falling into the trap.
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Lord Vader

Was doing some research on Sarah Palin and what she was bringing (or not) to the table and ran into the following excerpt from an interview that Karl Rove did on "Face the Nation" a month ago:

SCHIEFFER: You have said yourself in the past that Obama probably should pick a red state governor, somebody just like Tim Kaine that we just heard just a minute ago from Virginia. Governor Kaine seems to think that Democrats really can carry Virginia this time. Do you think that state’s going to be in play?

Mr. ROVE: Yeah. I think it’s going to be in play, but let me clarify. I didn’t say that I thought he ought to, I said that I thought he probably would pick a red state Democrat, because I think he’s going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice. He’s going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he’s going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He’s not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president.

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States? What I’m concerned about is, can he bring me the electoral votes of the state of Virginia, the 13 electoral votes in Virginia?’

 

So when Steve Schmidt, disciple numero uno of Rove, feigns anger at the media for apparently questioning Palin's resume and calls them sexist for even asking basic questions on Palin's experience, it reeks of hypocrisy.

I think what the McCain camp is trying to say is this:

If you are a red state Governor and a woman (and hot!) and the name of your state begins and ends with A and your state has more moose than humans and you have been mayor of a village that begins with W and you have extremely conservative social views and you are for drilling everywhere including the Grand Canyon (Hey! The Colorado river has already done half the job for us there!), then you are more experienced than the other guy, no matter how many years or what kind of qualifications he has.

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Pale-in-Comparison

I know. It's not about the VP candidate but about the person on the top of the ticket. VPs are just there for the ride (unless you are Dick "Lord Vader" Cheney, in which case you control the puppet President).

So let's for a moment go with that assumption. The next question then is, why so much noise around Palin?

It is not because of Palin herself, a lite-featherweight at best, but what her selection tells us about Grandpa McSame:

1. He put "winning first" and "COUNTRY LAST" because he realized that his original choice, Joe LIE-berman, would have gone nowhere with the conservative right-wing (think Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Corsi). And he also knows that he's putting a small-town (more like a village) mayor from Alaska who just got herself a passport, a heartbeat away from the presidency. McCain is a two-time cancer survivor and not in the greatest of healths.
2. He is desperate to reinforce his Maverick status by doing the unexpected. The problem is that when the unexpected also becomes the "under-vetted" OR "under-cooked", then that's where a Maverick moves quickly turns into a moronic one.
3. Again, in order to win at all costs, he is shamelessly pandering to the extreme right-wingers in the Republican party, while he himself is against some of their wierd positions (abstinence only education, creationism and other such nonsense).

How a person at his age can be so consumed by the hunger for power that he is willing to sacrifice his core principles and beliefs just to win, is frightening. That should warn all potential independents that are thinking about voting for the McSame/Palin ticket.

And some closing thoughts on Palin herself:

No doubt a strong characted and a good person but one has to question her judgement to thrust her pregnant teenage daughter into the national limelight (think front page of National Enquirer) just to advance her own political career. Whatever happened to the GOP being the Party of Family Values? I'm not saying that she shouldn't run for higher office at all but just questioning the timing of her decision. And Oh, BTW, she cannot hold a candle to Hillary (or Biden for that matter). Sphere: Related Content

LIE-berman

Yup! That's what I'm gonna call him now, LIE-berman. Because that's the new low that poor Joe has sunk to. Until now, we all thought that he was just a stubborn old guy with an over-inflated ego that couldn't bring himself to admitting that he made a mistake by supporting the invasion of Iraq.

That slowly started changing when he started moving more and more closely with the Republicans. I mean, the guy doesn't have anything in common with the Republican ticket, except for the War. His positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, healthcare, education reform, taxation - they are all 180 degrees different. But then he sets a new record of hypocrisy by going to the Republican convention and professing undying love and support for McCain and Palin. This, after declaring on "Meet the Press" just a couple of weeks ago that he wouldn't go to the RNC.

And the icing came when he criticized Obama for not working across the isle. Way to go LIE-berman!! Is that what "working across the isle" is? Forgoing all your values, your ideals and your positions and shamelessly pandering to the right-wing just because you are desperate to find comfort for your mistaken decision on Iraq?

That is just plain pathetic. I really hope the Democrats win a clear majority in the Senate this November and send LIE-berman's butt packing to the Republican party. With all his lies and hypocrisies, he would fit right in.

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