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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Palin accuses Obama of palin' around with Left-Wing Radical in Kindergarten

GOP Vice-Presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska hurled yet another accusation at Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama today. Palin said that Obama was friends with Richard Graystone, the noted Nobel laureate and eminent economist of our times, when they both went to Kindergarten in Hawaii in 1966.

Palin portrays Mr. Graystone as a communist because he and Paul Krugman, another Nobel winning economist were at the same day-care in New York, a year prior to Graystone moving to Hawaii. Mr. Krugman is considered to be a liberal economist who often write for the New York Times. Although Mr. Graystone was awarded the Nobel for his ground-breaking work on free market economy and positive effects of deregulation, Gov. Palin contends that he is a communist by virtue of having been in pre-school with Mr. Krugman.

The accusation was the main piece of primetime news even on the always fair and balanced, Fox News Network. Even one of their most unbiased and neutral analysts, Sean Hannity, expressed shock that Sen. Obama would pal around with Graystone. The reader may recall that Hannity was extremely reluctant to bring up Mr. Obama's association with known domestic terrorist and another Chicago professor, William Ayers, because Obama was only 8 when Ayers indulged in his anti-govt activties. Hannity told his viewers that Obama ought to have known that Graystone was in pre-school with Krugman and that Krugman would turn out to be a communist. Hannity said that this shows Obama's poor judgment in choosing his company.

A snap poll of Fox showed that his viewers agreed with him. 70% of the respondents said that Obama should have known about Graystone and 30% said, 'F*&k Yeah!'.

In an unrelated poll conducted on Fox News, 99.99% of their viewers said that they believe the Earth is flat and that's one of the reasons why they don't visit Alaska (because they're afraid that they would fall off the edge of the Earth if they went too far West). A mysterious lone voter made up the remaining 0.01% and rumors about the lone vote being cast from the Governor's mansion in Alaska are running wild on the internet. Experts suspect that the lone voter may indeed be Gov. Sarah Palin who has repeatedly said that she could see Russia to the West of her house in Wasilla.

Other news media such as NBC, CBS & CNN were criticized by the McCain campaign for not taking this story seriously. McCain complained of blatant bias in the coverage of new events. NBC's Tom Brokaw responded by saying that there was no bias against McCain/Palin and that the only known bias that NBC had was against stupidity. He also said that NBC was working hard at removing the anti-stupidity bias by running shows such as Lipstick Jungle and Kathy & Kim. Sphere: Related Content

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

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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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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Time for Change

Time to move on, America. Time to grow up and surely, time to let go. You have a choice in November. You can choose to waddle in the morass; a vile concoction of racism, partisanship, political rhetoric & posturing, lies and deceit by its leaders, in addition to pure incompetence; OR you can move forward and reclaim your lost glory, lost morality and lost global standing.  

So called "Experts" such as (Krauthammer, Coulter, Limbaugh et al) can pick apart every word in every speech, take it out of context and come up with a completely different meaning. Sure, it helps sell papers and drive traffic to websites but at the end of the day, these people and others like them are dominating the debate but sadly, marginalizing the issue and the people affected by it.  

You can choose to elect a 72yr old relic of a bygone era, who has no clear vision of how and where to steer this country in these challenging times, other than to continue the "splendid" policies of the current administration.  

OR you can choose a dynamic, young, deeply insightful and unifying leader like Barack Obama who can lead this country into the 21st century. America desperately needs to reinvent itself for the new millennium and for what has truly become a global economy. It risks being outmaneuvered by rapidly growing and well educated economies such as India & China.  

Do you really believe McCain and Palin are capable of leading that change?  

You have a choice. Cling onto the past, bicker, fight amongst yourselves and continue to elect incompetent people, OR, take a fresh approach and hire a young, energetic leader capable of uniting you all, changing for the better and surging forward. I am tempted to quote Jim Collins here: "Good is the enemy of Great!". America has been very good, and still is today but to go on and be a great nation for centuries to come, you need to change and the time is right now.   This is your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Don't mess it up. 

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