What to Make of the Polls?
Keven Ann Willey, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, notes that all the buzz everywhere is about Barack Obama, but the Presidential preference polls show the race to be essentially tied, within the margin of the error of the polls. Willey subscribes to the theory that "polls this far out are absolutely worthless." She prefers to look at the current Presidential party's time in office, the current President's approval rating, the economic growth rate, etc., to better forecast the election outcome. And, by those measures, the buzz surrounding Obama is justified.
Willey is right that polls in July are not good predictors of elections in November, but they don't claim to be. The electorate is fickle. All the polls claim to be is a snapshot in time of the electorate's preference today. The polls may be perfectly accurate in calculating the mood of the electorate today, but to predict what the electorate's mood will be in November, you have to look at more than just today's polls.
The betting sites, like InTrade, give Obama a 65% chance of winning. The bettors are looking at more than just the current national presidential preference polls. Nationally, Obama and McCain may be within the margin of error, but state by state is a different story. Real Clear Politics projects Obama with 255 electoral votes safe or leaning to him, McCain with 163, and 120 electoral votes judged to be a toss-up. Obama needs only 15 more electoral votes to reach the 270 needed for election. McCain has to practically run the table on all those toss-up states for his own victory. Given that grim math, the tightness of the national polls is actually in Obama's favor, not McCain's.
Regardless of whether the race is close or not, expect the press to report it as if it's close. In part this is to sell newspapers. In part this is to avoid looking like idiots if the favorite doesn't win. Just look at how the Democratic primaries were covered. Obama's victory was a foregone conclusion after February, yet the press covered the story as if it were still a horse race right up until Clinton's withdrawal in early June.
The bottom line? The November election is Obama's to lose, no matter what the national polls say today.
All the News that Fit to Line the Bird Cage
James Reza complains about the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, claiming it's only good for the obituaries, the grocery coupons, and lining the canary cage. Other than that, it's full of "leftist garbage and ... socialist and left leaning daily diatribes." Where does Reza choose to publish his rant? In Dallas Blog, itself full of rightist garbage and conservative and right leaning daily diatribes (to paraphrase Reza). Can you say unintended irony?
2 comments:
And Dallas Blog doesn't even give you grocery coupons.
No grocery coupons, but if you print out James Reza's column, it makes a dandy bird cage liner.
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