washingtonpost.com — Could the polls be wrong? Sen. John McCain and his allies say that they are. The country, they say, could be headed to a 2008 version of the famous 1948 upset election, with McCain in the role of Harry S. Truman and Sen. Barack Obama as Thomas E. Dewey, lulled into overconfidence by inaccurate polls.
Oct 29, 2008 View in Crawl 4
rotundoOct 30, 2008
It's a fair point, but I think the idea is that one's willingness to be polled doesn't correlate with one's political opinions. Thus you can still get a representative cross section pretty easily.I still don't put a heck of a lot of faith in the polls, but they do give some indication of what's happening.
semrocksOct 30, 2008
Obama had a nice lead in the polls in NH in the Democratic primaries. Who won that one again?
falstaffOct 30, 2008
Gallup poll of registered voters: Obama 51-42Gallup poll of likely (exp) voters: Obama 51-44Gallup poll of likely (trad) voters: Obama 49-46So is the margin 9 points or 3? Anything from 4-7 would be within the margin of all 3, so let's start with thatThe RCP data points range from 3 points to 15 for Obama:<a class="user" href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html">http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/presi ...</a>They are all trying to get a accurate picture of the truth, but what could the truth possibly be such that the polls are all right to any meaningful degree? The MOE is 5% in all these things, but there's a greater than 5% spread between the polls. Some are simply wrong, and there's no other way to spin that.Maybe Obama is up by 10 right now, and maybe McCain wins by 2. But is that a problem with the polls, or can that many people change their minds? There's NO WAY to verify the accuracy of these polls except to compare them to each other, and the spread is too big to mean anything.They all make assumptions, and they all seem to agree that Obama is in a very good position, but the only poll that matters isn't until next Tuesday. VOTE.
crombenevolantOct 30, 2008
If Obama wins there will be people in the streets crying foul. A line was crossed with Gore vs Bush in which every Presidential election for the rest of our lives will involve legal challenges....
holmzzOct 30, 2008
Facts are wonderful things! Thanks for the facts Dweller99!