how the pollster distinguished between the two categories of (1) Democrats and (2) Liberals.

I have seen and heard many Democrats describe themselves as liberal--and be described as liberal-- while I consider their views to be damned close to Republican, with the possible exception of cultural issues--and even that exception is not unconditional. And I am not Communist or Socialist, just a traditional Democrat who believes unconditionally in unions and social safety nets and is not crazy for war.

If you look at the numbers.

The key is that it is among liberal Democrats, not liberals in general. Why I have to make this distinction is beyond me. Among self-identified liberals he polls at 72%.

JoshCryer: "haha!! Obama only polls at 72% among all liberals! Take that!"

I should've noted that Gallup is the most right wing poller of them all.

Implying that he probably polls better among liberals and liberal Democrats respectively.

Why I have to make this distinction is beyond me.

For just one thing, you can ask about positions on a variety of issues. Self identification would probably be the laziest and least reliable method a pollster could use.

It's already long enough as it is.

It should be long enough that we can glean actual information from it.

There should be questions about policy and attitudes to establish whether someone is "liberal." I've known self-identified conservatives who were more liberal than other self-identified liberals I've encountered. Seriously.

Do you honestly believe that most people have the perspective to accurately claim the proper title of where they fit in the overall political spectrum -ASSUMING they were even trying to be honest and accurate?

So no, of course not.

We obviously need a Nelson Family type of polling dynamic where we know the actual political backgrounds of those we're polling.

Otherwise we have to accept the noise.

Shift it down 20 points if it makes you feel better.

That was my exact point about self-identification.

so actually its higher than that! I know them....they are just stuck on that word.

Contrary to what everyone assumed, "unreliable" means exactly that. An unreliable number can be too high or too low or just right. You can't tell which.

thier own best interest...THEY are unreliable...not Liberals...sorry...

I have long since given up hope that you would understand my posts. I had still hoped, though, that you understood your own. Guess not.

Never was trying to disprove it or I would have gone it about this very differently.

What I said, and what is true, and what your posts and pwnmom's posts prove is that the statistic is meaningless and unreliable. Again, saying a statistic is meaningless or unreliable can mean it's too high, too low or just right.

And, yes you did. This is what you posted, word for word: "There are alot of people that are Liberal but do NOT self identify....

so actually its higher than that! I know them."

I did not see any methodology specified the first time that I followed Cali's link and now cannot get back to the poll results for some bizarre reason.

It doesn't go into things like the wording of the questions they asked or how they determined which Democrats were liberals and which Democrats weren't liberals. I do appreciate your coming up with the link, but the info doesn't really go to my point in Reply 1.

Thanks, though.

Oddly enough I can't find the exact wording even though it hasn't changed (for Gallup) since 1939. Sorry I'm not of use. But I can't imagine how one would answer the categories without self-identifying.

with the issue I raised.

But I can't imagine how one would answer the categories without self-identifying.

New Democrats think support for social issues alone makes them liberals, even if they look like Republicans on economic issues and foreign policy. Since people usually self-identify in these polls, it is doubtful that pollsters distinguish between the two.

I suspect your question is rhetorical.

I never asked for definitions of what the various kinds of Democrats are.

The word "liberal" is a relative term, and the whole country moved to the right in the decades after the break up of the Soviet Union.

The fact that 85% of self-described liberals support Obama is very significant, even if a significant minority of DUers is disappointed with him.

She just didn't realize it. Neither do you.

ETA: Please step up the quality of your posts, say by putting even a teensy bit of substance into them. I'm trying to be polite and respond when my post signal goes yellow, but, honestly, posts as vacuous and lame as the three of yours I've responded to on this thread are a waste of bandwidth, let alone time.

And, given your posts, I don't much care what you consider.

please refrain from using it...

little reason for me to care what you might consider posting to me.

You've yet to post anything to me of substance. Just one personal attack after another--and pretty lame ones at that. Carry on.

So, on that basis alone, there was more substance to my posts than anything you've posted to me.

Look, your posts to me were not interesting or amusing or enlightening to begin with. They've since devolved into repeating back to me what I just posted to you, much like a seven year old does when trying their seven year old best to be annoying. And that's when they're intelligible. By all means, carry on insulting me. Obviously, you need the practice. But I won't be responding again to you on this thread. It's too tedious for words, literally.

So, this is your big chance to post anything you want, confident that I will not respond, no matter what it is. Go for it. Sentences that can actually be read. Use the term "straw man" correctly or not at all. Maybe on another thread, we get finally get to content that matters.

Cheery bye, for now.

It's all explained over at the polling site.

Unless you saw something that the rest of us did not.

But thanks for the thought.

Whatever. You seem to have it all figured out to your own satisfaction, so that's all that matters.

Don't know why you found it necessary to respond that way.

When they poll you, they ask questions like "would you characterize yourself as:" followed by a set of choices.

Have you never been polled by Gallup?

As for why I responded as I did, I have read the entire thread. I'm merely responding in kind.

As for why I responded as I did, I have read the entire thread. I'm merely responding in kind.

Trying to parse it because they can't handle people actually supporting our President.

poll only because their butts are chafed over Obama. In the real world, everything is not about Obama. Both his admirers on this board and his critics on this board may have a hard time with that, but it's true.

For phone numbers to dial. Based on the makeup of the samples, they correct overall statistical inference of population by correcting for over sampling of one group or another.

Their sample size is large enough to be statistically significant at a 0.05 alpha (z critical).

I asked about this particular poll. Did you see a description of the methodology at the link? I did not see any, but I easily could have missed it.

I'm not sure why you'd believe any explanation they provided about methodology.

And I would believe Gallup's explanation about what methods Gallup used in a particular poll before I would believe what you pull out of your ears.

BTW, there is no polling "norm" for determining whether a respondent is a liberal Democrat or a centrist Democrat. There are lazy and pretty unreliable ways of doing it, like self-identification, and then there are more accurate ways that take more effort. It all depends on what information the pollster and the person who hired the pollster want.

Gallup tracks daily the percentage of Americans who approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Weekly results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 3,500 national adults; Margin of error is ±2 percentage points.

which method they used in this particular poll to determine whether the respondent was a liberal or a Democrat. Actually, I didn't even ask that initially. I stated that self-identification was not a reliable method.

Knock yourself out tilting at this particular windmill.

BTW, what windmill am I tilting at? I made a statement in Reply 1 that no one has even tried to disprove. And I've replied to several non-responsive posts from you and others that had nothing to do with much of anything. If you will excuse me, I am going to download the info Josh supplied. Hopefully, it's more sensible and informative than some of the posts on this thread.

Gallup, a leading and renowned polling organization, misodentifies categories of Democrats in their numbers and you, Internet nobody are going to get to the bottom of it.

In the context of these glowing numbers, it leads one to believe you are less than satisfied with these numbers and would like a recount.

Especially with that one.

yes that "methodology" makes perfect sense...

to self identify is the actual strawman.

Pretending has nothing to do with raising a straw man.

But, don't strain to figure out how they are different because I am not pretending.

Also, distrusting liberals to self identify had less than zero to do my post on this thread.

Carry on.

YOU offered this inane strawman that Obama cannot possibly be up in the polls...and you have tried at least two different tacts on how to disprove this poll. Both strawman attempts were epic fail.

Climate Change Deniers use....simply deny the number of scientists who support it and just pretend that there are alot of them that disagree with it!.

maybe the "only in your mind" is yours trying to tell you something...

Better luck next time.

better luck next time...

I think you project an awful lot....

That contained an actual fact.

Congrats, though. Third time was indeed a charm. You not only finally produced an intelligible sentence, you produced two and a solid, comprehensible phrase. No substance, no facts, not much point, but very readable. Good job.

SWOOSH right over your head!

Denial is not a river in Egypt. Don't feel bad....though....you really really tried.

You offer nothing but personal insults-and not very skillfully.

That's why swatting them back at you is too easy to really be fun.

And I could not possibly bend down low enough for your posts to go over my head, even if I were limbo champion.

Carry on.

which is used in polling since....oh I don't know....like FOREVER???

and to the rest of us...they obviously don't.

but you can pretend that I am the only one opposing you if you want....whatever gets you through the night.

Why would I?

Never said I represented anyone but myself and Lord knows I wouldn't want anyone to think I represented you or some of the others on this thread. To the contrary, I emphatically deny representing you and some of the others.


See, that's a straw man. Refuting an argument no one ever even tried to make. Carry on.

Please provide proof other than your "disbelief" that this poll proves what you think?


You cannot....because its based on just what YOU believe....you refuse to believe the point that they CAN self identify...and somehow because YOU cannot believe that....means that the whole poll is bunk!

I and several others have been trying to tell you that "self Identification" is and has always been used in these kinds of polls. Your disbelief in the validity of that proves NOTHING...

Your entire premise is Strawman!

have no idea what it means, even after I explained it and you provided three examples of it on this thread alone.

Please provide proof other than your "disbelief" that this poll proves what you think?

"self identify" will ya....

right?

too, SunSeeker~

With the House that voters like "merrily" helped to provide to him in 2010 that's obstructed him every chance they get, I believe he's doing a damned good job. Although he might've started out to the right of HRC in 2009, he's more than made up for that through his progressive policies and his dogged pursuit for equality for all Americans with every ounce of executive power allotted him in the U.S. Constitution. That takes courage, and I'm impressed.

And not including the link to the poll. (Many first posters would ask for a link.)

I actually debunked the idea that liberals would vote they support Obama because if they didn't it would indicate that they think Obama is too liberal, I also saw the opposite argument, that if they voted yes the poll would indicate he was liberal enough.

I can't find the debunking though, but it showed different polls and how it made no sense for people to be gaming the poll either way.

Which evidently you don't.

Son't forget that option. And who cares how DU pills considering this group in no way represents the views of Democrats across the board in the U.S. and any polls conducted here are unscientific?

As an afterthought I think I compared to exit polls, there's a lot there, but I can't be bothered to read dozens of threads trying to find it. I did try to find it in the LoZ threads, he posted only a dozen before he got booted (directly insulting Skinner no less, one of the few DUers who flamed out over the jury system).

It's not like this particular dead horse wasn't beaten into a sticky red mud puddle back then.

Some strive for the best possible methods, but it's never perfect. For example, if you recall, polls showed Obama most likely getting beaten by almost every Republican who had a shot of winning the primary.

You get closer if you aggregate the results of several reasonably decent polls, the way 537 does, the one Nate does--last name escaping me right now. Even then, you have to adjust for outliers.

For the record, I would never say that DUers in now way not represent the views of Democrats across the country. I would say they are different in that they tend to be better informed about politics than many people across the country, Democrat, Republican or indie. Other than that, none of our positions are unique.

scientific doesn't mean exactly representative of population mean and standard deviation. It means a statistically significant representation with very low probability of type 1 error.

has a very different standard for what constitutes scientific and what the standards are. One essential is that you be able to repeat the exercise and get the same result. Poll only me on different days and you might not get the same answer twice. Maybe even the same hour.

DU polls certainly are not scientific polls, even using the definition of scientific that you give. That does not mean that they in no way represent the views of Democrats across the nation. In some way, to some degree, every vote in a DU poll represents the views of Democrats across the nation.

Give me a break.

Also, I'm not going to spend too much time trying to prove something to someone so regularly insulting.

It's not that self-identifying liberals are like DU's liberals. Given the political landscape "self-identifying liberals" probably are in the middle of the DW-NOMINATE left wing spectrum or even right of it: http://voteview.com/

It would be interesting to compare the DW-NOMINATE votes (the objective votes in contrast to each party) and then link the votes to the liberal scorecard at That's my Congress: http://thatsmycongress.com/index.php/legislative-scorecards/

We'd then have a graphical representation of where the votes are on the spectrum that is related to DU or other progressives.

You can check my transparency page if you wish, it's been quite some times since I've had a post hidden, well over a year I believe.

I just know I felt attacked at that moment, but I am certain I saw the "liberals vote they support Obama because it would mean that if they didn't then liberals think Obama is too liberal" crap before. It was just silly. If anything you should substantiate that "everyone on DU other than the right wing trolls would *if* *polled* say they support Obama because if they say they don't they know it will be taken that they think Obama is too "liberal"." Liberals voting yes just in case Obama is viewed as too liberal if they vote no? What the fuck?

The poll question don't even appear to ask whether Obama is too liberal, they just ask if you approve, disapprove, or are neutral. Then they ask the demographics of the participant (gender, race, income, party identification, political spectrum, etc).

Fact is most Americans probably do self-identify as liberals, even if from some region to the next it is not a pure definition and a southern liberal (maybe pro-gun, "anti-abortion" personally but pro-choice for women) might not represent a north eastern liberal, they wouldn't self-identify as conservative!

Indeed I have praised you before, said you were more intelligent and better informed than I am (although to be entirely fair that was a while back).

What I am saying is that a large majority of *DUers* would indicate they "support Obama" if they were polled precisely because they would assume that it would be taken by the pollsters that non-support indicates Obama is "too far left".

The meme in the OP was used by LoZoccolo to bash DUers who are perceived as insufficiently worshipful of Obama and the OP is back to beating that same poor dead horse.

I'd bet that "most Americans" self identify as "conservative" rather than "liberal" even if they hold far more "liberal" ideas than "conservative ones" simply because the demonization of "liberal" by the Republicans has been going on since at least Newt Gingrich was carrying on an affair with an aide while Clinton was being impeached for his sexual dalliance.

pushing the idea that center-right Democrats are "liberal"?

Obama is way more popular with Democrats and even liberal Democrats than he is on DU. Not a problem. Just a fact.

Probably at least as "popular" as he is in the poll quoted in the OP.