... irrationality. They need rose colored sunglasses to face life. Because it grows bleaker every day for them.

Oh, their fourth argument is that only Silver is confidently is predicting an O win. Actually, there's probably a dozen social scientists/statisticians doing the same thing and getting roughly similar results.

My MIL is a Fox junkie and really has no mind or reasoning of her own. A perfect minion that can be lead and thoughts influenced so incredibly easily. She told my husband on a phone call this morning that Scumney is going to win in a landslide and if Obama wins it will be just barely a win.

My husband works with a tea bagger Rush junkie. He is very happy going into the last days of the campaign, certain scumney will be winning.

I guess if they are only spoon fed propaganda and facts are to be discarded unless they favor them, then I suppose they truly believe this and are happy and optimistic

Oh, their fifth argument is that because Obama isn't doing well among independents he can't win. Well, he's winning in the polls where they got that information from and that is already factored in. Also, a lot of those independents are Tea Baggers who don't consider themselves Republicans. I also see some movement in the polls among independents toward Obama. I suspect that's a function of more latent Republicans masquerading as independents now declaring themselves Republicans. That's why there's not an even bigger shift to Obama in some of the polls. The same people voting against him are still voting against him except a lot of them are calling themselves Republicans and not independents.

It's so difficult to reach the same people that polling did 20 - 30 years ago, the ones nowadays find people I don't believe accurately represent the electorate.

I'm not swayed by them at all, just as I'm not swayed to buy products advertised on television or radio. I buy what I need and I vote regardless.

Res ipsa loquitar:

I stand by my position. I've know several people who haven't been polled even once this election cycle, myself included. If I had, I would have said Obama/Dems, as would these other people. Who are the pollsters polling. Not us! And we vote.

Polls are indicators and they're junk.

on a Web page of an unspecified date. When was this done? Is this a job to show how accurate polling is to corroborate your assertion? Why doesn't the poll averages include polls like WaPo, ABC, CBS, etc. Anybody with any deductive thought will see right through this as a straw man.

Polls are junk. You're just proving my point. Just agree to disagree already. I appreciate your taking the time to prove me wrong, but I have better things to do with my time than wasting it on a pointless subject.

You've proved you are right. I'm undeterred.

"Why doesn't the poll averages include polls like WaPo, ABC, CBS, etc. Anybody with any deductive thought will see right through this as a straw man. "


Because WaPo, ABC, CBS, etc didn't poll the state of North Carolina


If you check the link it contains every published poll for the state from 2/26/08 -11/3/08

"Because WaPo, ABC, CBS, etc didn't poll the state of North Carolina"

And you provide me with a link that shows that they did.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/national.html

Dude. I've had enough. I'm undeterred. This is a straw man. This page link proves it. +7 +8. +9. Just because RCP throws together a bunch of them and you base your opinion on that, only proves they are crafty at what they do and that you think you can follow their lead. Heck, I'm fairly crafty at spreadsheets and graphs too. I could do this same bit of work without much effort.

Election 2008 National Head-to-Head Polls
Marist 11/03 - 11/03 804 LV 4.0 52 43 Obama +9
Battleground (Lake)* 11/02 - 11/03 800 LV 3.5 52 47 Obama +5
Battleground (Tarrance)* 11/02 - 11/03 800 LV 3.5 50 48 Obama +2
Rasmussen Reports 11/01 - 11/03 3000 LV 2.0 52 46 Obama +6
Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby 11/01 - 11/03 1201 LV 2.9 54 43 Obama +11
IBD/TIPP 11/01 - 11/03 981 LV 3.2 52 44 Obama +8
FOX News 11/01 - 11/02 971 LV 3.0 50 43 Obama +7
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 11/01 - 11/02 1011 LV 3.1 51 43 Obama +8
Gallup 10/31 - 11/02 2472 LV 2.0 55 44 Obama +11
Diageo/Hotline 10/31 - 11/02 887 LV 3.3 50 45 Obama +5
CBS News 10/31 - 11/02 714 LV -- 51 42 Obama +9
ABC News/Wash Post 10/30 - 11/02 2470 LV 2.5 53 44 Obama +9
Ipsos/McClatchy 10/30 - 11/02 760 LV 3.6 53 46 Obama +7
CNN/Opinion Research 10/30 - 11/01 714 LV 3.5 53 46 Obama +7
Pew Research 10/29 - 11/01 2587 LV 2.0 52 46 Obama +6

You win. I give up. I'm undeterred.

Who am I going to believe?

Some random man or woman on the internet or social scientists and statisticians who have submitted their methodology to peer review?


"If I can see further than other men it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.", ergo:

why can't you just quit? I'm not after you, but you certainly are taking this personal. Relax already.

You will not convince me. I'm quite confident in my ability to do math and I know how easy it is to manipulate data to show something that looks convincing, when in fact, when you dig into it, it's BS.

Can you just let it go? Please, I beg you, let it go already. You win. I'm undeterred.

If it was BS why didn't his peers call BS.

Show your debater this article & see if that debater says the same.

History says be skeptical of presidential polls

Excerpts

I already said you are right twice now. That's a compliment. Let me say that again. That's a compliment. And I'll say my title again. I don't take challenges personal.

However, the RCP compilation is a straw man and it proves the point that taken individually, the polling was mostly garbage and I'll bet there were a ton more taken in 2008 by less reputable pollsters that showed NC even farther from the mean than this neatly packaged list.

You win. I give up. I'm undeterred.

It's so difficult to reach the same people that polling did 20 - 30 years ago, the ones nowadays find people I don't believe accurately represent the electorate.

But the Law Of Large Numbers suggests that by averaging all the polls you can come up with a rough approximation of the universe you are attempting to measure. And by rough I mean a reasonable degree of accuracy...Something much lower than five to ten percent which render a poll useless...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers


We are discussing math. Nothing more...Nothing less...


And there might come a point where traditional polling is overwhelmed by response rate problems and polling is demonstrated to be inaccurate. We aren't at that point yet. Since you made that point at the beginning of our tet a tet it's incumbent upon you to prove it.

I'll wait for the proof.