Majority of Americans Support US Military Strike Against Iran! Let's get ready to RUUUMMBLE!

Scary, huh? Believable? Sure.

The latest Gallup poll, taken the first week in November, finds 18% of Americans favor military action against Iran to get them to shut down its nuclear program. However, the latest Zogby poll taken less than a week earlier, reveals that Gallup has severely underestimated America's resolve for another war in the Middle East. A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

Which do you believe, Gallup or Zogby? Given the very low popularity of our current debacle in that region, our depleted military, our disgraced President, and the results of exit polling in the 2006 mid-term elections, I'd bet on Gallup having this one right. But, of course, Zogby is the preferred polling outfit for a lot of folks on DU.

Taegan D. Goddard, creator of the non-partisan Political Wire blog and author of YOU WON - NOW WHAT? How Americans Can Make Democracy Work From City Hall to the White House, is cautioning readers about the Zogby polls.

"the survey uses Zogby's controversial 'interactive' methodology and is not based on traditional telephone polling." He points to a new Gallup poll that again contradicts Zogby, this one showing Hillary Clinton beating all Republicans in general election match ups, not losing to them all as Zogby is suggesting.

In September, 2006, the Columbia Journalism Review featured an article about Zogby's polls. Taking information from Zogby's website, the article revealed those interactive polls tap a self-selected group of respondents who sign up for surveys online and then respond to specific questions via email.

Cliff Zukin, a political science professor and polling expert at Rutgers University, suggests that journalists should generally be wary of any Zogby interactive poll.

“The Zogby stuff, on scientific grounds, is quite questionable,” says Zukin. “Online, Internet, opt-in polling, where people volunteer to be respondents, doesn’t really have a basis in scientific validity. There are two kinds of samples in the world. There are probability samples, and there are non-probability samples.”

The Zogby interactive polls, says Zukin, clearly fall into the latter camp. “With probability samples, when everybody has a known chance of being selected, you can make pretty valid inferences about the population from which it is drawn,” says Zukin. “You can’t do that at all with self-selected surveys. That’s a problem.”

“It’s certainly not the gold standard,” says Zukin.

Political journalist Paul Burka of the Texas Monthly also finds issues with Zogby's methodology. “The poll’s Web site describes the process as ‘interactive’ — that is, it’s an Internet poll, based on a database of individuals who have signed up to participate. It is not a random sample; the polling organization solicits responses by e-mail. In addition, the poll takers make about 20 to 50 phone calls in the state where a race is taking place. The poll does not mention a screen for likely voters.”

“As I have written repeatedly, the poll that I think is the least credible is Zogby...” adds Burka. “I can’t believe the (Wall Street) Journal allows its name to be attached to this so-called poll.”

Exactly WHO sponsored the latest Zogby poll?

A few months back Zogby published a poll sponsored by the right wing rag NewsMax showing Hillary Clinton leading in Iowa beyond the margin of error. Many of DU discounted this poll because it was sponsored by Newsmax. The more valid argument against it was several other polls out in the same time period showed Clinton second or third, including one from Strategic Vision.

Now I freely admit I probably defended that Zogby poll. Clinton is my candidate and any good news is usually gospel to me. But having read more on Zogby's methodology, how his polls are often at odds with other polls in the same time period, and, yes, how they often favor conservatives, I've rethought my position on any poll that has results significantly different than other polls taken in the same time period.

However, the current Zogby poll is unique in that it doesn't reveal the sponsor. Political Aritmetik in their ridiculously meticulous analysis of this Zogby poll, says it was reported by Reuters' John Whitesides, who also reports on the Reuters sponsored polling Zogby does by conventional telephone methods... apparently these results are not part of the Reuters-Zogby polling partnership, but are independent work by Zogby Interactive. Likewise Zogby's website posts the results without mention of who sponsored the work, so presumably Reuters did not.

Remember - Zogby Poll: 52% Support US Military Strike Against Iran.

Who ya gonna believe?

Analyze...

You say you are lying, but if everything you say is a lie, then you are telling the truth, but you cannot tell the truth because you always lie... illogical! Illogical! Please explain! You are human; only humans can explain! Illogical!

Logic is wreath of pretty flowers that smell bad.

Everyone on DU go out their door, random poll some people on the street and come back here with their results to compare against Zogby and Gallup.

A couple years ago, I registered at the Zogby site and participated in a couple Zogby polls. The polls try to elicit the ideology and psychological profile of respondents, but could be spoofed. After the election, I've felt less motivated about electoral politics in general, and no longer respond to their e-mails. I selected in and out.

If I were committed to a particular candidate (I'm not really enthusiastic about any of the current crop), or was part of a disciplined movement that was pushing a particular foreign policy agenda, I would have continued to devote time to participate in Zogby's polling group. I believe the latter explains the skewed Iran poll results.

As a general rule, I wouldn't put a lot of credence in on-line polls.

A poll we wrote about yesterday -- Zogby Interactive's online survey of 9,150 "likely voters," has gotten some attention today from Drudge and other sites with similar political leanings. The angle -- that the survey reportedly shows Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton trailing the Republican contenders in head-to-head matchups -- has caught the sites' eyes.

We noted that the methodology raises some concerns among polling experts, because the pool of respondents came from folks who signed up online to be included in Zogby's interactive surveys. That raises questions about how random and truly representative the survey group is.

Gallup has some new head-to-head matchup results from its latest national survey -- which in theory avoids the problem of a "self-selected" pool because respondents are called at random. Gallup's numbers show Clinton's lead either unchanged or slightly wider against four of the GOP's top contenders (Rudy Giuliani, Sen. John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson). Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is tied with Giuliani in Gallup's latest survey. Obama has a slight advantage over McCain. He has wide leads over Romney and Thompson.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/11/more-about-poll.html

Fact Check: Polls Show Hillary Beating All Republicans

There were two polls yesterday that pitted Hillary versus her potential Republican challengers. One was an online poll by Zogby that found Hillary trailing Republicans, the other was a poll from Gallup that found Hillary beating all Republicans by substantial margins.

Which do you think got more coverage?

As of about 9AM, the Zogby poll was covered on TV news 15 times and the Gallup poll was mentioned twice – by the Hillary campaign's Mark Penn and Ann Lewis.

The Gallup poll showed that if Hillary was the nominee she would beat Giuliani by five points but if Sen. Obama was the nominee the race would be tied. Gallup also showed Hillary beating John McCain (by 6 points), Mitt Romney (by 16 points) and Fred Thompson (by 13 points). Hillary also leads all Republican contenders in Real Clear Politics' poll average.

http://facts.hillaryhub.com/archive/?id=4383

mean absolutely nothing. The pollsters slant their questioning to the group they are polling for. I saw one post that said take you own poll and that is the thing to do. I did that and the results were nothing like what you read in the regime gazette.
85% of the people I asked want nothing to do with invading Iran. (I asked 40 people). The same thing can be said of Iraq.

These polls are taking so these stupid talking heads can have something to yammer about instead of reporting real news.

I believe that 18 percent want to go to war to SHUT DOWN a nuclear PROGRAM and that 52 percent want to prevent them from developing a nuclear WEAPON.

Notice the difference in wording.

(or should be):

Gallop: re. (Iran's declared) Civilian Nuclear Energy Program;

Zogby: re. (a still purely hypothetical, as far as we know) Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program

However, the media spin is working, it seems: Many people in the US, apparently, can't tell or don't care about the difference.