If you have been following the polls, you know that McCain and Obama have been trading the top spot off and on for some time (the reality is that they have always been within the standard margin of error, so in reality they were tied). Today in at least one poll Obama seems to have moved ahead of McCain, climbing outside the margin for error. I have a theory about this.

We basically have a dead heat between the two candidates. I think the reason Obama is up this week is because the economy is tanking. Democrats, who are not the incumbent party, will always tend to do better in this scenario. Conversely, I believe that McCain was doing well a few weeks ago because we had some serious foreign policy concerns a la Russia/Georgia (and Republicans always do better in this scenario).

So my theory is that this election is going to be decided by whatever current events are occurring just before the election. My rationale is that the country is split and it really comes down to the undecided states, and that most undecideds are going to swing in the direction of the party that usually gets the bump from whatever happens to be occurring in the world at that time.

Thoughts?

You make perfect sense. Well done.

I agree that Obama is getting some traction out of the financial mess.

I would disagree that the lead has been being traded back and forth.

With specific polls, there has been some trading, but in the average, Obama has had a steadily growing lead for the past 10 days to more.

If you look at the average polls, they haven't been trading back and forth. Obama has had a steadily increasing lead for the past 10 days.

He was up 2 points before the banks started failing which correspond to other polls falling numbers for Palin. Once the Palin bubble started to deflate, Obama went right about back to where he was before both conventions.

This past point and a half has been in reaction to the economy.

Yes, and there's a reason that McCain made a dramatic "exit" from the campaign trail - effectively taking a "time out" (he even has the talking points to prove it) and skipping the debate - in order to fly back to D.C. to "save" the economy, and it ain't to save the economy.

As one rep put it yesterday: "This is the biggest Hail Mary in the history of football or Marys."

If he thinks the American public is so dense as to not see through that stunt, then he and his handlers are truly, truly misreading the public.

Of course, now that Bush the Fearmongerer has addressed his public talking about a "disaster" and "panic" and a "depression," then of course he is setting the cards right up.

What McCain and Obama specifically can lend to the process that is already in place is beyond me.

Did you happen to catch Lettermans show last night? It was great.

This is definitely one of the most unique campaigns in years. This morning McCain wants the VP debate pushed back and the first Prez debate to be held on the day the VP debate is scheduled.

So the good side to this. McCain is seen as putting politics behind him and taking on a national urgency.

The bad. McCain is seen playing politics with the economy and taking advantage of the situation. Not to mention employing the same fear politics Bush/Cheney has used.

So which way will it break? No idea. McCain had to do something though. Like previously mentioned, the Palin and Convention bump are gone. On RealClear, he is not behind in every poll except one - which hasn't updated this week. Obama shows a 6 pt lead in the FOX News Poll and 9 points in the ABC poll. He has to do something.

I noticed that the liberals on this forum seem to have a real high regards for polls. So, I thought you'd be interested in seeing the latest gallup poll from today.

September 25, 2008

Gallup: McCain 46%, Obama 46%

Interesting that this poll hasn't been posted yet...well, not really.

Gallup Daily: Election 2008

Obama/McCain...they're both the same...

Dump trillions of worthless loans on the taxpayers.

Great idea to pull us out of a slumping economy. Ron Paul seems to think these assets have to be liquidated at the going market price. Not buying all these overpriced loans and dumping them on us taxpayers.

Makes sense to me.

One year of a bad economy if we let the market run its course. Or a decade of economic woes if we prop up these worthless loans.

NPR did a story on how Japan did something very similar to this and their recession lasted a decade.

Disgusting.

And the more money the treasury prints out of thin air, the more worthless our dollar becomes.

__________________
ProjectOKC.com

One poll don't tell the story although if you wanted to tell a more intersting story, the Fox News Poll that has Obama +6 is far more interesting.

The RCP average, get's you closer to "objective" and in that Obama continues to rise:

RCP Average 09/18 - 09/24 -- 47.8 44.6 Obama +3.2

Gallup Tracking 09/22 - 09/24 2731 RV 46 46 Tie
Rasmussen Tracking 09/22 - 09/24 3000 LV 49 46 Obama +3
Hotline/FD Tracking 09/22 - 09/24 912 RV 47 43 Obama +4
Battleground Tracking 09/18 - 09/24 1000 LV 47 48 McCain +1
FOX News 09/22 - 09/23 900 RV 45 39 Obama +6
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 09/19 - 09/22 1085 RV 48 46 Obama +2
ABC News/Wash Post 09/19 - 09/22 780 LV 52 43 Obama +9
LA Times/Bloomberg 09/19 - 09/22 838 LV 49 45 Obama +4
Ipsos-McClatchy 09/18 - 09/22 923 RV 44 43 Obama +1
CNN/Opinion Research 09/19 - 09/21 697 LV 51 47 Obama +4

You all realize these polls mean all but nothing, right?

They mean about as much as the 2004 exit polls.

I wouldn't say polls mean nothing and I doubt any evidence can be given to show that.

Can anybody produce anything other than the opinions of a few "pundits" that backs this assertion?

Everybody else in politics tends to put a fair bit of stock in them.

Given the herd mentality, people who are undecided/uninformed tend to go with the winning team and the polls definately influence those voters toward the end of the campaign.

Polls will over-represent certain segments. For example, they favor people with listed land line phone numbers who have had those numbers for a long time.

They tend to under-represent younger people who are more likely to not have had a land line at all, let along one for a long enough period to make it into a pollster's sampling.

Some polls are more partisan than others.

However, it you take all the available polls--like Realclearpolitics.com does and keep a running average, then you have something fairly close to public opinion.

For example, I wouldn't doubt for a second that Oklahoma favors McCain by 24 points, would you?

I will never understand why polls are so popular in the media. Polls are not free of bias. Pollster's can be instructed of choose to pick certain profiles of people from the crowd. A poll can also be biased by the location you conduct the poll. For instance if I was to perfom a poll on welfare and I wanted the numbers to be pro welfare. All I have to do is make a point to go to a low income area and poll every single parent and visit every grocery store that accepted food stamps.

Oneforone,
I wouldn't claim all polls are infallible or bias-free. This is why I like the RCP average which tends to be more realiable than very many of the polls individually.

You might want to look into the published polling metholdology used by various pollsters before you make such blanket statements.

All legitimate pollsters publish information on thier methodology which is how they build thier credibility. Another way is their record of reflecting what actually happens on election day.

Polls are popular because they are the only way there is of knowing which horse is winning at any given moment.

I just think it is wrong for any person to take stock in a poll, because anything can happen between now and November that could kill or shore up the election for any candidate.

Take a statistics class sometime. Polls can be manipulated.

Not only can the stats be manipulated, but the questions themselves can be written in such a way so as to lead the respondent into answering in a particular way.

Some are way obvious. Others much less so.

When I was registered with a particular party, I used to get calls all the time. The questions were so leading, I cracked up every time. I'd call em out on it, but sadly, the person on the other end of the line was just paid to ask questions, and probably had no clue how the "poll" was put together.

I do put more stock in Gallup and similar reputable polling firms, and much less so in these media polls or "straw" polls put together by random online groups who lend no scientific validity to their polling whatsoever.

Jeeze, who ever said statistics can't be manipulated or polls are infallible?

Just for the record, I have had statistics courses, I understand the difference between push polls and scientific ones, I've got a fair understanding of statistical modeling--I worked for a statistitian a few years ago and at the time had a fair understanding of SAS, and also understand that if you actually read posts before you comment on them, you might make more cogent comments on them.

Again, for the record, I'll stipulate, just to end this silly discussion, all polls are crap and nobody knows anything about anything.

Oh yeah totally agree. It's amazing the bias a single word can introduce. Asking someone about the economy vs. the "failing" economy for example.

And if I'm right Japan's stock market hasn't set an all time high for better than a decade.

Who cares, we should all just move to Costa Rica anyway.

I am fascinated with message boards. I love how when someone gets accused of not knowing about a particular subject, they always respond with an affirmation of actually being an expert in the field. Maybe you are. If so, I apologize. But that is neither here nor there.

My point is not to treat the polls as the inerrant gospel truth. It was not a diss directed at you. You know as well as I do that polls should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, as well as a little research on the pollsters.

Fair enough. I'm not an expert nor a statistician. I don't think I presented myself as such.

Also, I've purposely prefaced each of my comments about polls with statements about thier fallibility.

You appeared to respond as though I have no understanding of the subject with your statement: "if you took a course about statistics."

Speaking of things that mean nothing:

Obama is up in the RCP average--an average of scientific polls not push polls--a whole point since yesterday. He's exceeded the margin of error for some of the polls. I have not tried to calculate what the aggregate error would be.

This is listed only as a measure of an sampling of a certain cross section of the voting public, not as an authoritative statement about anything.

RCP Average 09/21 - 09/25 -- 47.9 43.7 Obama +4.2

Gallup Tracking 09/23 - 09/25 2736 RV 48 45 Obama +3
Rasmussen Tracking 09/23 - 09/25 3000 LV 50 45 Obama +5
Hotline/FD Tracking 09/23 - 09/25 912 RV 49 42 Obama +7
GW/Battleground Tracking 09/21 - 09/25 1000 LV 46 48 McCain +2
CBS News/NY Times 09/21 - 09/24 LV 48 43 Obama +5
FOX News 09/22 - 09/23 900 RV 45 39 Obama +6
Marist 09/22 - 09/23 689 LV 49 44 Obama +5

Polls are nevertheless fun to watch. It will be interesting to see where McCain will be in the polls next week after getting the debate and his political stunt in DC under his belt. Will he be able to recover or not after all that?

I like reading how people respond to polls. If their candidate is ahead then
the polls are accurate. But, if their candidate is behind then suddenly the polls
aren't reliable or they're only interesting.

The reviewer always has a never before revealed answer for the reaction to the polls.

I remember that Bush 43 was always trailing in 2000 and 2004.