CNN's poll this week shows Clinton's lead growing over the field again. That's pretty surprising, given that her opponents are finally getting a little air time and the claim of the DNC "rigging" the debate schedule to favor Clinton is widely out there among democrats. Wonder what has changed? Let's look. Here is the poll document from CNN: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/09/20/dempoll.pdf The methodology is provided on page page 5: Huh, That's weird. I am sure it was only a tiny number of groups not included then... Oh, it's everyone less than 50 years of age (pg 7)? You mean the demographic that has been the majority of the democratic electorate the past 2 elections? The group in which Sanders is killing it with, and Clinton is barely a blip on their radar? When your poll of hundreds of people is so overwhelmingly slanted to one age demographic in an election where candidate support is strongly divided on generational lines, your poll isn't very useful. Judging from state level polls, Clinton's lead is continuing to evaporate yet nationally it is expanding? C'mon. Sweet poll, CNN. It's worthless, and you know it.
and...you've just nailed why all of the polling is garbage. Pollsters on both sides are simply hired guns for the parties / candidates.
I never bothered to delve into the their guts before, but these kind of samples are not representative of the electorate. It looks like they just phone people up at noon about 1,000 times with no thought as to who is home at noon or answering their damn calls.
It only a takes a little tweak to the methodology to get almost any outcome they're after and then some statistical explanation to come down to margin of error. Voila, Americans love what we're selling, regardless of what it is. It's mass appeal marketing to people wanting to feel like they're thinking like the vast majority. It's the trick of timeshare sales. Make other people feel like everyone else is buying.
I remember a paper that came out in 2003 that suggested polling during a general election might cause as much of as a 5 % swing in the results due to encouraging "bandwagon" support as well as discouraging some people from coming out and voting. Given that the last few elections have been so tight... It makes you wonder if we should have any live polling at all on election day. Not that you could suppress that information nowadays.
it's why they spend fortunes on pollsters and polling in general. It's pathetic. Winning an election is about telegenics, marketing and manipulation. It no longer has anything to do with issues, stances and candidate fitness.
I really believe it did, but the difference in the quality of the human was better, so maybe I'm biased. It hasn't always been showmanship. Obama's election was almost purely showmanship and obfuscation. Legit question. Even Jefferson was, at times, about the impression he gave rather than the issue.
Jefferson was a really interesting guy. Did a great job of running the countries finances, but was a wreck personally with his. I don't know if the quality of the person has improved, because in a lot of social aspects we've made huge strides of granting more liberty. The biggest drive is economic issues, which come from more and more people trying to live at the expense of the government.
