Erick, I agree completely. Do you talk to the top people in the Romney campaign? Are they receptive to the idea that they really need to change direction, or do they live in a bubble?

I think it’s a tight race and that it doesn’t matter what the polls currently show because there haven’t been any debates yet. BTW, If we think pollsters are concerned with their reputations, then why don’t we think the same about so-called journalists? Call me cynical and paranoid, but I think a lot of this is warped to make Obama continue to look good. And I can only hope Stanley Kurtz is right-it is past time to get off this ridiculous “Obama is a likeable good guy, he’s just in over his head”. To me the guy’s never been likeable–he comes off as arrogant and self centered and who has dangerously radical ideas about the direction of this country.

5555 mbecker. I would add I do also hope Stanley Kurtz is right.

All the nonsense about Fox News Syndrome and red state syndrome aside, I agree with you about working harder and GOTV efforts. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t pay that much attention to outside sources of information any more except in a “well, that’s interesting” sort of way.

On November 6th, it will all come down to “we the people”. I’m more focused on that now than on anything else.

There are two polls in WI that show Obama up by 12 and 14. If he were up by even close to that, he wouldn’t need to campaign there like he did this week.

I agree with Erick that Mitt is probably down 3 or so right now. This is a very tight race that could go either way. The only lead that matters is on election day. So they need to be direct with the message and attack the lies and show where Mitt will take the country. They need to be very direct and by pass the media and take the story to the people.

Agree with the reference to the media. The Wash Po, NY Times, La Times, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC are almost all complete partisan hacks. They have an agenda and it is very clear. Just look at the non coverage of Libya, EPA reg’s, Fast and Furious, etc. They are an in kind contribution to the obama campaign.

So I guess you believed the polls during the Carter/Reagan 1980 election???

The media is in the tank for Obama and they are skewing the polls.

Why is Obama wasting his time in Ohio and Iowa if he has it wrapped up?

Of course Romney could always step it up a notch…..

ROFL, Mike. I’m on the flip-side of that scenario. Have someone try to tell me that we’re going to lose, that it is hopeless, and that I shouldn’t even try or take the time to vote…it sets up my back, makes me that much more determined to follow through anyway, regardless of what other people say or think about it.

I hate predetermined outcomes of failure! Despise it through and through.

OK, now I’m having a “WTF” moment.

Unfortunately Disqus doesn’t allow posting images, so I’m uploading a screen shot of your tweet of about one hour ago. It likely won’t be legible in the little thumbnail, but here’s the tweet text:

Erick Erickson ‏@EWErickson
Here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure the Romney team knows they are losing and I’m pretty sure they know they don’t know what to do about it.

Honestly, with supporters like these…

And while, as you noted the other day, “you run the place”, it’s appearing more like your reality is an altered state.

Gallup shows a sudden jump to a 6-point Obama lead. If Rasmussen shows similar movement in the next few days, we’ll know what’s going on.

Let this Southerner explain his red state syndrome: Its actually a superiority complex! But I am tolerant of those suffering from non-Southern red state syndrome.

that is malarkey.

You can’t know that the polls were correct and Reagan pulled ahead. It is impossible to know that. You can say the polls showed Carter was ahead… if they did show that, I don’t have time to look it up right now… but that doesn’t speak to them being either right or wrong at the time. Likewise the explanation for how the polls were right with Carter ahead and how Reagan actually beat him like a rented mule are more an defense mechanism that an explanation.

I’ll never forget the news report on (I think) NBC news the day of the election. There was a demonstration by the usual crazy Iranians outside the former US embassy and the final words of the reporter were “They shouted ‘Death to America! Death to Carter! Death to Reagan!’ I remember thinking, hell, even the Iranians are ready to move on to a new president!

I can guarantee you that the Romney campaign has access to far better polling than any polling organization that’s posting public polls.

The fact they are NOT changing course simply tells me that Erick is wrong, and that the public polls are horrible this time around.

The fact that Obama has (if you pay attention) essentially given up on being re-elected (could he possibly make any more mistakes than he has the past couple of weeks) tells me that his campaign knows it is toast as well.

Turnout will favor Republicans. The GOP built a ground game after 2008 that was effective (but not overwhelmingly) in 2010, but was *incredibly* effective a few months ago in Scott Walker’s recall election (he got more votes than when we was first elected!)

Believe me, Obama is not winning Ohio, nor is he winning Florida, and without either, he ain’t winning.

www.unskewedpolls.com

good catch. Thanks.

We can debate here whether the polls are accurate and whether they are predictive of the final result. However, one thing that I’ve seen almost universal agreement on…these polls are likely to tighten as the election grows closer….which happens in most elections. We are after all still 41 days out.

if this cycle goes like most of the rest, imagine the media panic when the “done deal” isn’t such a “done deal” as the election nears!

I mostly agree Mbecker, but that aside, what really torques me is the absence of RS grass roots mission. There are ZERO FP diaries on WHAT to do about this? 40 days to go and NOTHING about GOTV. NOTHING on how concerned voters can get out to make a difference. All I hear is sour grapes like EE has been passed over by a campaign advisor spot.

Wake up EE and get the RS grass roots mission going for the last 40 days. Many people need to be educated on what to do. This is the perfect platform to do it.

We can argue about polling all day, but WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT, is the most important at this juncture.

Maybe not, but they both are nasty divisive organizations who glorify in the name of politics the worst human traits imaginable in pitting one party agaist the other for ratings…facts be damned. They fan the flames of discord and we all suffer from it.

What the polls say right now (and whether or not they’re even accurate) is totally irrelevant… the election at this point will be decided by the debates, and in my opinion debating is essentially the one thing politically that Romney has shown strong capability for potentially being good at. When everyone thought Newt was going to beat him in Florida he wound up killing him in the debate, and he’s apparently been prepping pretty hardcore for the debates vs. Obama for the last TWO MONTHS. If he blows Obama out of the water in the first debate, the +8 for Obama in the polls will disappear and all the idiots in the MSM who had spent the past month writing his obituary will be exposed for being the total fools they are.

If the election were held tomorrow, Romney would lose. Because he would lose Ohio.

But the election isn’t being held tomorrow. There is still time in a race as close as this.

Mitt’s made more mistakes than saying Libya was over some stupid video no one saw or cared about and denying on Univision that Al Quada was involved. Mitt’s made more mistakes than telling world leaders to go hang at the UN? Mitt’s made more mistakes than to abdicate any leadership on the fiscal cliff which Citibank says conservatively will increase unemployment to around 10? You Democrats really have no decency or competence. Seriously answer this before you are banned: on what basis are you guys asking to be rehired?

And what’s absolutely true is that you’re an ignorant fool. Go someplace and learn how to process information.

Why would I be banned? Because I actually SPOKE THE TRUTH?! Holy Cow. No wonder your party is becoming obsolete. How sad. In any case, insult my IQ as much as you like. When PRESIDENT OBAMA wins the popular vote and, more importantly, the Electoral College (by a HUGE margin), come talk to me! And, please study your little fantasy map some more and look into that magic 8 ball to show you how the h*** you think Mitt gets to 270?!!

Troll.

this is trolling. The sentence is death by cheech.

The reality of the situation is that focussing on the MESSAGE and WHY Obama must be fired is more productive then anxiety over polls. If it’s not ‘actionable intel’ at this point for anyone outside the campaign; its just fluff. Romney should be running like he’s 5 points behind even if he WAS ahead, so for activists, the polls are a distraction.

If Obama wins, what do we get? More government spending until we go bankrupt, more taxes that will hurt our economy and destroy jobs, recklessness,
overspending, more of the same economic misery, and more dysfunction and
corruption in Washington DC.

Obama’s record is horrendous: Household income down 8.2 percent since Obama took office, 8%
unemployment and $6 trillion in added debt. We had
billions in Stimulus money he spent that went to Chinese wind turbine
companies and other overseas firms. Obama has nothing new since 2008
except broken promises, excuses, blaming others, and more of the same.

We need to be making the case to people we know: Do we want 4 more years of that?

polls are biased but they always have been biased. I recall getting ‘fooled’ in 2002 by a scary Cornyn-vs-Kirk poll … Kirk within 3 pts! in Texas! and he gets a 60 minutes butt-kissing profile. Ooops! Cornyn wins by double digits 3 days later, poll had an 8 pt D bias. 6 weeks out is plenty of time for mischief and pollaganda. That said – good polls are good news and bad polls are bad news. If the polls says we are down 10 pts, it might be biased but we are still down … so just work harder to make it wrong on election day!

“the actual Conservatives are going to vote for anyone that removes Obama from office!”

I AGREE 100%.

Anyone not voting Romney should just hand in their VRWC badge and their conservative papers and get lost. They are not conservatives and not friends of conservatives. And its valid even knowing that Romney is a moderate technocrat. Because a moderate fiscally responsible pro-growth GOPers who will repeal Obamacare like Romney beats the leftwing ideologue Barack Obama who is for redistribution and embedding Obamacare permanently.

“I’m only concerned about the activist side of it right now, i.e. talking
to people I come into contact with, finding out what kinds of issues
they are concerned about, and trying to encourage them to vote on
November 6th. As far as I’m concerned, this is just as important as the
political strategy.”

I agree. that is 100% useful.
And campaign-insider-banter-and-monday-morning-QBing is close to 0% useful right now.

EE’s tweet that becker shared is …. Noonanesque!

Yes, it could be a massive conspiracy.

OR, Undecided voters could be break in the last few weeks of the election.

There is no easy way to prove it one way or another.

I will tell you this. Wikipedia tracks the polling of daily national polls. Here is is 2008:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2008

Here is 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2012

If you look at 2012, just like 2008, it’s all Blue (Obama) since the Convention. Including Rasmussen.

Is it a conspiracy? Sure, it could be. Or Gov. Romney could really be in trouble.

what’s hurting us is under the old system there was a 24 waiting period before an account became active. That prevented the low quality Chinese-made drive-by trolls we’re getting. What we had then were stealthy and wily trolls you had to stalk over a period of weeks. This is like shooting cattle in a barrel.

1) They released a statement from Price Coopers Waterhouse that says that Romney paid taxes every year since 1991. Why did they wait months to do this? Why not debunk it when it was front-page news. Would have been nice to wave that in Harry Reid’s lying face and challenge him to name his phony made-up ‘source’.

2) As for: ” Question:
“For the past three years, all everybody’s been told
is, “don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.” How are you going to, in two
months before the elections, convince everybody ‘you’ve got to take care
of yourself’?”.

WOW. I didn’t know that! that changes the context quite a bit. I know it’s hard for Mitt Romney. He is fighting a 3 front war. Obama, the liberal MSM and now also even the conservative pundits, who COULD have been posting about the above factoid but arent. but still…

I agree.I would vote for an empty toilet paper tube over the incumbent; and so anyone who even vaguely resembles a free-marketer is good enough for me.

We are definitely a lot busier. I’d say we are whacking about 5x as many idiots as we did before.

Because you’re a douchebag?

Maybe Erick has been on too many liberal TV shows and has become immune to factual evidence. It is true that you tend to think like those that you associate with so… Sad to think about that if true…

Exactly, the Kos group won’t thumbs done this for about fourteen hours when they get up at noon. The reason most people know the polls are wrong from oversampling is because they know that everyone, at least half the folks anyway, are just fed up with Obama’s ultrasmooth BS about his pathetic record. Ex. “Romney COULD take away deductions for home mortgages etc”………as Obama’s ad goes. What a POS when it comes to credible campaigning.

And Paul Ryans budget “could cut the education budget” by 20%. Romney’s consultants are committing malpractice by their anemic responses to the continual stream of BS being put out by (..posed baritone voice) “Barack Obama”. If we are going to win this campaign, we are going to have to do it in spite of Romney’s guys, not with their help.

If Romney is indeed losing, the problem is much more serious than any quibbling about campaign strategy.
This election presents the starkest choice possible between two competing visions; one where the government decides who gets what and one where individual effort decides who gets what. If Romney loses, it means there is a critical mass of people who a) like things the way they are because they are getting more from government than they put in and/or b) are too stupid (yes, stupid) to realize what’s going on. If this is the case, it’s not only Romney who loses, but the republic.
If we assume Erick’s post as fact, we cannot place blame at the feet of the Romney campaign. To say that they have to sell America to Americans is ludicrous. If such a sales pitch is necessary, then we are already lost, whatever the results in November.

Here’s some “factual evidence” for Erick. How does Erick (and pollsters) account for the fact that there are over
300,000 fewer registered voters in Chicago and suburban Cook County
right now as opposed to November 2008? And there are only two weeks
left to register. If enthusiasm is that bad in Chicago, imagine what it
must be like in Detroit, or Baltimore, for example. And how does Erick
(and pollsters) account for the fact that there are 50,000 fewer
registered voters there among the 18-34 year-olds, but 40,000 more
registered voters among those 55 and older? Don’t you think “realistic”
internal Democrat polls are reflecting similar patterns? That is why
many of the Dem pundits are so off the wall with their screeds.

Bill, the Republican party doesn’t have nationally co-ordinated GOTV efforts. All the GOTV is co-ordinated at state levels. There could be voters who might like to get involved but aren’t aware of this fact, and they could miss out on some great opportunities because of it, too.

For example, we have a really great event coming up in NC on Oct.6 called “Tarheel Turnout”.
http://ncvictory2012.com/saturday/

Volunteers can sign up for a three hour shift to either man the phones or go door-to-door. The site has thumbnail images promoting Tarheel Turnout that can be shared via social media such as facebook. There will be twitter feeds running all day as well.

The NC GOP has other opportunities to get involved, too.
http://www.ncgop.org/

Here’s the calendar of events for those who are interested.
http://www.ncgop.org/calendar-2/

I can provide that much information to other voters, but it doesn’t exactly meet the standards for a “diary”.

“It’s a done deal. Finished. Over.”

Yes, because every election is done 6 weeks before ballots are cast.

Except all the ones that arent.

Moron.

Agreed, but…

Alot of it is seeing how polls behave assuming internal consistency. It matters less what a poll says today in terms of support and more what the trend in that poll is in terms of shifting support.

We’ll never be able to assess if a poll’s model for turnout, etc… is correct. But if multiple polls show a similar shift in direction and magnitude for a candidate, then it probably means something we should pay attention to. We won’t necessarily be able to say what the exact level of support is, but we will be able to say which way the direction of support is changing.

There’s an interesting debate going on over at hotair about what polls to show / report on. The prevailing argument is “show us everything, but summarize trends and internals rather than specific snapshot numbers”.

Sounds like Erick needs to read Limbaugh’s site more. I STRONGLY disagree with Erick!

The polls showing Obama way up are way wrong… it’s a close race and this: “Undecided voters could be break in the last few weeks of the election.”

… is correct. Undecideds will decide this election.

Even the pro-Obama polls have him barely cracking 50%.

Obama doesnt deserve re-election BUT
Romney hasnt closed the sale

This may end up like 1980, where the debates had a big impact.

streiff- I don’t recognize more than half the people positing here now. Can you at least change back to the 24 hour waiting period? Thank you,
Carol

Ughhhh… I’m so sick of talking about poll numbers. You would think this was a sporting event, instead of a campaign about competing principles and ideas. This isn’t the Super Bowl where a team can build a decent lead and then just run out the clock in the fourth quarter, so just let it go with the poll numbers.
There are so many serious issues about the ever expanding size of government that need attention, and if actually covered, might just swing the narrative from the soap opera of the campaigns to the fact that Obama (and a lot of beltway RINO’s too) are leading this nation full steam into another wicked economic hornet’s nest.

There are lot of reasons to be optimistic about Mr. Romney’s chances, but this kind of anecdotal evidence is almost always loser talk. There was a dark time in 2008 that I hung around the Ron Paul forums and this is exactly the kind of thing you would hear there daily. Unfair polls, yard signs, bumper stickers, crowd sizes, etc. I’m pretty sure he didn’t win squat (thankfully).

Placing blame seems to be the topic therein I will continue.
I am going to place most of the blame on the established GOP and the so called conservative talkers. I admit that I am partly to blame as well sometimes going off topic
and being distracted. Therefore back on topic, we are at war, we are not at war
with a democrat president but an ideology. This ideology is nothing new, you
can read about it in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Mein Kampf, Alinsky
Rules for Radicals and so on. Yes, I found it agonizing to read such rubbish as
you may as well but it provides an understanding of the ideology we are at war
with. Honestly, how many of you have taken the time to understand the ideology
we are at war with and I can speculate there is not enough.

Eric claimed same sky is falling with Perry. I do not trust his judgement. People are sick to death of Obama. I think he will be soundly defeated.

LOL! who are the trolls down-voting that?
“the liberal media deflects blame for liberal losses on liberal policies.”

So true! We will know Obama is toast when they run the “Obama wasnt/isnt a real liberal” stories. But I think they have ‘voter suppression’ as the liberal loon scapegoat du jour.

I don’t believe these polls for a minute.

I do want to add though that if the Republicans lose again under these circumstances (the best of all worlds for an opposing party), then they will become a dysfunctional and obsolete party. They have tried again and again to become Democrat lite to no avail (thank goodness). If they can not convince people to vote for them when America is falling apart then they have no reason to be here.

It will then finally be time for a Conservative opposition party to rise up from the ruins.

No kidding. I think Comrade Markos is sending his dumbocrat minions to this site to depress morale. They know the only way Obozo can win with this terrible economy is to taint the election process by persuading conservatives not to vote. Well this conservative isn’t falling for it.

I think the primary debates are held in a much more fluid context. A bunch of people on the same team looking to choose among their team’s options are a lot more amenable to convincing than an electorate that’s mostly highly polarized with only a smattering of know-nothings and independents squeezed in the middle. If Obama were to collapse quivering (a silly way of saying if he had a very, very poor showing), then I might expect some change, but there’s not a lot of historical evidence for debates where both candidates perform at least semi-adequately changing much.

Thx for encouragement Bill, I’ve made calls and volunteered for some GOTV, but just dumbfounded why GOTV activism isn’t being pushed here, let alone one single diary on FP, let alone one single diary from EE. Can anyone fill me in on the new direction here? It certainly isn’t grass roots conservative activism.

See Bill S and streiff’s comments somewhere in here with respect to trolls. Bottom line there used to be a 24 hour waiting period before a new member could post a comment and that dramatically limited the ability of trolls to post. That waiting period is now gone – I understand it’s being worked on – hence the troll count.

its gotta be also trolls following people back to RS links. If you post on
most other Disqus sites, people can see your RS links on your profile.

That is not the dumbest theory I’ve ever read, but it’s in the top three.

All you have to do is look at the numbers and, for starters, even if every TP member switched their party affiliation it would have exactly no effect on what we are discussing.

The issue is pumping up Democrat polling splits based on using 2008 turnout percentages and then increasing those in a climate where every person who’s the least bit knowledgeable about statistics and polling admits the assumption isn’t bad, it’s ridiculous.

Polling companies and the media have been pulling this crap for at least 30 years and they always err on the left. See Carter/Reagan for starters. See the NYT polling in 2008 when they projected Obama by 14 less than a week before the election. He won by 7.

The point is simple. Pollsters are using samples that overstate Democrats by 8 to 15 points just to show Obama up by 1 to 2. That isn’t “a bit overstated” in any reality.

Heree’s another example of a state-specific, grass roots conservative effort:

http://hillbuzz.org/help-needed-convince-conservative-writers-to-cover-sharon-meronis-efforts-to-combat-voter-fraud-in-illinois-and-get-her-the-500-election-judges-she-still-needs-60246

1stRichard commented about where the fault lies. No need to play the blame game at this time. What we should be focusing on is GOTV, GOTV, GOTV.

If conservatives want to win the races we need to win, then we need roll up our sleeves, get out our check books, and get involved in helping our candidates get out the vote with our sweat equity and our money. If you can make phone calls, go to http://mittromney.com and sign up to make telephone calls. If the Republican candidates where you live have a shot of winning in the general, call their campaign managers and ask how they might use you. If you live in a heavily blue or heavily red area, consider contacting your county or state Party and try to find out where else in your state you might be able to help.

Americans for Prosperity has GOTV programs.

So does American Majority Action

So does Faith & Freedom Coalition

So does http://www.championthevote.com

Bottom line: Our Republican Party is still running on only 50 per cent or so of its cylinders — only about half of the approx. 400,000 PC slots are filled. Where I live, we went from 31.8% of the PC slots in my county being filled in 2008 to 55% now. But, still, 40% of the 724 precincts in Maricopa County, AZ, have not even one precinct committeeman. That means unless the candidates can somehow cover those empty precincts with warm bodies, probably those Republicans in those precincts who need a personal phone call to urge them to vote won’t get one.

We know that the personal “touches” work:

http://www.unifiedpatriots.com/2012/08/18/how-to-get-the-republican-vinos-to-the-polls-in-november/cold-warrior

John Wayne and The Gipper knew it, too:

http://www.unifiedpatriots.com/2012/09/19/john-wayne-and-ronald-reagan-discuss-gotv-will-you-give-six-hours/cold-warrior

Of course there are 200,000 conservatives across the country who could unite and organize where they live, respectively, with the conservatives also “inside” the Party at their local Republican committee meetings to form a strong majority of conservatives in the voting ranks of the Party. Had they done so over the course of the last four years, there would not have been any disruptions of our Republican National Convention nor would there have been the Rules changes that were made.

Those who show up make the rules. And elect the officers.

It’s not hard to become a PC.

Thank you.
CW
http://theprecinctproject.wordpress.com

Lessons from history in believing in Polls..
 
THE 1980 PRE-ELECTION POLLS : A REVIEW OF DISPARATE METHODS AND RESULTS
by Warren J. Mitofsky, CBS News
 
The performance of the public polls during the general election campaign of 1980 has raised doubts about the capabilities of the pollsters and their survey methodology – doubts which have not been raised during the last seven presidential elections. Since the fifties, the final pre-election polls have not been criticized and have all but taken on an air of infallibility in the minds of the public and the press . Surely, the pollsters had learned all there was to be learned about ” how to do it”, so there would be no embarrassing episodes like there were in 1948 and 1936.
 
There has been much speculation about what went wrong with the pre-election polls of 1980. All the major published polls seriously understated Ronald Reagan’s margin of victory over Jimmy Carter based mostly on interviewing completed late in the week before election day.
 

J o h n F. S t a c k s , ” W h e r e t h e P o l l s W e n t W r o n g ,  ” T i m e , D e c e m b e r 1 9 8 0 , p p . 2 1 – 2 2 . A l v i n P. S a n o f f , “T h e P e r i l s o f P o l l i n g 1 9 8 0 , “W a s h i n g t o n J o u r n a l i s m R e v i e w , J a n / F e b 1 9 8 1,  pp. 32-35.

The reality is, some polls do give an accurate snapshot of any given poll sample, while other polls are wildly inaccurate. Among the best polls are gallup and rasmussen, while anything coming from NBC, CBS, ABC should be ignored other than for entertainment value.

Having said that, I wouldn’t get overly concerned about polling data coming from any poll until after the first debate. The biggest audience of the year will be watching the debate and swing voters will start to settle on a candidate after seeing the two candidates together on the same stage. Romney won the nomination due to two factors – money advantage and the debates. Romney no longer has a significant money advantage, so if he is to go up in the polls against Obama, he needs to win the first debate.

Umm, no.

Thank you, Bill S! Keep screaming, There are times when that is the only thing that works. Carol

Great. But it’s still a work in progress, as I said. We can do better. We MUST do better.

A couple of problems: you wouldn’t have a direct correlation in Obama’s numbers and party id. In other words, if the issue was independents who were really Republicans, then a 40/30/30 sample would yield the same results as a 40/38/22 sample (i.e. you have actually changed any voters – just moved Republicans from Independent to Republican). This isn’t happening, the polls are actually giving different results (and remember as much as Republicans are criticizing the public polls, Nate Silver is running bi-weekly hits on the polls that don’t conform to his preset conclusion). The second is the one constant in polling has been Mitt Romney’s lead among independents. The sampling bias in the polling is real; a D+9 – D+10 sample is not representative of the voting population and thus the sample can not be used for predictative purposes unless you account for it and Schwartz and other pollsters have admitted they are not.
I really don’t understand the psychological damage that seems to be wrought with the following statement: “The Election is close due to the electorate pretty much being two armed camps split down the middle.” I don’t know who is going to win, give me a crystal ball and tell me the turnouts in places like Cleveland and Akron, Ohio, the Florida Panhandle, Pueblo, Co.; I’d have a pretty good idea, but no one knows…