I guh-gree. Things are going well. I wish Romney had done a little better but we are missing the plot if we focus too much on who won/lost the debate. The reason why the polls moved for Romney wasn’t just bc he won the first debate, it was bc he proved himself to be a credible alternative to Obama. That changed the momentum and that didn’t change after the VP debate and I think we’re all pretty sure it won’t change after last night. We still have weeks to go but so far so good!

The undecided voters are not saying they are voting for Obama and that is what matters…

What we are getting is voters saying Obama was far better. No kidding. Most of us would agree compared to the first debate he was better. The problem was Mitt did just fine too. And in terms of what really matters, which is winning the election, the dynamic of momentum with Mitt remains the same.

All the attempts by Obama and his allies to mold this into a unicorn is just going to result in messy stinky hands.

EE has repeatedly used weasel words to be on both sides of the poll issue, mostly on points that can never be proven, i.e. who is supposedly “winn-ING or Los-ING” at a particular time. But since we only get confirmation of who has already won on ONE DAY, i.e. Election Day, the EEs of the world can always claim that the eventual winner WAS “behind” until some “event” occurs or the campaign’s natural evolution seems to jibe with the pundit’s advice. The notion that Romney’s victory will have more to do with a “debate” than with what makes the Romney debate “win” possible, i.e. the dismal record of Obama that was ALWAYS going to be brought up at the debates and that people already KNOW in their lives, is ridiculous. The media, conservative and liberal is about maintaining the supposed power of the media. The libs are also about never having an election loss based on a repudiation of liberalism and those on the conservative side that play along with the former, i.e. media power narrative enable the libs in the latter, i.e. protecting liberalism.

Spot on, again.

Welcome to reality Eric. It is surprising that you’ve spend so much time debating these folks and yet you still think that they and the pollsters are legitimate. Understandable but you’d think that when it happens for years and years that changes would be made.

We are fighting three specific groups – the Democrats, the Media, and the entrenched Republicans (Old Beltway folks). One of these days, Republicans will not only understand the problem but actually rebel against it. That will mean that Republicans no longer cater to the Media (lost cause) nor the rebellious inside the beltway Republicans but actually specify their philosophies instead of catering to the Democrat ideas… Larger Government is NOT the way!

Welcome to RedState America!

Actually, what’s pathetic is you and your cohort nursing a personal grudge here and elsewhere and intent on poisoning the well just by yelling. Times up.

Erick,

You explain why you buy into Candy Crowley.

I would not do this.

The only time the mods aren’t enforcing civil behavior is, occasionally, on themselves. Seeing as they tend to have to slog through who knows what to keep this site from descending into anarchy and frothing leftists, I typically don’t blame them for their occasional outbursts of rage.

As I said to one of the people watching the debate around me “Obama doing better than last time is not newsworthy.”

OK.

Anybody else feel like testing me? Line up under this post. I’ll get to you after I finish feeding my kids.

Keep in mind the mods have an historical perspective that you may not be aware of (not to mention a behind the scenes perspective that you do not see).

Rush has been addressing this for sometime now. I am just paraphrasing here…he said that the pollsters will stop fudging the numbers as election get closer since their credibility is at stake… also, he was saying that he did not believe that women’s vote suddenly change so dramatically after one debate….
Lies, darn lies & polls!!

there is a difference between dissent (and if you read my article on the debate last night and Erick’s you’ll note that there is significant dissent) and bitching to no particular end.

“For the past couple of months I’ve been under attack from users here and
conservatives elsewhere for refusing to believe the polls were rigged.
I’ve certainly agreed they’ve been weighted too much for the Democrats
and were, consequently, wrong…”

Let’s stop right there. They’ve been weighted too much for the Democrats, and were wrong. Got it.

WHY?

“…but I have never thought it was
intentional.”

Well again, WHY? If it wasn’t intentional, then why was it done?

” I saw no sense whining about it as it just makes
conservatives sound unhinged and detached from reality.”

No, it was intentional. It was designed to drive a narrative. And we weren’t whining. We were pointing out the truth. It was meant to drive the news, and depress the GOP vote, and set the table for Jesus Jr.. And if Obama had shown a pulse in the first debate, we would not be having this conversation because he would be re-measuring the drapes with the help of Gallup. But he didn’t. And the polls, which were going to tighten up after the debate anyway as pollsters concentrated more on their reputation than the narrative, did more than tighten up. Ooops.

You really don’t think the leftists polls in the Real Clear Politics average don’t know that? Do you really think those polls aren’t designed to move the average? You really believe all that happened before the first debate was just an honest mistake by pollsters, and that the huge oversampling of Democrats by everyone, despite everything we knew about voter ID, etc., was just a little teeny error?

Really?

Best to your kids, Moe. Go ahead and make mine for good. Seriously. You’d be doing me a favor.

I believe that is true and they use all kinds of weaselly explanations which boil down to it is too hard and will cost too much. The fact is if you are querying a sample about their childbirth experiences you really want it to be women who have had kids. If you want to try to predict an election you need to ask people who will vote and as the candidates represent parties, the party affiliation is important.

The large shift to Romney was real. People who only knew Romney thru lying distorted obama and propaganda media campaign stuff were shocked in first debate that Romney was real, compassionate, accomplished, and very worthy of the Presidency. That shift is NOT fluid. Obama will lose. Obama’s numbers/support is phony.

Well said Jack. How can conservatives at RedState ever develop a plan to deal with poll bias, moderator bias and skewed unemployment numbers when a figure-head like Erick is in denial? We have seen skewing and bias over and over again and never benefitting Repubs. Erick does not speak out for the RedState community. (what’s left) That’s the problem. Clearly the media and their Dem allies have driven a narrative to get Barack Obama elected. If Erick doesn’t get it now-he never will. We just need to look a different direction for leadership.

This is what I like. Erick is the guy who has led this site from being just another blog to being one of the most significant right-blogs. While he was doing that you were… well… doing jack-sh** for the conservative movement. Feel free to look any direction you want, but you’re not going to come in our house and crap in our sink.

Look, the ONLY poll that matters is on 6 Nov. Anything else is hogwash from either side. I pity any Americans who make up their minds based on poll results. Sheeple, nothing else.

I think that is bull**** contrived by pollsters. Age is fluid, too. No other exercise in statistical sampling just waves its hands and says “oh,its fluid” and moves on. You don’t do sampling like that. That isn’t math, that’s sorcery. You aren’t interested in any given day, you are interested in one particular Tuesday in November. Telling me what people think today is utter nonsense, they can’t vote today so it doesn’t matter what they think today. You’re trying, or should be trying, to identify who is going to show up to vote and model your sample based on that. And there is tons and tons of information out there, real info not more bull**** exit polls, that tells you demographically who votes. The idea of polling “registered voters” doesn’t pass the laugh test, much less “all adults”.

Pollocalypse 10/17/12 never forget

Let me clarify my comment. I’m saddened only because I value both Erick’s conservative incite and his hard work that has manifest itself into such an active vibrant blog. I pray that his association with CNN will not thwart all the hard work he has performed for the cause. I myself firmly believe in the deliberate over polling of Democrats and I personally think Erick used to believe it as well.
Granted in the long run it may not matter, but no one knows for sure and by us pointing it out should not be construed as inappropriate whining or ‘becoming unhinged’. Those are talking points others use and it saddens me to see Erick use those terms in referencing loyal participants in his hard work.

Moe, this one is a bit like the fight between Lancelot and Gawain in Excalibur.

While it is true that Erick has not crossed over to the dark side (Lancelot had not yet slept with Guenevere), and Becker and Gamecock overstate the cases somewhat, on balance there is still more truth in their comments than Erick’s post (but Lancelot certainly had the desire to). It is silly to claim the polls where “basically correct” when everyone can see how completely off kilter they were and how they were intended to shutdown debate over the election. Becker’s more right with the 30 degree change than Erick is with his 180 degree claim. We’ve just reached the tipping point where even with a +10D adjusted sample, The Big 0 is losing the polling battle. On Erick’s side I do concur that to some extent the first debate made it okay for independents and some small number of Democrats to not genuflect whenever Dear Leader speaks. This certainly shifted polling numbers, but by Becker’s 30, not Erick’s 180.

Everybody on this site USE to be able to give and TAKE some heat for their posts without worrying about the Blam stick. It would be a shame to lose that on site where conservatives are supposed to feel at home. Neil and I certainly had a kefluffle and I don’t recall that either of us really wound up in the dog house.

Frankly, it is time conservatives (including Erick) stop insisting that
the msm/polls/lawyers/courts are really giving it their best shot to be
fair and balanced when it is blatantly obvious they are not. Staying focused exclusively on winning the big seat costs us dearly in also winning the little seats that are needed to implement the policies the big seat will be trying to enact. Frankly, Romney should have gone after Crowley for un-referee like conduct as a moderator. And Erick shouldn’t be making excuses for intentionally biased polls. Both enable leftists to continue to use deplorable tactics when littler guys and gals are at the podium.

I think it’s pretty clear at this point that most of these polls are insane… I didn’t believe the September polls and thought they were understating a bit where Romney was but at the same time I think Gallup today with Romney +6 is probably wrong… at this point I’m just assuming it’s tied and going from there…. I look at RCP each day out of sheer curiosity but already starting taking it with a grain of salt a pretty long time ago.

Nope! Tossing people for insulting site moderators and Contributors. Like you just did.

You can ask for reinstatement in a week.

Anybody ELSE feel like testing me?

Erick – You were wrong then and you are wrong now. Conservatives complained about the polls because they intentionally weighted the Democratic sample beyond all reason – such as +10, etc. Democrats are now whining about the polls but the only way it would be a 180, or even comparable, is if the polling firms were now weighting Republicans by similar margins. They are not.

I do not think it is the same scenario you give for the polling on gay marriage – although I think your scenario in that case is spot-on.

This post is not to attack you personally but rather to disagree with you. I hate to see RedState come to the point where longtime members of the community are banned for disagreeing – even if some do take it into the realm of a personal attack. It is foolish and prideful. During the primaries we tolerated far worse being said about Rick Santorum and his supporters. If the leadership decides I need to go then I will go, but I will not be back. I will miss you guys. May God be the judge between you and me.

I originally intended to disagree with Eric, but in considering how to word it I realized he is right. The sophomoric American public No.1…do not want to seem racist and want the EXPERTS to think well of them….No.2 a certain percentage think of elections as contests, and want to be on the winning side, for who wants people to know you are a loser. With the media constantly proclaiming Obama the winner many will say democrat just to be a winner. No, the numbers are not cooked, just pulled from the media toaster where they got nice and warm.

Essentially, this would be the “Bradley/Dinkens” effect, would it not? Well, my contention would be that we have not really seen that wash out yet and will not until the day of the election when, in the privacy of the polls, people will vote their conscience and say, “he failed us, I’m done…”

I believe that what we have seen to date is not really the Bradley/Dinkens effect… that is still to come and is the reason that I forecast Romney to win by 5-6% popular and by 100+ electoral votes… Been saying it for over three months now.

Live by the polls. Die by the polls. I was in quiet agony for much of September – realizing that time was running out and that the accumulation of polls – though skewed – were beginning to harden into a “reaiity on the ground”: that at some point would be difficult to overcome.

So much of September was bogus nonsense. The huge media coverage of the “Romney foreign policy gaffe” while covering for the Emperor and his meltdown in foreign policy. I hope to God that there is the real groundswell of shifting to Romney Ryan – and also hope for wins in a LOT of close US Senate races.

One day at a time. God bless Romney Ryan and the Tea Party.

For what it’s worth, I agree.

Every group Obama won handily in 2008 is hemorrhaging votes for Obama now, even the black community. I think it’s going to continue in that direction unless some truly bizarre October Surprise halts it… and I don’t think Obama can win with that happening.

BTW, did you notice that the erstwhile truck bomber they arrested last night was alleged to be targeting the President? Do you remember a gnarly, tinfoil-hat-wearing rumor back in August that the Dems were going to try an October Surprise that involved an attempt on the President’s life? Is life stranger than fiction, or what?

“Abusive tyrant” “notorious for berating and insulting people.” Those hate-filled insults of yours should get you banned as well.

Actually, I would not mind to get banned. The comments section of Redstate is becoming very hard to read in this new format. And I find EE’s comments to be way over the line many times, such as when he lead an attack on Romney saying it was perfectly acceptable to oppose someone on religious grounds because they were a Mormon. And now anyone opposing EE’s defense of the polls and of Candy, or daring to challenging a Mod or their cult of sycophants, is being purged. You allowed savage attacks of Romney during the primary, but dare challenge the views of an almighty mod and you get banned.

it used to be a good dialogue. But I can see the demise of Redstate before my eyes — and during the most critical point in the election cycle. But hey, EE got himself a nice job out of it.

The hit rate is up substantially. 20% or so, from the numbers I’ve seen.

I appreciated the comparison between O’s “achievement” in the Nobel Prize (because he wasn’t Bush) and the debate (he showed up). I, too, have thought that people didn’t want to be perceived as racist. We have become a most politically correct country – to our detriment. Wonderful article.

what an immature crap comment. Especially to long time RS members. What is going on here? Is this an intentional purge of long time members who might have some constructive criticism on the terrible changes at RS and lack of grass roots focus over the past year or two????

What happened to the grass roots conservative activism mission?

The pollsters oversampling democrats to skew results was indeed intentional. You have to remember, to the Left, their politics is their religion and they will do whatever it takes to win. Fair play, following the rules, truth, and civility be damned. All that matters to them is winning elections and further smashing this country into something that conservatives find offensive.

I should have added, much of the shift is real, I do believe the polls are intentionally oversampled DEM to create results. Why do we have a hard time believing that people ARENT biased? The media has a freakin JOURNOLIST for God sakes. Why do we keep our heads in the sand on the devious behavior of the left? The ends justify the means for the left.

The problem for the polls was that the real shift to Romney was too big to paper(poll) over. Were the pollsters going to oversample DEMS by 40% or more to knock down the Romney gain? And as we get closer to the election they most often tighten things up.

obama’s campaign wants to discourage GOP voters, but they don’t want their own voters to become complacent and not turn out. That could happen if the polls showed obama running away with it, when in fact, he is not.

I can’t believe the emphasis on RS FP about polls anyway. This is supposed to be a grass roots conservative activism site, you know, like Getting Out the Vote and Stuff, not one FP diary on how to get involved, not one on the tea party.

Look at the actions of the campaigns, that tells you more about what is going on than any rigged poll.

Where are they actually campaigning and WHY?? This question and its answer is far more valuable than any JOURNOLIST poll.

JOURNOLIST
JOURNOPOLLSTER

Polls are like professionals that are willing to testify in court on whatever subject. You can find one to testify for you, your opponent can find one to testify against you.

Let’s not keep our heads in the sand about the war the left/propaganda media is waging on us, why would that not enter polling????

As I stated, many of the questions, concerns are not directed at you Streiff or BillS. The concerns are with RS direction overall. I have asked probably 40 times about the original mission of RS, and have never received any answer.

and the ‘ol take it or leave it attitude that comes out towards long time members just doesn’t play well either. Especially when people had criticism of the site changes, many times were not treated w/ respect by RS.

In fact, nearly my entire comment above addressed EE and RS and the mission statement. Not about people trashing the site etc…

Let’s not keep our heads in the sand, lots of great long time people have left, or banned etc….

RS, we have a problem. And I’ve outlined them in the above comment.

what you have to understand is that when you talk trash about Erick you are talking trash about me, and Bill S, and Aaron, and Moe, and every other contributor. Decisions on RS are made by us collectively, Erick is the leader to be sure but Erick doesn’t do major stuff without our input. Just so you know, typically Erick circulates just about every piece he writes for comments from contributors before it goes live. If any of the contribs writes something that is going to be incendiary, they also circulate it for comment. So the organizational model you’re working with is flawed. Plus, we’ve all worked together for a long time. I registered on RS the month it went on line.

I don’t understand your question about activism. Are you asking why we aren’t all ColdWarrior all the time? Are you saying we aren’t trying to get people to vote? I just don’t comprehend the question. There has been no change in our focus on activism based on site changes or anything else.

I think criticism of the site changes and the site are listened to. What a lot of you don’t comprehend is that at a certain point decisions are made and all of us just have to cowboy-up and live with it, or move on.

Members come and go. Some of the original front pagers aren’t here. Few of the commenters who were here 4 years ago are here. That is to be expected. People’s interests come and go. We can’t change that.

The problem here – and sorry I missed the party, man what fireworks! … anyway, I have long said that I refuse to play in the gutter yet some here believe that you only need to pick up a turd from the clean end to keep from getting dirty.

That said, the personal attacks *are* out of line. As a mod on another (non-political) board, I can and do appreciate what the staff here do each and every day. The fact that many are given an cooling off period, and can ask for reinstatement is a course I would never do. Ban and go on. End of story.

Now to the point of this article, polls are *not* the election, they *are* a device to sell papers – back when news was still printed a page at a time on a huge printing press.

The point Erick is making is not that the *polls* have shifted 180 degrees, it is the *attitudes* of the ardent followers based on those polls. DKos and other lefty sites are in a full blown hellfire fury over the latest prognostications from those who *are* paid by the MSM to get more people to tune in… or buy a paper… or change the channel… or click on a link… different delivery systems but still the same reason to exist – to ‘sell papers’.

I saw very clearly the same type of hyperbolic responses here by those who took the poll data as a personal attack and in doing so, over emphasized the polls importance.

“Lies, damn lies and statistics” (or ‘polls’ as someone here stated in this thread) with a h/t to old Sam Clemens – who was also a newspaperman and also very aware of the real purpose of polling firms. That he did not like them is clear but as to their intentions? I already said that… to SELL PAPERS! (man how I wish the comment box allowed for italics… or even bold font for emphasis…)

Not one will say that the polling firms ‘job’ is an exact science – it’s more like the creation of a fluff piece in ‘People’ magazine. Do the polling firms try to do a job? Yes and if they do *not* get people to read a paper, then they will *not* be in business. To give them any more weight than an article about the “latest Hollywood couple that just filed for divorce” is to buy into the spin they are *paid* to produce!

On the subject of ‘grass roots’, (short thread-jack but I’ll return to point momentarily) I’d also like to point out that the changes in the site and the elevation of this place to a position of national importance in the political process is just what was dreamed of so many years ago when they pushed the power button on the servers that housed the first RS software. “A wish and a prayer” and less than a decade later, RS is now where they had only dreamed it could be; in a position to influence the course of history. I hasten to add that it may have felt the same to those writers who *carefully* chose their words back in Independence Hall two plus centuries ago.

To all those who understand that one does *not* have to descend into the gutter to argue a point, bless you and have a wonderful day.

To those who wish to name call and back bite, there are a slew of second-rate sites that can be accessed through the address bar on your browser. Happy trails!

To all of those on the other side of the aisle who may be reading this, (and yes I know you’re there, I often lurk leftist sites too), peace be with all of you and may all of our dreams come to pass by the *courage* of our convictions and the *power* of our ideals.

Let no one person *nor* party dare to undermine the American people and those who created, honor and now inhabit this great nation of ours. They are the ones who are on the wrong side of history.

OK, I too am going to bed and hope that people who are complaining about ‘grass roots beginnings’ and GOTV are doing more than just giving lip service to those ideals.

It’s *still* about the turnout.