Highbrow Magazine - andrew sullivan https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/andrew-sullivan en Is the Sky Falling on Obama? Quick, Let’s Take Another Poll https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1685-sky-falling-obama-quick-lets-take-another-poll <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Tue, 10/16/2012 - 14:35</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumpolls%20%28NAM%29.jpg?itok=e4eSiAKU"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/mediumpolls%20%28NAM%29.jpg?itok=e4eSiAKU" width="480" height="268" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>  </p> <p> From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2012/10/is-the-sky-falling-on-obama-quick-lets-take-another-poll.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> The sky is falling in America. It's all because of one poll. A Pew poll done after the first presidential debate has Obama supporters in a complete tizzy.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Beast had his finger jammed on the panic button.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Look: I'm trying to rally some morale, but I've never seen a candidate this late in the game, so far ahead, just throw in the towel in the way Obama did last week - throw away almost every single advantage he had with voters and manage to enable his opponent to seem as if he cares about the middle class as much as Obama does.</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> So what's in this damning, devastating poll? In a September 12-16 poll Romney trailed Obama by eight points among likely voters. In a post-debate poll, Obama lags four percentage points behind Romney.</p> <p>  </p> <p> What's sent the likes of Sullivan into an even greater hysterical frenzy is the fact that Romney has erased Obama's gender advantage. Women are evenly divided (47 percent) between the two. Last month Obama had an 18 point lead over Romney among women.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Reuters found Romney and Obama tied at 45 percent each among likely voters. Obama still leads by five points among registered voters in Gallup's latest tracking poll, which averages seven days of data.</p> <p>  </p> <p> A Rasmussen Reports survey where Obama had trailed Romney by 2 points now shows him tied with the Republican.</p> <p>  </p> <p> A RAND Corporation poll shows no change from Sunday, leading the <em>New York Times</em>’ Nate Silver to say “all of this seemed to be consistent with a story in which Mr Romney's debate bounce was receding some.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> So what does this prove? Nothing really except too many polls keep this election broth boiling. Polls are basically make-news because no one knows exactly who will vote on Election Day. Pollster Cliff Young told Reuters that the race is actually where these races are in the last weeks of the campaign.</p> <p>  </p> <p> "Things are probably back to where they should be. This is a race where Romney should be up sometimes," Young said.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/mediumobamaandromney%20%28NAM%29.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 335px; " /></p> <p>  </p> <p> What Sullivan's meltdown really proves is how the media is addicted to polls. They are the lifeblood of campaigns and campaign coverage. In the end elections are a crap shoot but the polls are treated as immutable scientific facts, a solid foundation upon which reporters write stories and experts pontificate. In reality they are quicksand.</p> <p>  </p> <p> During the Bush vs. Kerry election, on election day itself pollsters got it wrong predicting that Kerry would win based on exit polls.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Here's the indisputable fact. Obama flunked his debate. Romney won it. We don't need a pollster to tell us that. But even a few days before the debate the same media pundits were all opining that Romney had an uphill struggle ahead of him because the pool of undecided voters was so low.</p> <p>  </p> <p> So if Pew is right, something happened in that one debate that caused a huge surge of decided voters to swing from Obama to Romney. Now Obama's greatest sin was he was lacklustre, not that he committed any poll-shaking gaffes. If that's all it takes for 12 percent of likely voters to move lemming-like towards Romney that's a sad commentary on the American electorate.</p> <p>  </p> <p> "Decided voter" apparently just means decided until the next pollster calls.</p> <p>  </p> <p> But the real catch is polls are just a slice that claims to be representative of the whole cake. But the electorate isn't a fruitcake. Some parts have more fruit. Some parts have more nuts. <em>The Christian Science Monitor</em> says analysts are already saying there's a bit of apples and oranges at play in the Pew polls.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In Pew's September poll, 39 percent of likely voters considered themselves Democrats, compared with 29 percent who considered themselves Republicans. In this latest October poll, that flipped, with 31 percent of likely voters considering themselves Democrats and 36 percent considering themselves Republicans.</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> It also matters when the interviews were conducted - in the first flush of victory after the first debate or a few days later when the glow had faded a little.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <em>The New York Times'</em> Silver has the best advice about polling: It's one thing to give a poll a lot of weight, and another to become so enthralled with it that you dismiss all other evidence.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The Pew Poll is important and a wake-up call to Obama's supporters, but its value is just as a snapshot of the moment, not necessarily a predictor of the future. For a Sullivan to scream that Obama is throwing the election away is like judging an entire film based on one still from it.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2012/10/is-the-sky-falling-on-obama-quick-lets-take-another-poll.php">New America Media</a></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/elections-polls" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">elections polls</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/president-obama" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">President Obama</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mitt-romney" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Mitt Romney</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/2012-elections" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">2012 elections</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/presidential-elections" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">presidential elections</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pew" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pew</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/presidential-debates" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">presidential debates</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/andrew-sullivan" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">andrew sullivan</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/daily-beast" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">daily beast</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-york-times" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">New York Times</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sandip Roy</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">New America Media</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Tue, 16 Oct 2012 18:35:17 +0000 tara 1742 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1685-sky-falling-obama-quick-lets-take-another-poll#comments