posted
Here is an article about the new IPSOS Public Opinion poll regarding the current mess in Washington D.C. I have included the whole article, since it is short and as far as I can tell the original can only be accessed by subscription.
quote:Poll: Public Uneasy With GOP Leadership
By WILL LESTER
WASHINGTON (AP) - Dissatisfied with the nation's direction, Americans are leaning toward wanting a change in which political party leads Congress - preferring that Democrats take control, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Democrats are favored over Republicans 49 percent to 36 percent.
The polling came as disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty to tax evasion, fraud and corruption charges and agreed to aid a federal investigation of members of Congress and other government officials.
President Bush's job approval remains low - 40 percent in the AP-Ipsos poll, with only one-third saying the country is headed in the right direction. Bush also remains low on his handling of Iraq, where violence against Iraqis and U.S. troops has been surging.
``I just don't like the direction our country is going in,'' said Steve Brown, a political independent from Olympia, Wash. ``I think a balance of power would be beneficial right now.''
Republicans are watching the situation unfold with some nervousness.
``I don't think anyone is hitting the panic button,'' said Rich Bond, a former Republican National Committee chairman. ``But there is an acute recognition of the grim environment that both parties are operating in.''
``If the Democrats had any leadership or any message, they could be poised for a good year,'' Bond said. ``But in the absence of that, they have not been able to capitalize on Republican woes. Because of the size of the GOP majority, Democrats have to run the board, and I don't see that happening.''
The public's unease with Republican leadership in the White House and Congress creates a favorable environment for Democrats, said Democratic consultant Dane Strother.
``The problem is you don't vote for a party,'' Strother said. ``You're voting for a member of Congress. And we're a year away'' from the midterm elections.
About a third of the public, 34 percent, approves of the job Congress is doing, and nearly twice as many - 63 percent - disapprove, according to the poll of 1,001 adults taken Jan. 3-5. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points. Public opinion of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress has been mixed, recent polling found.
``Neither one of the parties has done a very good job so far,'' said Cristal Mills, a political independent from Los Angeles. ``They get away with murder, they get paid to pass certain things. It's the good ol' boy syndrome.''
In the Senate, 33 seats will be on the ballot in November, 17 of them currently in Democratic hands, 15 controlled by Republicans, and one held by Sen. James Jeffords, a Vermont independent. Democrats now have 44 Senate seats, and need to pick up seven to gain a majority, six if Vermont independent Bernie Sanders replaces Jeffords.
All 435 House seats are on the ballot this fall, and Democrats need to gain at least 15 to become the majority party and take control of the House.
While many House races are noncompetitive, Republican strategists fear that fallout from the Abramoff scandal will give Democrats fresh opportunity for gains. But they dismiss suggestions that Democrats could take control of the House.
Republicans became the dominant party in the House in 1994, when the GOP picked up more than 50 seats held by Democrats. In that midterm election, Democrats won four open seats that previously were held by the GOP.
Carl Forti, a spokesman for the GOP's congressional campaign committee, said about 30 House seats are competitive this year, compared with more than 100 a dozen years ago. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who heads the Democrats' campaign efforts, put the competitive number in 2006 at 42, and he suggested ongoing scandals improve Democratic recruitment of candidates by ``making the environment more conducive. It helps move them along in the process.''
Some say they want new leadership in Congress because of strong dissatisfaction with current policies.
``I get the strange feeling that we're being sold down the river,'' said Paul Oulton, an independent from San Ramon, Calif. ``We may be in line for some very severe financial problems.
``Give me somebody conservative with common sense. There's too much left and too much right. Give me somebody in the middle of the road.''
posted
Bah. Polls said all sorts of similar things before the last election. I no longer believe the polls.
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posted
I think it is true....but not because of the R party. People like to switch things up, and Bush and the R's have been in control for a long time now...at least in political terms.
Not that this is even about Bush...the same thing happened when the D's were in control, remember?
I dislike the extremes of both parties, frankly.
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posted
Bush can't be re-elected, there are term limitations, they would have to change the constitution. I don't think that it is politically possible to reverse the two term presidential term limit.
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posted
I'm actually aware that Bush cannot be reelected, having graduated from high school.
That is irrelevant to my point: that polling is highly unreliable. (I think much of their success in the past was the result of creating self-fulfilling prophecies, or of creating the Zeitgeist.)
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posted
Unfortunately, the difference between the two parties is about as perceptible as that between Coke and Pepsi.
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posted
At this point.. just about. Except that most Dems aren't quite as corrupt as Bush and co. And would probably do better at foreign policy. But the same thing goes for most Repubs too, so that ain't saying much.
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posted
Icky, the reason he can't be reelected isn't that he graduated from high school. It's that there's a two term limit.
Posts: 6213 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Hm. Dunno. A party can remain in control for quite a while. The Democrats lasted from the beginning of the Depression until they chose to favor the Civil Rights Movement, recall? That was what, 30, 40 years?
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Frankly I don't care what the Political Party of the corrupt individual is, I'm glad to see them getting caught. It's about time the Congress was cleaned up.
As for the rest of it, the best years of the Clinton administration were when there was a Republican majority, since that served to curb the extremists in both parties. Too bad that that isn't the law - that the President HAS to be the opposite party to the majority in Congress! Then the extremist wackos would always have to compromise.
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I thought it was inconceivable that he could be reelected.
How many evangelical Christians are those pollsters calling?
When a poll is properly done a random sample is chosen, and the percentage of Evangelical Christians doing the poll will be about the same (+/- a couple of percent) as the percentage of Evangelicals in the United States. Read up on the way professional independant polls are done. They are fairly reliable.
Here is a site I use, which has all of the major independant polling companies listed:
posted
My prediction is that Republicans will still hold the majority and Democrats will again be scratching their heads. For the most part the only people I have heard complaining about the "scandals" causing problems for the Republicans are the ones that would be voting Democrat no matter what. It might make it harder in some ways for Republicans in certain districts, but won't ultimately change the governing landscape much.
The reason for this is I believe that today's politics are very divided and lines definitively drawn. For the most part I believe that modern U.S. voting politics are more about loyalty than choice.
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posted
Silkie, his point is that there are so many ways to lie with stats, and polls, that even if the people follow all the rules there are planty of ways fo FUBAR the results.
At least that is what I think his point was...that despite all the polls no one really knows.
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posted
Frankly, it doesn't matter if the party in power changes. What matters is that the character of those in power change.
As far as I'm concerned, the Republicans can stay in power as long as they renounce the people and ideas that have led their party so astray in the past decade. We need leaders who have enough foresight to see the fault in thinking that it is okay to use any means, no matter how unethical or immoral, to achieve whatever political ends they desire at the present moment. Whether it is breaking the law to gain extra reelection money, circumventing torture restrictions and ignoring civil liberties in order to fight a campaign against terror, or just preemptively invading nations without just cause to advance our foreign policy, those in power now seem to think they can do whatever they want. This is what must change in politics, rather than the party.
And the opposite is also true - electing Democrats will change nothing if they bring the same arrogance and lack of foresight with them. Even if we just elect moderates, it will still do nothing if they don't have the character we need in our leaders. Corrupt moderates, corrupt liberals, corrupt conservatives - the difference between them is not so great.
Where are the politicians with character, with wisdom to think beyond simplistic immediate goals and see the value of the principles on which America was founded? The problem is not that the public hasn't been ready for them. The problem is that our system seems to somehow prevent them from ever becoming candidates for leadership. Instead it seems to favor people who will manipulate and commit any act, ethical or not, in order to advance their own ideology - it favors the Roves and DeLays of the world. They tend to achieve their goal, they push their ideology into action, and because all the flaws in that ideology go unchecked, disaster inevitably results. Then the curtain comes down, the people demand new leadership, but seem to always end up with the same sort of corrupt leadership, only with a different ideology that will eventually also fail in turn.
I'm ready for a change, but not just a change in the ideology of our government leaders. Instead I would like to see a change in the character of our leaders - I would like to see us elect leaders who are wise and principled decision makers, rather than just leaders who happen to share the positions we do on whatever issues we happen to think are important at the time. I would like to see us vote good people into office, rather than a party or even an ideology.
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posted
I have read up on the way professional independant polls are done. In the wake of the Bush reelection, there were a lot of articles studying just how the pollsters got it so wrong. I also have taught statistics, so I'm quite well-versed on sampling methods. My point is simply that I no longer believe in the accuracy of polls in matters such as these. It's too hard to have a good sample, because people are not as single-faceted as their sampling techniques would suggest. Do all Baptist African-American women living in Missouri feel the same way on all political issues? And how does willingess to stay on the phone with some yahoo who calls you in the middle of the evening answering questions skew your sample?
Sorry--I just don't believe in polls as a meaningful reflection of what "the people" feel.
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This is not really a true statement. Even though pollsters may do a fair job at random sampling, the way the questions are asked will often lead to the results the pollsters want to see.
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I have read up on the way professional independant polls are done. In the wake of the Bush reelection, there were a lot of articles studying just how the pollsters got it so wrong. I also have taught statistics, so I'm quite well-versed on sampling methods. My point is simply that I no longer believe in the accuracy of polls in matters such as these. It's too hard to have a good sample, because people are not as single-faceted as their sampling techniques would suggest. Do all Baptist African-American women living in Missouri feel the same way on all political issues? And how does willingess to stay on the phone with some yahoo who calls you in the middle of the evening answering questions skew your sample?
Sorry--I just don't believe in polls as a meaningful reflection of what "the people" feel.
I can understand your disillusionment with the system, Icarus. Yes, data can be manipulated with trick questions, Krankykat. And Tresopax I agree that it is the character of the person, not the Party affiliation, that matters. I am one of those infamous 'swing' voters who votes for the person, not the Party.
Did you read the many articles that questioned the legitimacy of Bush's 'win' in Ohio? The raw data from exit polls clearly showed Bush losing.
Exit Polls are among the MOST reliable polls. The 'population' is captive, all of them did vote, and they are interviewed literally as they leave the polls. Nobody called them during dinner, and it is a simple quick, face to face session. No trick questions. The United Nations' teams that monitor Third World Nation elections use exit Poll Data to monitor for rigged elections. It is extremely unlikely that Bush was reelected, given that Exit Poll Raw Data.
Now I'll be called 'paranoid' for questioning the legitimacy of Bush's reelection. Well, there is plenty of reason to doubt the results of that election.
It has been proven that the Diebold machines are unreliable. In Miami, Diebold machines, acquired after the 'Chad' debacles of 2001, are being decommissioned. It was proven beyond a doubt that the Software program that tallies votes from those machines can easily be hacked, and then the vote totals can be changed with a few keystrokes. Diebold Machines were decommissioned in the State of California for the same reasons.
There were also a host of proven 'mistakes' by the Diebold machines in Ohio. 'Mistakes' like people pushing the button for Kerry, and having Bush pop up as their choice. 'Mistakes' like more votes being recorded in a District than there were voters in that District. 'Mistakes' like extra machines in Republican Districts, and too few machines, or malfunctioning/broken machines in poor predominantly Democratic districts. Remember the long lines, and as much as an 8 hour wait to vote for some people?
ALL of those 'mistakes' ... not just one or two but ALL the Diebold Machine mistakes ... were in favor of Bush. And there was no paper trail to recount. I could go on and on, but I will leave it there.
In my opinion the Pollsters did not get it wrong.
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: In the wake of the Bush reelection, there were a lot of articles studying just how the pollsters got it so wrong.
quote:How could the exit polls in this year's presidential election have diverged so drastically from the results that election officials and the media announced? Professor Steven Freeman, a statistician at the University of Pennsylvania, offers a disturbing answer. Looking at the exit polls and announced results in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania, he concludes that the odds against such an accidental discrepancy in all three states together was 250 million to one. "As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error." Read Dr. Freeman's well-reasoned, well-written argument, and make up your own mind. -- sw
quote: This is not really a true statement. Even though pollsters may do a fair job at random sampling, the way the questions are asked will often lead to the results the pollsters want to see.
Well...yes and no. It's often the case that pollsters do a wonderful job of writing what they believe to be neutral questions, only to have the question be interpreted differently by the people who answer it. And...the more insidious problem with all of this is that people may just choose to say one thing, and act in a different way when it comes to putting their choice down on a ballot.
I happen to be preparing a presentation about this issue in my own field of traffic safety. The title of my talk is "it's the basics."
And, ultimately, the way to judge the accuracy of polling in general is how well it has done in the past, and, in a post-hoc analysis, how well it did in the current instance. By that standard, it does appear that polls have become less reliable in recent years. How can that be?
#1 reason: a truly random sample of Americans, even those who claim to be likely voters in the upcoming election, may not be representative of the people who actually drag their butts to the polls the 2nd Tuesday in November (or whenver). As the proportion of eligible voters who actually vote declines, polls of "likely voters" randomly selected from the population at large become less and less reliable.
#2 reason: people lie to pollsters, or misconstrue, or don't want to think about it at that moment the way they might spend more effort when the election is upon them.
There are just some questions that people are going to answer one way when they are dealing interpersonally, or think they might be watched and another way if things are truly anonymous. No poll is ever truly anonymous the way a ballot is because pollsters can't allow for self-selected samples the way ballots ARE (and must be). Ask people if they think a poll is truly anonymous -- most will say no, I suspect. If you called me on the phone, you know who I am. If you mailed me a poll, you know my name and address. Sure, you coded the thing, but it's not anonymous the way a ballot is.
Different conditions yeild different answers.
#3 reason: Some people USE the polls to make a point. This is kind of related to #2, but more deliberate. I may be a staunch party loyalist when it comes time to vote, but that doesn't mean that I can't "send a message" of my displeasure when it comes to an otherwise meaningless poll (i.e., it doesn't truly affect anything). So...I might say when polled that I really think the economy is in big trouble, and that I'm going to vote against the majority party, but what I'm really saying in my mind is "hey guys, you'd better pay more attention to me if you want me to donate again this year."
I don't mind polls, I just think we need to understand that they have profound limitations and only use them for what they are good for -- a gauge of current favor/disfavor, not especially linkable to people's motivations (which we wish we could know) for their answers, or how they will track to eventual voting behavior in the longer term.
I sincerely wish that news organizations would NOT fund polls, though. To me, it's an artificial way of creating news when there really isn't any. Poll numbers are not news. They are news about news, at best. It's meta-news.
IMNSHO
And I want to edit to add reason #4:
Ever been polled in person or over the phone? How well do believe the person was trained? If you asked a question during the poll, could the person answer it? How did they handle comments that you made? If you waffled on a selection, what did they do?
Here's where the basics really come into play. Polling organizations run the gamut, but even the best of them do not retain a full-time dedicated staff of professionals who stay in their jobs as poll takers for the long haul. This is not a career path opportunity. In most instances, it's a "pick-up" job with rapid-fire training and much of that is on how to operate the equipment (the phone and the poll recording interface). They are ill paid and not particularly interested in this job.
On the one hand, that probably means they aren't all that likely to bias the results. Or..., as has happened more than once that I know of personally, the poll takers screw it up on purpose, because they don't give a flip. How many "bad pollsters" would it take to screw up a sample of 1000 households? Not many.
I've found poll takers filling out their forms on the bus ride home from their employers'. Seriously. Several different color pens, fill 'em out. Fake the times. Turn it in. Get paid.
I'm not saying this is at all prevalent. But I know of NO polling institution that monitors the quality of every single answer provided. They couldn't possibly afford to. And there are just some things you can't correct for statistically. It doesn't just come out in the wash if you have a disgruntled employee writing down fake answers.
posted
I hung up on the last poll I took part in - the questions were completely leading. "Do you believe this because of (A) or (B)?"... what if I don't believe it period? Not an option.
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posted
Thanks for your (as always!) balanced point of view Bob.
As mentioned on another thread, I worked for a polling company for a while many years ago. I didn't work on the phones, though the company I worked for did some phone polls. Usually students did the phone polls, since it was night work and fit their schedules. I often worked independently in the field, alone or with one or two other people, in retail stores usually, or in a mall.
In my opinion the polls I administered were well designed and impartial. I sincerely cared and did my best to be impartial when I did poll interviews, since that's who I am. I saw others who sometimes fudged on demographic requirements just to get a warm body. That didn't happen in the actual polls though, since we were often monitored, and never knew when we were being monitored. Like anything with public contact, quality assurance just depends on the individual you connect with, and/or the company's integrity. From what I have experienced I believe that the Major Polling companies do their best to maintain impartiality, and quality.
Bob is right when he says it is usually NOT a career job. My Major in college was Sociology. In real life I discovered that with that major you can get a cup of coffee at the going price, as long as you tip well. If I'd only known when I declared that Major what I know now - but that is another thread! I decided to change 'careers' when I was offered what I thought was a pretty nice job by Gallup. In the final interview I found out the job was classified as 'part-time' and had no benefits and no future. Idealism doesn't pay the bills.
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