July 13, 2011
Why most polls suck
Any one who reads me, or even hangs around me for any length of time, will find out I’m not a big fan of polls.
There’s just too many things that can tilt a poll one way or another.
Oh, you want me to name some? Gladly. Size of the sample, who’s in the sample, how the question is worded, the order of the choices, if my wife mouthed off to me this morning, if I woke up with a headache, if I’m getting ready to go out, ideological leaning of the one taking the poll, You want me to go on?
This is not to say there’s no value in polls. For example, I will use polling results in responding to liberals about some issue they are big on. I do this because liberals love polls.
For example, only 27% Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstance, in other words like it is now.
But I’m just playing with them.
Long prelude to get to this:
A new Gallup Poll finds that just 26% of GOP voters think a deal to lift the debt ceiling should consist entirely of spending cuts.
The vast majority of Republicans believe that at least some tax revenue increases are necessary, which is contrary to the current position of the Republican congressional leadership.
Nate Silver: “The Republicans in the House of Representatives are extremely conservative on fiscal matters and are significantly out of step with the public as a whole.” [emphasis mine]
via Most GOP Voters See Need for Revenue Increases.
I’m like, “Whoa. Really?”
So I looked up the poll. Here’s the table:
This is one of those (frankly useless) polls that both sides can get something from. I guess pollsters do this so no one will get mad at them.
Because what Mr. Goddard wrote is correct. Because tax increases are included in every choice but one.
Clever, eh? I love how they did that!
And Republicans can say, “Half of the American people want the deficit to be reduced by mostly spending cuts.”
See how easy that is?
The more choices there are, the better chance to find a majority that favors your point of view.
But sometimes it’s hard to tell anything from a poll. In that same Gallop poll (3rd question), 51% of Americans are concerned the government would raise the debt ceiling without cutting spending. And (4th question) 46% trust Republican leaders rather than Obama (43%) to handle the issues concerning the budget and debt ceiling.
And everyone knows that web polls are even more useless, right? Like this one. I wouldn’t mind voting but they don’t have a choice that matches mine.
Related articles
- Gallup Poll: Public Overwhelmingly Prefers Spending Cuts to Tax Increases (themoderatevoice.com)
- Poll: Tax changes unpopular solution to debt (politico.com)
July 12, 2011
Political cartoon of the day 2011-07-12
UPDATE: LOL! Year corrected…
Amplify’d from theweek.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a17pdv
July 11, 2011
Recall elections begin.
Well, the next six weeks will be exciting. Or maybe not.
The first round of recall election process begin Tuesday. Here’s the schedule from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Tuesday [July 12] is election day for Democratic primaries in six Republican-held Senate districts.
July 19 is the general election in the district of Sen. Dave Hansen D-Green Bay, and Republican primary day in two other Democrat-held districts.
Aug. 9 is the general election in the Republican districts.
Aug. 16 is the general election in the two Democratic districts.
In this round, the fake Democrats (Everyone knows they’re fake now right? We don’t have to hide any longer? And we do know the Democrats have done something very similar in the past, don’t we?) will be in a primary with the real Democrats (just to keep it simple for everyone, especially me).
Oh, speak of keeping it simple here’s a nice little graphic (PDF file):
Now if it was my preference, the fake Democrats (far right column in above graphic) would win the primary and then the general election. But my preferences rarely come to pass.
Now one more thing, which everyone knows, is that there is going to be a boatload of money spent by both sides, a lot of coming from outside the state.
I actually think this is good because I believe people should be able to spend their money the way they want to. Democrats will spend just as much as Republicans even though they pretend to not want to do it. They just have to protect us from evil Republicans.
I used to agree with what the Editorial Board said about recall elections:
But that doesn’t mean these elections are a good idea. In fact, they are a very bad idea – an extreme overreaction born from a long season of overreaction.
[snip]
Recalls should be used to punish gross malfeasance or corruption – something that cannot wait for the normal election cycle – not to overturn the results of an election or to dispute policy differences.
But this money helps the economy maybe even creating some jobs, which is good for the state. Maybe other states will put recall elections in place in other states to boost their employment rates. #sarcasm
Because Wisconsin’s job market, though not as robust as we would like, and slipping a bit last month (PDF file), is still the envy of many states and certainly the federal government.
July 11, 2011
