Polling And The Nature Of Miracles

Funny that important and long-serving Democrat John Murtha is in trouble in Pennsylvania and while the Dems have poured in some money, I'm unaware of any call to the top of the ticket to drop by and help.

I imagine recent headlines have many people thinking it will take a miracle for John McCain to win Tuesday's election. But that really isn't the case. All it would take is for one rather simple error to be replicating itself through most prominent polling firms this year. If they have over-estimated Democrat versus Republican voter ID and subsequent turn-out numbers by only a point or two, we could be in for a surprise by Tuesday night.

Below are some key examples - admittedly a rose-colored glasses interpretation that makes the race close, even without that simple error.

You can pick your major poll and depending on how you pick one or a few, the case can be made that the race for President is too close to call.

Both Mason Dixon and Rasmussen have Pennsylvania just within the margin of error.

Two pollsters have Ohio just one point above the MOE for Obama.

In Virginia it's three.

Florida two - and the same for Nevada.

What is most important now is not the headlines. It's that everyone does their patriotic duty on November second and gets out to vote. November 4 - unless you are voting for Obama. He's having a special election day on November 6. Make sure you wait, voting too soon only wastes your vote.

And be sure to help knock-off Murtha if you can afford it, no matter what.

A final campaign rally for Republican 12th District candidate William Russell has been scheduled for this weekend. Russell Campaign Manager Peg Luksik announced the final rally will be held Sunday November 2, 2008, at the DAYS INN in New Stanton, PA at 2:00PM. “This is an opportunity for all of our campaign staff, poll workers, individuals and supporters to come together for one last, big event before election day,” said Luksik.

Luksik also announced that several national conservative organizations including; Gun Owners of America, Move America Forward, Veterans for Freedom and the Minutemen have all asked to participate.
“This has been a campaign unlike any other in America,” said Bill Russell. “I invite anyone who hasn’t yet had a chance to meet with me, to come to this event.”

Comments

[BobinStamford]

"It's that everyone does their patriotic duty on November second and gets out to vote."

Um, today is November 2nd. Enjoy the slaughter, patriot!

SURGE ON!!!

[Lala]

SHOCK Audio Unearthed OBAMA TELLS SAN FRANCISCO HE WILL BANKRUPT THE COAL INDUSTRY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdi4onAQBWQ

[BobinStamford]

So much for the last-ditch voter ID argument.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111124/Gallup-Daily-Likely-Voters-Traditional.aspx

2 days to MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

[Fred Beloit]

Little Green Footballs has the entire Weather Underground book Prairie Fire. Obie's friend and associate's[Ayers] contribution to the recorded savagery of revolutionaries.
http://site2.littlegreenfootballs.com/pdf/Prairie-fire-part01.pdf

[sas]

hey, it's November FOURTH, not 2d!

[ajacksonian]

Until the polls start reporting the people not wanting to participate in the poll and put that into the mix, they are adding bias into their sampling techniques by only reporting on those willing to talk to pollsters. That would be very interesting to see if it is above the MOE... and reduce the numbers of those reported to demonstrate the amount based on the entire set of people asked to take the poll. Note that those not willing to take the poll are not necessarily 'undecided', as you cannot place them because there is no data on them. Strangely enough you can't poll them to find their demographic break-out, either... because they won't do polls.

It might, however, start showing how much people are fed up with polls.

[mary]

dan, when watching SNL last night I noted a theme that has come up in the last couple of days. The sketch with Elizabeth Hasselback and the view "gals". Notice, they have started to attack the internet. The very means they used when BO first came on the scene, the very medium where he stealthily introduced himself to the young voters is now being mocked? In passing the other day heard someone say that people are turning to the internet for imfo. Well, they aren't turning to the newspapers who are laying people off left and right. They aren't turning to the MSM as you can't tell which channel you have on anymore the "talking points" mouthed by the reporters are, well, the same. Maybe America finally appreciates the hard work the blogesphere is doing!

[jharp]

"Polling And The Nature Of Miracles"

http://www.pollster.com/

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

[Bruno Laksevaag]

Is it true that W Bush is the least popular president in the history? Even Nixon was more popular (after Watergate).

http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm

But go a head, beat the record. Elect "the very old man" like they used to do in a USSR. When he dies you will have Palin! And that will probably be the end of Bush's record.
We outside the US thinks it has been fun to watch W lead you. We feel sorry for the result, and who ever needs to fix the mess, but it has been funny to watch.

It is said that the US have started torturing people, and without proper justice, and it is said that your let children suffer because of your selfishness. Most scary is the fact that lying about important tings like Weapons of Mass Destruction is OK in the US, and that you have no system for this method for misleading dangerously faulty decisions. Strange? What if Bush and Cheney wanted to attach Russia and used the same destructive methods. What would stop them from WW3?

It’s a good thing the final safety-barrier is the democracy. 8 years with W has really hurt the Republicans, and it will take a long time before it heals. Maybe, with Palin it will be the final end.

Good luck,
Dr. Strangelove

[Lala]

Bruno,
Your country is being taken over by islamofascists. They are streaming in from Albania, the worst of the worst. Good luck.

[Lala]

Norwegians will soon be a minority in their own country

Birth rate for Norway

Total fertility rate: 1.90 children born/woman (2006)

TFR for Norwegian residents by country of birth in 2004: Norway (1.8), Somalia (4.4), Iraq (4.3), Morocco (3.6), Pakistan (3.2), Turkey (2.3), Iran (1.6), Vietnam (2.0), Sri Lanka (2.7), India (1.8), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1.7). [1]

[jharp]

Lala,

So what if Norwegian residents born in other countries have higher birth rates? Would it be a problem if their skin was white? If they were Christians?

You are a racist and a bigot. And no, Norwegians will not soon be a minority in their own country. All of them are Norwegians. You racist asshole.

[Worst President Ever]

It's over - the Fat Lady's warming up. The only question now is whether it's marginally close, or a landslide. My money's on landslide cause all the momentum's on Obama's side.

Looks like the conspiracy nuts can move on - Obama's Birth Certificate has been Confirmed

HONOLULU -- The state's Department of Health director on Friday released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate.

http://www.kitv.com/politics/17860890/detail.html?rss=hon&psp=news

[Lala]

Biden going to South Philadelphia Monday night

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=7771853&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=1.1.1

[Fred Beloit]

Meanwhile, while we are preoccupied with the election, the Democraticic culture of corruption continues to do its damage. From the New York Post:

"Rep. Charles Rangel has not hired the forensic accountant he said he needed in order to provide answers regarding his messy tax records, The Post has learned.
Meanwhile, the Harlem Democrat has paid more than $120,000 in campaign money to a law firm to represent him in the scandal.
Rangel, the powerful chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, paid $121,436 in fees to the Chicago office of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe on Oct. 1. The payment came from his campaign fund, Rangel for Congress."

[Lala]

http://israelinsider.ning.com/profiles/blogs/hawaiian-officials-admit

According to an AP report, Hawaii Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday that she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate.

But they won't say one word about what's on it.

Conspicuously, Hawaiian officials refuse to confirm that the information on the "original" certificate conforms to what has appeared on the "Certification of Live Birth" produced in 2007 that has so far been passed off as original by the Obama "Fight the Smears" site (here) and the Annenberg-backed site FactCheck.org (here). The latter dedicated a photoshoot to examining in pornographic detail a computer-generated facsimile that may bear no relation to the original document that the State of Hawaii now admits holding.

Can anyone smell "red herring"?

All of the obfuscation, which has been going on for more than four months, begs the question that the Obama campaign and its media supporters have steadfastly refused to answer: why won't the original birth certificate be released?

Why can't the Obama campaign do as the McCain campaign did, and release the original, typewritten document that the State of Hawaii, finally and in the last days before the election, admits exists in its "vaults"? What could be so damaging or contradictory that Obama has felt the need to keep hidden all these years and has created elaborate cover-ups to put forward computer-abstracted certification of live certificate instead of the original birth certificate?

[Fred Beloit]

Wow, harpo is really showing himself to be a rude, obnoxious pig boy. And we are told by him that the socialists are winning. Winners should be more gracious, shouldn't they? I think the truth is they are frightened to death they will lose. They remember 2000 and 2004. They are sick to their stomachs and biting themselves viciously on the backs of their necks. Not a pretty sight to see, Lala.

[Worst President Ever]

"the Democraticic culture of corruption"

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the last elected official convicted of a felony was the REPUBLICAN Ted Stevens - Senator from Alaska.

[Lala]

Or was it Kwame Kirkpatrick

[Lala]

Fred,
Patterico kicked him off for good reason, not only that, they erased ALL his posts. hahahahahaha

[Lala]

Wexler (D) is in a lot of trouble in Florida, where he doesn't live, but where he represents the people, isn''t that strange?

[jharp]

"Wow, harpo is really showing himself to be a rude, obnoxious pig boy."

Call it however you see it.

Lala is a bigot and a racist and I won't let that go unchallenged. There is no place for it in our great country.

And the only socialist is George Bush. Nationalizing the banks? AIG?

W is the biggest disgrace of a President in our countries history.

[jharp]

Interesting world, the right wing blogosphere.

Making a racist and bigoted post is fine. Calling someone out on it makes you a rude obnoxious pig boy.

Some fine upstanding priorities wingnuts. You should be very proud.

[Lala]

Another crooked Dem - owed $300,000 in taxes and penalties

A state official says Gov. David Paterson's embattled chief of staff is resigning after it was revealed he had to pay nearly $300,000 in taxes and penalties that went unpaid for years.

The state official close to the decision says Charles O'Byrne's resignation was accepted with regret by Paterson, his close friend. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because Paterson hadn't yet announced the decision.

O'Byrne, who has ties to the Kennedy family, has said clinical depression kept him from paying taxes from 2001 to 2005, before he took the job titled secretary to the governor.

O'Byrne's problems were first made public in the New York Post on Saturday and O'Byrne has been fighting against mounting pressure to keep his $178,500-a-year job since.

[Fred Beloit]

"Patterico kicked him off for good reason, not only that, they erased ALL his[Harpo's] posts."

Oh noes. Think of the loss to our culture, our national heritage.

[jharp]

Sen. Barack Obama is beating Sen. John McCain in Iowa by a huge 17 point margin, 54% to 37%, according to a new Des Moines Register Iowa Poll.

"If that kind of margin is reflected in what happens on Election Day, it would be the largest presidential margin in Iowa since Richard Nixon beat George McGovern by 17.1 percentage points in the state in 1972."

Is this what the wingnuts mean by the late undecided white voters breaking to McCain?

Landslide!

[Fred Beloit]

"And the only socialist is George Bush. Nationalizing the banks? AIG?" Liar. Harpo, I notice that the Demo[n}s in Congress cheered him on the while. Did Obama object? DID OBAMA OBJECT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

[Fred Beloit]

"Des Moines Register Iowa Poll."
Harpo, take notice of the word "poll". A poll by a news rag who endorsed Obie. We call this hard science.

[Fred Beloit]

"
Norwegians will soon be a minority in their own country
Birth rate for Norway
Total fertility rate: 1.90 children born/woman (2006)
TFR for Norwegian residents by country of birth in 2004: Norway (1.8), Somalia (4.4), Iraq (4.3), Morocco (3.6), Pakistan (3.2), Turkey (2.3), Iran (1.6), Vietnam (2.0), Sri Lanka (2.7), India (1.8), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (1.7). [1]"

It is quite clear, Harpo, that Lala ts writing here about naturalized vs native birth rates. Only in your fevered brain would someone interpret these facts as racist.

[Fred Beloit]

If I were a Norwegian, Harpo, I would not be worried about racism in the future. I would be worried about the intolerance of Muslims toward gays, women, and free speech, and your favorite right, the right to booze[aqvavite anyone?]. Now tell me you would gladly live under sharia law, Harpo. Common tell me that.

[Lala]

The muslims in Norway are requesting "alcohol-free" nights in discos and clubs.

[jharp]

Bruno,
Your country is being taken over by islamofascists. They are streaming in from Albania, the worst of the worst. Good luck.

Posted by: Lala | Sunday, November 02, 2008 at 10:25 AM

This is the post the racist Lala made and to which I refer. And the racist Lala followed it up with the higher birth rates of non native Norwegians.
__________________________________________________________________________

I would be worried about the intolerance of Muslims toward gays, women, and free speech, and your favorite right, the right to booze[aqvavite anyone?].

Posted by: Fred Beloit | Sunday, November 02, 2008 at 11:42 AM

Kind of like the U.S.A. huh. And just so you know I do not have the right to buy booze on Sundays and elections days here in the redstate racist bigotted land of Indiana.

[jharp]

The muslims in Norway are requesting "alcohol-free" nights in discos and clubs.

Posted by: Lala | Sunday, November 02, 2008 at 11:46 AM

Do you mean like the Christofacists in Indiana that ban alcohol sales on Sunday's and election day?

[Fred Beloit]

Lala, I can't imagine how all those Muslims in Oslo attending a disco will properly manage bobbing their heads to the right rear and then back to the center over and over again without copious amounts of aqvavit to assist them.

[Fred Beloit]

Christofacists in Indiana? Preventing the sale of booze on Sunday? This means war. Or does it simply mean democracy in action? Harpo, I have some advice that you should consider seriously taking. Buy booze enough on Saturday to get you safely through the weekend.

[Lala]

In New York the bars have to close at 4:00 AM. Must be those Christianists at work.

[jharp]

"Harpo, I have some advice that you should consider seriously taking. Buy booze enough on Saturday to get you safely through the weekend."

I do. However if I opt to play golf on election day, which I often do, I cannot buy beer at the course nor am I allowed to bring my own.

Christofacism at work.

[jharp]

Today.

Chuck Todd: Well, it's a simple math problem that he's got. Heres our columns here. Im going to put all of the current tossup states in McCain's column and watch his number as it grows right up here. If you move all of these states over, Indiana, North Dakota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, and Nevada -- you see the problem he's got. He's still at 252. 18 short. So what does that mean? If he pulls a Pennsylvania over, we see Obama goes down to 265, McCain gets his 273. Then you ask why New Hampshire? Thats the insurance policy. Nevada, a state that Obama right now has that narrow lead in, if that went to him, then McCain would need New Hampshire to get back over his 270. So it is the only path he's got left. They know this and that's why they had to figure out how to put Pennsylvania back in play. We don't know if it really is. We know he's spending a lot of time there and they had to figure out if New Hampshire, a state that's been incredibly kind to McCain's political career in the past, to see if it can resurrect him one more time.

Please be reminded McCain has to win ALL of the swing states (he trails in 6 of them). And win Pennsylvania (he's down by 8%).

http://www.pollster.com/polls/pa/08-pa-pres-ge-mvo.php

It's over. It's done. Our next President.

Barack Hussein Obama. Get used to it.

[jharp]

More happiness.

The final CNN poll appears to push leaners, leaving only 1% undecided and having Obama at 53 and McCain at 46. This is significant because it puts the poll to the test - it leaves no room for "undecideds breaking to McCain." It has McCain at a realistic number - McCain is not going to pull 42% on Tuesday.

While there is divergence on the margin of victory, there is not a single poll that has McCain winning the election.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/11/2/113542/767

[Fred Beloit]

Harpo: "However if I opt to play golf on election day, which I often do, I cannot buy beer at the course nor am I allowed to bring my own."

Well, well. Golf in Indiana on November 4. No wonder you need booze. May the wind be at your back and, since you may be drunk, I suppose the fairway will rise up to meet you.

[jharp]

Fred,

It's to be 72 and sunny here Tues. Not only will I play, I'll play in shorts. And we often get to play in November. You know, global warming and all.

And the same Christofacist laws apply to the primaries as well.

It can be quite embarrassing. I have entertained customers on the golf course on election day and they were astounded and wouldn't come back under similar circumstances.

[Dan Riehl]

"hey, it's November FOURTH, not 2d! "

Shh, that was just to confuse the moronic liberals here.

[Fred Beloit]

Harpo: "I have entertained customers on the golf course on election day and they were astounded and wouldn't come back under similar circumstances."

My goodness gracious, what a sportsmen-like bunch of drunks. Don't they have flasks? (A tip to the wise customer briber, a Christmas gift hint.)

[PA]

"in Iowa by a huge 17 point margin"

(I)diots (O)out (W)alking (A)round

[mark l.]

not where I want to be, but I'll still wait for the polls to come in...

I think there is a ton of reliance on national polls due to their accuracy in 04,
but looking in the context of 2000, the previous election to 2004, it turns out that they were horrible.

cnn/time-bush 49, gore 43. bush gained nothing from the prediction, gore gained +6.
rassmussen had gore 49-40. gore gained nothing, bush gained 9.

I am extremely heartened by the mason/dixon numbers as they were correct in all states in 04(except mn), and they now show mccain leading in oh, nc, and mo...

mccain's chances remain solid. Is he the favorite, by all means, no.

so where does mccain stand?
let's use the rassmussen table...which privdes for a very favorable scenario for obama, but in the context of them missing 2000 by 9 pts...

safe and likely mccain has 160.

the toss ups...
IN/11 MO/11 MT/3 NC/15 NV/5 OH/20, total 65.

mccain takes all six, which is rather consistent with the current mason/dixon number which provide for wins in OH,NC,MO, +2, +3, +1 which is provided as of today and considering mccain hold an advantage in the rcp average in IN, MT, we are left with NV as the outlier agianst mccain taking all 6 toss ups.

mason dixon has obama by 4 in NV, but 10% remain undecided-(47-43).

mccain goes to 225, still needing 45.

Which to choose from?
CO/9, FL/27, VA/13, PA/21, are the ones that jump out, but I wouldn't confine all possibliites to come exclusively from this collection.

how is mccain doing in mason dixon in the above?
within moe in FL(-2), VA(-3), PA(-4), just missing moe CO(-5).

So where does mccain stand?
within the margin of error on the most accurate state polls from 2004, he still has the potential to win 286 electoral votes.

even a modest shift, making a very large assumption that candidates are going to draw equivalent turnout along those line, and mccain pulls off a victory.

If turnout among thse states favor mccain, he will win.

[mark l.]

I actually should not have included CO, as it is outside moe by 1 pt,

but to state, more correctly, and briefly:

"If you use the most accurate state polling from 2004/mason dixon, their numbers provide for McCain, within the margin of error, a possible 277 electoral votes."

considering the possibilities of poor weighting, voter turnout, and the bradley effect, all three of which favor mccain, and I am quite happy where this all stands. Gallup providing a larger margin will actually cause some damage to dem turnout, as they are reliant upon minorities, single mothers, moderate dems, and youth voters.

[North Dallas Thirty]

"Lala is a bigot and a racist and I won't let that go unchallenged. There is no place for it in our great country."

Except when it's people supported by Barack Obama.

"Like other leaders of the rites of passage movement, Carruthers teaches that the true birthplace of world civilization was ancient “Kemet” (Egypt), from which Kemetic philosophy supposedly spread to Africa as a whole. Carruthers and his colleagues believe that the values of Kemetic civilization are far superior to the isolating and oppressive, ancient Greek-based values of European and American civilization. Although academic Egyptologists and anthropologists strongly reject these historical claims, Carruthers dismisses critics as part of a white supremacist conspiracy to hide the truth of African superiority.

Carruthers’s key writings are collected in his book, Intellectual Warfare. Reading it is a wild, anti-American ride. In his book, we learn that Carruthers and his like-minded colleagues have formed an organization called the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), which takes as its mission the need to “dismantle the European intellectual campaign to commit historicide against African peoples.” Carruthers includes “African-Americans” within a group he would define as simply “African.” When forced to describe a black person as “American,” Carruthers uses quotation marks, thus indicating that no black person can be American in any authentic sense. According to Carruthers, “The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.”

Carruthers’s goal is to use African-centered education to recreate a separatist universe within America, a kind of state-within-a-state. The rites of passage movement is central to the plan. Carruthers sees enemies on every part of the political spectrum, from conservatives, to liberals, to academic leftists, all of whom reject advocates of Kemetic civilization, like himself, as dangerous and academically irresponsible extremists. Carruthers sees all these groups as deluded captives of white supremacist Eurocentric culture. Therefore the only safe place for Africans living in the United States (i.e. American blacks) is outside the mental boundaries of our ineradicably racist Eurocentric civilization. As Carruthers puts it: “...some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our disrupted ancestral culture.” The rites of passage movement is a way to teach young Africans in the United States how to reject America and recover their authentic African heritage."

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTQ0YjhlOGVhYjQ0OWRhZjI2MmM4NTQ4NGM5Mjg0MzU=

Black racism is perfectly acceptable to jharp; in fact, he, like Barack Obama, supports it being taught in public schools.

"Carruthers is a defender of Leonard Jeffries, professor in the department of black studies at City College in Harlem, infamous for his black supremacist and anti-Semitic views. Jeffries sees whites as oppressive and violent “ice people,” in contrast to peaceful and mutually supportive black “sun people.” The divergence says Jeffries, is attributable to differing levels of melanin in the skin. Jeffries also blames Jews for financing the slave trade. Carruthers defends Jeffries and excoriates the prestigious black academics Carruthers views as traitorous for denouncing their African brother, Jeffries. Carruthers’s vision of the superior and peaceful Kemetic philosophy of Ptahhotep triumphing over Greco-Euro-American-white culture obviously parallels Jeffries’ opposition between ice people and sun people.

More of Carruthers’s education philosophy can be found in his newsletter, The Kemetic Voice. In 1997, for example, at the same time Carruthers was advising SSAVC on how to set up an African-centered curriculum, he praised the decision of New Orleans’ School Board to remove the name of George Washington from an elementary school. Apparently, some officials in New Orleans had decided that nobody who held slaves should have a school named after him. Carruthers touted the name-change as proof that his African-centered perspective was finally having an effect on public policy. At the demise of George Washington School, Carruthers crowed: “These events remind us of how vast the gulf is that separates the Defenders of Western Civilization from the Champions of African Civilization.”

According to Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, Carruthers’s training session on African-centered curricula for SSAVC teachers was a huge hit: “As a consciousness raising session, it received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey....” These teacher-training workshops were directly funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Another sure sign of the ideological cast of SSAVC’s curriculum can be found in Annenberg documents noting that SSAVC students are taught the wisdom of Ptahhotep. Carruthers’s concerns about “menticide” and “genocide” at the hand of America’s white supremacist system seem to be echoed in an SSAVC document that says: “Our children need to understand the historical context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us.”"

Jharp and his fellow liberals like Bruno are racists of the worst sort -- and they support racial hate being taught in schools at the behest of Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.