Why do I smell a rat w/ so many polls right now?
After the first debate polls showed Romney closing the gap w the President
because of his strong performance in that debate but now with Obama's over-
whelming win in his second debate I have yet to see a solid bump in the polls
for the President. Something just doesn't add up.
?d=600
talk me down please ..... I feel we are in for some really bad news.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And the laughingstock of the political world.
According to the political scientist / blogger Jonathan Bernstein "...what we should do with every polling number. Ignore it, and look at the polling averages and the good poll-based predictions." (http://plainblogaboutpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/10/yes-gallup-is-probably-goofy-so-what.html).
I stumbled on him as a reference from HuffPost's Jason Linkins earlier. Yes, Gallup is an outlier, with very questionable results historically favoring Corporazi candidates. However, this race is going to be very, very close (so the averages tell us).
A great "averager" is Nate Silver. It's worthwhile, if the poll itch must be scratched, to bookmark his 538 section of the NYT site (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/).
Then "ignore it."
Polls are not magical incantations; they hold no special power — other than to depress voter turnout if they do not say reassuring things.
The thing that does have magical power? GOTV. Get. Out. The. Vote. Everbody must vote, and stay in the rain, wait out the long lines, whatever the Corporazis throw at us. They are trying to steal our democracy, and we must stop them by exercising the very thing they want to steal from us.
VOTE (and do everything in your power to ensure every anti-Corporazi votes, if it means volunteer phone banking, knocking on doors, car pooling to the polls, etc.).
