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That's odd, considering that just five days ago 77% said Wikileaks was a threat to National Security.

I wonder where you are getting your data? Did you read a poll of Wikileaks supporters or something? Hell, according to the Zogby poll over 50% of Americans believe Wikileaks should be considered a terrorist organization and should be treated as such.

Kinda conflicts with your made up numbers, there.

There was the original CBS poll that showed 80% support. That was before anybody was paying attention (and who knows how they phrased the question). Then the Washington Post/ABC poll with 64% support for the scanners, 48% support for molesting. Zogby has a more recent poll showing even more public opposition (the raw data isn't available but 61% oppose scanning and molesting).

the online survey collected the opinions of 2100 adults, with "slight weights" added to region, party, age, race, gender and education "to more accurately reflect the population."

http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.cfm?ID=19402

Does anybody else not like how this sounds? They just admitted to purposefully changing the results to more adequately suit how they think they should have turned out. Granted, it may be less sinister than I just made it sound, but then again it may not be. I'd feel much better knowing what the raw data they collected was, and THEN seeing what the data was once it was altered to fit what they expect it should be based on whatever it is they base that on.

Zogby's website has a little more information, but not as much as we'd like:

UPDATE: Common Sense Media provided us with a breakdown of the poll's methodology and narrative summary, and thus we pass it on to you. Commissioned by CSM and conducted by Zogby International, the online survey collected the opinions of 2100 adults, with "slight weights" added to region, party, age, race, gender and education "to more accurately reflect the population." The margin of error is +/- 2.2 percentage points and the questions are as follows:

1. Would you support or oppose a law that prohibits minors from purchasing videogames that depict killing, maiming or sexually assaulting an image of a human being? (Support: Adults 72 percent, parents 72 percent; Oppose: Adults 22 percent, parents 24 percent)

2. How concerned are you about the impact of ultra-violent videogames on your child? (Very/Somewhat Concerned: Adults 61 percent, parents 65 percent; Somewhat Unconcerned/Not at all concerned: Adults 28 percent, parents 31 percent)

3. How would you rate the videogame industry when it comes to protecting kids from accessing violent videogames? (Excellent/Good: Adults 12 percent, parents 13 percent; Fair/poor: Adults 76 percent, parents 75 percent)

While Microsoft, Apple and Google were each trusted by 49%, the percentage expressing little or no trust was higher for Microsoft and Google (both 46%) than it was for Apple (35%). The percentage of not sure responses was higher for Apple (15%) than for for both Google and Microsoft, both 5%. Adults under 30 had the least trust in the two computer giants, especially Microsoft. Among First GlobalsTM under 30, 34% had trust in Microsoft and 41% in Apple. That age group's trust in Facebook (20%) and Twitter (15%) was also greater than that of older age groups.

I recommend you go over and look at the original report yourselves, it makes some really odd choices – for instance lumping together “trust a little” and “not at all.” Similarly "The Media" represents some monolithic entity - which is also primed against given the pervasive creation and politicization of the catagory of "mainstream media" - whilst Twitter, Google, and Apple somehow deserve their own catagories.

While Microsoft, Apple and Google were each trusted by 49%, the percentage expressing little or no trust was higher for Microsoft and Google (both 46%) than it was for Apple (35%). The percentage of not sure responses was higher for Apple (15%) than for for both Google and Microsoft, both 5%. Adults under 30 had the least trust in the two computer giants, especially Microsoft. Among First GlobalsTM under 30, 34% had trust in Microsoft and 41% in Apple. That age group's trust in Facebook (20%) and Twitter (15%) was also greater than that of older age groups.

I recommend you go over and look at the original report yourselves, it makes some really odd choices – for instance lumping together “trust a little” and “not at all.” Similarly "The Media" represents some monolithic entity - which is also primed against given the pervasive creation and politicization of the catagory of "mainstream media" - whilst Twitter, Google, and Apple somehow deserve their own catagories.

I've personally been very disappointed in Obama's nominations thus far, for exactly the reason you say you're happy with them, cronyism.

The man is still a mere President-Elect, and you are already disappointed — not one new face so far, so much for the "Change we need". Hold that thought 'till 2012...

I'd be disappointed too, had I been among the 98% of Obama voters, who knew so little about the ticket they pushed into White House:

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points. 97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates. Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions:

• 57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
• 71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
• 82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
• 88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
• 56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet.....

• Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
• Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
• And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
• Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
• Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

So, my disappointment is merely with the fellow Americans...

I believe this is the summary you're looking for. You'll have to dig a bit deeper to see the actual questions.

A Rasmussen report on just the NYT favorability ratings. Lots of interesting numbers in that one, none of which looks good for the Times.

A Rasmussen poll specificall about this election: 49/14 Media will actively try to help Obama/McCain

Here's a Zogby poll summary from last year: results 64/28 liberal/conservative bias.

From the Pew report. The Times is rated at 18% for credability.

Another Rasmussen report that shows over 50% believe the media tried to activly hurt Palin.

A write up of a Harvard study with some other studies referenced at the bottom.

These studies are not too hard to find. Just Google media bias and they pop up all over the place. The Media bias Wiki page also references some more studies.

Barr is over 5% in 19 states, according to Zogby. His numbers are far higher than Nader's this time around: http://blog.bobbarr2008.com/2008/07/09/good-polling-numbers/ And here's a clickable map: http://www.zogby.com/50state/

Soldiers are more than trained killing machines, they are efficient thinkers who are told at all times to do the honorable thing.

Anyone who attempts to do "the honorable thing" in the U.S. military gets court-martialed.

And what sort of group of efficient thinkers is so ignorant that 85% of them think the U.S. invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein played a role in the 9-11 attacks?

I salute the physical courage, and the willingness to serve their countrymates, of those who enlist. I worry about their ignorance, and their lack of judgment and of moral courage in turning their conscience over to the United States government, an organization known as a great perpetrator of injustice.

It doesn't have anything to do with hate for most of them, it has to do with orders, and that is why they are professionals.

Right, it's all ok as long as you're following orders.

If anyone is considering joining up, I urge meditation on the words of Thoreau:

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others -- as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders -- serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as the rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few -- as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men -- serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.

I'd love to know what percentage of those people who say the government should censor Internet content are among the percentage who don't use the Internet.

Seeing as how it was an online survey I bet all of the people used the internet.

NEWSWEEK Poll June 23, 2007

Do you think Saddam Husseins regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?: Yes, 41%

Zogby Poll: September 05, 2006

Do you agree or disagree that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terror attacks?: Agree, 46%

42% support impeachment two years ago if the President lied to get us into Iraq. (Which isn't, incidentally, even an impeachable offense.) 25% of Republicans wanted to.

Notice that was before Katrina, before the NSA wiretapping story really broke, and the war actually appeared winnable if you weren't paying a lot of attention. 42%.

It's two years later. The NSA is spying on us, FEMA was obviously broken, the war is, quite obviously, lost, the Republicans apparently covered up a creepy old man who hit on Congressional pages, the Attorney General is in deep shit, Bush's World Bank guy is in deep shit, the FDA is letting people be poisoned by wheat gluten because it's apparently run by an incompetent (1), and I'm sure I'm forgetting half a dozen things.

Oh, and Cheney has since shot some old guy in the face.

Impeachment may, indeed, not work, and if it does he still might not be removed from office. But there are exactly two groups of people who think the American people are in favor of impeachment: The government, and the journalists who work in Washington. The American people themselves appears like they would be pretty happy with it.

In fact, they appear very very happy with it, which is astonishing because the media isn't reporting it, which means there's really no bandwagoning going on. I don't have any current polls, because the media is, apparently, not willing to run them anymore. But, hey, in a week or so, there will be polls on Congress. Let's see if their ratings go up or down, shall we?

And Cheney, again, is a good deal less popular than Bush.

And I didn't say you were anti-Democrat. I said you were one of those fools who've bought the entire 'both parties are equally bad' and 'Because the Republicans impeached for obvious partisan reasons, the Democrats can't impeach' memes. One party constantly commits crimes, period. By definition, the other party has to be better.

The RNC decided, back when it decided it would operate however it wanted with no regard for the law, that instead of trying to make themselves appear better, they'd just constantly assert the other party does it to. It doesn't. Sure, you have the occasional William Jefferson, but if the DoJ had actually been investigating Republicans, we'd have a dozen of them gone now. (Just ask Carol Lam.) Even with their meddling, we still have like five times more of Republicans in trouble.

1) The wheat gluten is the news, the facts about just how bad the FDA completely fucked up the handling of it is not, yet. It will be.

Please. Get YOUR facts straight. 72% of soldiers in Iraq want to be home now. http://www.zogby.com/NEWS/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075 Define "democracy" however you want, but the simple fact is that a majority of the public opposes the war (verify this with nearly any poll taken in the last year--or witness the public ousting the Republicans from Congress in the last election), and yet "our" government continues to fund and escalate the war--an inherently undemocratic outcome that is expressly against the will of the people. The United States government is the reason for the civil war in Iraq. We invaded and demolished much of the country and its economy. We disbanded the old military and government apparatus. The puppet government and constitution the US government set up in Iraq enshrines ethnic divisions, playing different factions off of each other. We use militias of one ethnic group against other ethnic groups, further heightening differences. This is classic divide-and-conquer strategy. All of the violence in Iraq and its consequences stem from the illegal invasion and occupation. The longer the US stays in Iraq the worse the situation will become. The US military is not a stabilizing force, nor is it rebuilding the country. There may temporarily be greater violence when we leave, but there will definitely be greater violence if we stay--and the Iraqis cannot form their own government and civil society under the yoke of a brutal occupation.

>we are all entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own facts

90% of soldiers in Iraq believed (2003) we were there to retaliate against Saddam for 9/11.

Same survey, by the way, showed that only a fifth agreed with staying as long as Bush wants to.

Oh yes. The best solution is for the well-funded, well-equipped, politically influencial stabilizing force to leave the unstable power-vacuum suddenly. That worked so well when the Russians did it in the 80s.

Same logic used in Vietnam. Whee history does repeat itself.

We are not winning in Iraq. Every indication is that things get worse, day by day, not better. Projecting this into the future, things will continue to get worse. There are no indications -- none, zero, zip, nada -- that things are improving let alone stabilizing.

So of course the RATIONAL thing to do is to continue hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. Someday, somehow, it will stop being so painful. Just you wait!

Whether or not you agree with the Republicans currently in office, I think almost every rational person understands that us leaving Iraq would be about the *worst* action we could take.

Poll: 72% of U.S. Troops Say End War in 2006

81% of non-Kurdish Iraqis want Americans to leave "immediately"

Opposition to Iraq War at All Time High - Only 35% support it, 61% oppose

But of course none of those people are irrational, so in the true spirit of democracy their wishes shouldn't be respected or, really, even listened to.

I don't think slashdot's politics are necessarily left-leaning.

Bush has a ~34% approval rating and is even less popular abroad. And even less popular among the college-educated (in the last election anyway). So when thinking about what's "centrist" among international, probably college-educated, internet users, it's going to be something that's considered left-wing radical among, say, Texans (I say this as someone living in Texas).

So slashdot's policies are centrist, where the center is defined via its audience.

In my personal opinion, if the right drops the hill-billy homophobic tripe and finds itself a better spokesperson than Cowboy Cronyism, it may find a message that plays in Paris as well as Peoria -- and center will move right.

I have absolutely no problem with that. Both Clinton and Bush should have been impeached.

Both of them contributed to the decline in esteem of the presidency, as did most of the presidents in the last 40 years.

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1057

Interesting to see that the only president who people outranks Bush in the failure score is Nixon. Rounding out the bottom 4, we have Johnson and Viet Nam, and Ford screwing up by pardoning Nixon and saying he had to, when he clearly didn't.

Was the direct link to the Zogby poll not enough?

from the gp:

Active passport holders favored Kerry to Bush 58% to 35%.

Two things:

1) Most people in Europe, Austalia, NZ and Asia that I have met realize that the Americans that they are likely to meet are not the ones who voted for Bush. The coasts have a much higher density of passport holders than the "Heartland," for example. (Active passport holders favored Kerry to Bush 58% to 35%.)

2) The "obnoxious American" stereotype is partly a result of biased sampling. If there are two Americans somewhere, and one is a fat, obnoxious, non-local-language speaking lout with a Hawaiian shirt and a camcorder and the other is a quiet, sensible, local-language speaker, the locals may not even notice that the second is an American, let alone remember the encounter. I am an American, and when I am in Europe, I am frequently mistaken as being Dutch, perhaps because I have a beard, a bicycle and can communicate passibly in any one of about five standard European languages, even if I don't happen to speak the local language. I also usually do not go out of my way to correct this misconception...

"And that's great, except some of the grey-list sites are kind of blocked so basically you can't get porn off it, among other things."

I wonder how good their access to news is considering that 85% of our troops think that their role in Iraq is to retaliate against Saddam for his role in 9-11. There seems to be a disconnect between what the troops believe and what the President has publicly stated before and after the war started.

(statistics tend to prove this out- people like sex, seek it out, and are generally not monogamous)

Which surveys?
If anything surveys tend show that people are primarily mongamous and are happy in a with a relationship with a single person.
Look at something like the http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=1 1954 from late 2005. The survey was done online so you would expect that it to be a little high on the anything goes side.
Even there you get over 70% of the people in a monogamous relationship, the majority for over 5 years.
While they may seek it out people don't tend to pay, less then 15%. This number is about the same for various other surveys.
If you get thoses types of numbers in an survey where people had to activly seek out the survey the numbers are going to be a lot less if you did a truly random survey of the population.

This would be the poll in question, conducted by Zogby. Here's the critical paragraph, emphasis mine:

The wide-ranging poll also shows that 58% of those serving in country say the U.S. mission in Iraq is clear in their minds, while 42% said it is either somewhat or very unclear to them, that they have no understanding of it at all, or are unsure. While 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was "to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq."

I'll take this one step further and state that the commanders over there are actively misinforming the troops about the reason why we/they are over there. Look at Zogby's recent poll of the troops stationed in Iraq and tell me why 90% of them think they're fighting because of what Saddam did to us on 9/11. You don't get numbers like that unless there is active collusion and misinformation taking place.

The difference between us is I realize that both of us are rather fond of democracy; I (and other conservatives) just happen to realize Democracy takes some defending even if it means a few calls to known terrorists are tapped.

The trouble with your argument is, there is nothing within the existing legal framework to prevent "a few calls to known terrorists" from being tapped. That's what the court is for, and statistics clearly show that it very rarely turns down wiretap requests. Hard to believe that they'd suddenly start doing so for calls to "known terrorists" after the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history.

Someone who claims that someone who protects Democracy is "The Enemy" is I've found someone who has reach the point where there is no reasoning with them.

I agree. When (for example) someone refers to Civil Rights advocacy groups as "terror allies", or accuses government watchdog groups of providing aid and comfort to the enemy, they're pretty much beyond reason.

The response will probably be something like "I intend to move out of the country if things get worse, blah blah blah blah blah". I honestly think that would be best for you as you are not going to be happy with the way the country is swinging.

The sad thing is that you think you are. It may be great now, while someone you like is sitting in the Oval Office -- how do you think you'll feel if the current administration succeeds in their bid to greatly expand the power of the Executive Office and then Hillary Clinton becomes President in 2008?

And the number of people like me is growing, as witnessed by the 60% approval ratings for wiretapping actions that Bush enjoys.

Hmm. I suppose that's true if you define 60% as 52% and "approval" as "supporting impeachment of".

Yes, that's right - it's easier to get a southern baptist to accept gay people than it is to get a blowhard peace loving Democrat to accept that some times when foreign powers are actively trying to hurt U.S. interests that things need to get done.

Trouble with that is, there has never been a time in our entire history when some foreign power was not actively trying to hurt U.S. interests. There is absolutely no evidence to even remotely suggest that this overstepping of authority makes us any safer.

It truly is astonishing how little your side has bothered to think about its arguments. But I guess if you spend 5 years getting away with whatever you want, you tend to forget how to justify your actions.

I'm not saying I disagree that there are some serious problems with voting machines in this country, but it's telling that according to the people polled the incumbent has screwed virtually everything up and they would still vote for him over the Democrat by a point.

I hate arguing with links to polls as anything can be proven but here is one that shows about 50% of Americans are pro-life and it is increasing. That includes 43% of democrats.

Divorcing yourself emotionally from issues that pertain to human life is monstrous. Are you a sociopath? I think emotion when it comes to human life has been key to our granting of liberties in the past and our curbing of abuses in the present. However I am not pro-life solely because of the emotions that I carry for the issue but because 'pro-choice' is based on arbitrary measures of consciousness, unscientific methodology and has become irrevocably tainted by the fact that it is big business.

You mean Westernize them like this: ""One story is of a young girl who is 16 years old," he says of one of the testimonies he video taped recently, "She stayed for three days with the bodies of her family who were killed in their home. When the soldiers entered she was in her home with her father, mother, 12 year-old brother and two sisters. She watched the soldiers enter and shoot her mother and father directly, without saying anything."

The girl managed to hide behind the refrigerator with her brother and witnessed the war crimes first-hand.

"They beat her two sisters, then shot them in the head," he said. After this her brother was enraged and ran at the soldiers while shouting at them, so they shot him dead. "??

There's more, a lot more, here. I'm not sure that we are creating many friends in Iraq or anywhere in the Mideast, except Israel. Polls of Iraqis show the overwhelming majority want us gone, now or in the very near future. But the US Army is not planning to leave anytime soon.

To say nothing of Abu Graib, etc.

So tell me again--how are we helping them, exactly?

The final phone polls showed the election a dead heat well within the final margin of error of 4 to 5 percent

No, they didn't. Go look at the list of every national poll I linked. In the week prior to the election Bush was up in 11 of 15 polls, tied in 2, and Kerry won 2 of the 15.

A claim like that without facts to back it up can be taken no more seriously than...

Reread the section right above the quote. That is what you might call statistically solid evidence... The odds of the exit polls being correct, especially with the known problems (over-sampling urban areas and women), and all of those other polls being wrong is immeasurably small.

To argue otherwise betrays the true desperation on your part.

Either the exit polls are wrong or the election is wrong Yes, the exit polls are wrong. The election, which is a much more scientifically sound poll with about 120 million participants, is correct. Any suspicion otherwise is rooted in paranoia and fantasy.

Also interesting is that the pollster John Zogby, who called the popular vote within a half a percent in 2000, called the election for Kerry this time.

Why don't we just stop having elections and let Zogby tell us who won? Instead of spreading baseless conspiracy theories, why don't you read the explanation of why he was wrong from Zogby himself? http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=928

Also, when talking about exit polls, I think you are latching onto those early afternoon ones that weren't even supposed to be public because they were so innaccurate (you know, the ones that showed Kerry up 20 points in PA). Of course, as this dialogue progresses, your tendency to latch onto things is becoming more apparant.

The expectation was that undecideds and newly registered voters would break for Kerry.

I don't know why. That isn't how they historically break within the last 3 days.

But don't forget one thing: the exit polls exactly and perfectly describe the 2% Bush margin.

Actually, this is not true according to raw data I've found in sites like Zogby and MSNBC. The exit polls in Ohio showed a small margin for Kerry. However, the margin of error for exit polls (again, according to Zogby) has historically been between 3% and 5%; this election was no exception. This means that exit polls are great in landslides, but utterly meaningless in a state like Ohio. Conspiracy theorists with even a slight tolerance for mathematics will have to let this one rest.

It would behoove by far-left-leaning friends to move on from conspiracy theories and start thinking about why America soundly rejected the Democratic Party in '04. I'm personally distressed by the outcome of the election, but I accept it as the legitimate result of the process set forth by our founders.

By lying?

No, actually, I was up until 5AM ET.

And, uh, the networks didn't "revise" anything. The problem was that pre-election polling in states like Ohio made some people, like Zogby, pretty damned sure Ohio was a gimme for Kerry. But they were wrong. And the exit polling showed that.

Now let me get this straight: you're alleging that the major networks changed their exit polling figures, i.e., purposely falsified results, to make the exit poll numbers match the election outcome?

Wow. Do you use Reynolds or a generic brand for your hat?

I hate to tell you this, but I watched the AP returns on Ohio from the poll close to 100% precincts reporting, and the exit polls more or less mirrored the results the whole time.

But now people like Zogby are having to are having to eat their hats:

"We feel strongly that our pre-election polls were accurate on virtually every state. Our predictions on many of the key battleground states like Ohio and Florida were within the margin of error. I thought we captured a trend, but apparently that result didn't materialize."

Zogby is calling it for Kerry. In a landslide.

Zogby has already called it for Kerry 311 to 213.

Early results/predictions are interesting, but that's all.

Election results: early or accurate, pick one.

The success in Ohio and Florida depends on the high voter turnout - if people stay home, because they think the race is over, Kerry could lose. BTW Zogby is giving similar predictions, Kerry winning 311 eleven electoral votes. http://www.zogby.com/

Texas? WTF? In 2000, Gore won in only one county there. Brazos county, home of Texas A&M University, and a damn disproportionate conglomeration of college students.

Not true. Gore won several TX counties near the Mexican border.

Also, a better site than Tanenbaum's for predicting the winner is here. Sam Wang of Princeton University uses a statistical method for averaging all recent polls rather than rely on just the latest for his predictions.

Personally I'm predicting a blowout for Kerry. This is based for starters on Wang's data. 2nd, last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews said that the exit polls from early voting in Iowa had Kerry 11 points up. 30% of Iowa has already voted. There has also been a huge early turnout in Democratic areas in FL, NV, GA, and NC. 3rd, a recent Zogby poll of 18-29 year-olds with cell phones gave Kerry 55%, Bush 40%. Every other poll I've seen is based exclusively on land lines, so if the 18-29 year-olds vote this year (and granted, they usually do not), the polls could be way off. Finally, Karl Rove's strategy is based on getting some 4 million more Evangelical Christians to the polls than went in 2000. Problem is that the size of this group may be a myth. A devout Christian friend of mine invited me to a party Friday night with some of his church buddies. Not a group I normally hang out with, but I like being exposed to new ideas. Turns out this small sample favored Kerry over Bush by 50-40. A few were still very undecided (yes, even today there are still undecided voters in Ohio!). All of this leads me to believe that Kerry will clobber Bush.

Now I can't find a link, but I'd swear I read an article this morning saying that Gallup (or some other big poller) just did an SMS survey and found that Kerry was way ahead with that group...

Here is a link to a Daily Kos story from today. The polling was done by Zogby in partnership with Rock the Vote and Motorola. Here's Zogby's article. The Rock the Vote Mobile site is not responding for me at the moment.

Jon Stewart is the most reliable source of information EVAR.

Also, I went to your zogby link and saw this:

Election 2004 Zogby Battleground State Polls: Bush Rebounds, Now Ahead in 5 States (FL, MI, MN, NM, NV); Kerry Leads in 4 States (CO, IA, OH, WI); Tie in Pennsylvania at 47% Each; Red and Blue Battle Continues, New Reuters/Zogby Ten States Battleground Poll Reveals... [ read on ] (10/28/04)

Wow - That's the sign of a really desperate man. Only minutes ago pollster Zogby, on the Daily Show, stated flatly that he saw Kerry winning the election. I think GWB is seeing the writing on the wall.

During the Republican National Convention, when the GOP was zealously exploiting 9/11 to sell Bush-Cheney and the endless "war on terror," a poll was released stating that half of New Yorkers now think that Bush team members purposely allowed 9/11 to happen and thus abetted the attacks.

In the first scientific poll of public attitudes about possible government complicity in the 9/11 attacks, Zogby International reported on Monday, August 30th that over 49% of New York City residents believe that U.S. government leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to take action" and 66% called for either Congress or the New York Attorney General to reopen the 9/11 investigation. (See http://zogby.com/news)

"This is yet another demonstration that the 9/11 Commission did not answer or even address most of the victim families' most serious concerns, and that public hunger is now growing for some real 9/11 truth," said Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb.

"Since April 2004 the Greens have been the only political party to express solidarity with victim families exasperated or outraged by the Kean Commission cover-up. We have consistently supported their demands for a new investigation which addresses all of their unanswered questions, especially those suggesting foreknowledge, criminal negligence and complicity."

I'm much more surprised that this didn't get any mainstream media coverage (and little non-mainstream).

http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=259 Gore up 5.4%

http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=276 Gore now up 7%

http://www.gsm.ucdavis.edu/visitors_center/news/ha gerty_predicts_gore_win.htm UC Davis "statistical analysis" predicts Gore win

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/6 /184917.shtml Zogby predicts Gore win (Nov. 6, 2000)

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2000/ 11/06/daily19.html Online (yeah, I know) Harris poll predicts Gore win

http://www.apsanet.org/PS/march01/lewisbeck.cfm Gore post-mortem off by almost 7%

It's not that hard to dig this stuff up.

I quoted from the article you referenced, BTW - I didn't think that was too hard to follow.

Perhaps my initial post was overstated (as are yours, BTW, even moreso) - but again, more precisely, all that *I* had heard from the news was (generally speaking) larger margins for Gore, and it turned into a statistical dead heat - and similar errors in the many other issues at hand during previous elections. My links "prove" that you are a liar (or dishonest) by your logic....even with your subsequent artificial constraint about weighting later polls more heavily, and focussing exclusively on the popular vote for the president.

Are you being dishonest now, because I dug up evidence to the contrary? Hmmm....

Obviously, the polls are often off by more than their statistical margin of error. Sometimes significantly so. Perhaps I was factoring in more local, and other national issues - I did not constrain my observation to national polls of the presidential popular vote. Even still, it is easy to dig up plenty of polls that support that.

I have no intent to deceive, and I am also not a Bush supporter.

http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=259 Gore up 5.4%

http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=276 Gore now up 7%

http://www.gsm.ucdavis.edu/visitors_center/news/ha gerty_predicts_gore_win.htm UC Davis "statistical analysis" predicts Gore win

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/6 /184917.shtml Zogby predicts Gore win (Nov. 6, 2000)

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2000/ 11/06/daily19.html Online (yeah, I know) Harris poll predicts Gore win

http://www.apsanet.org/PS/march01/lewisbeck.cfm Gore post-mortem off by almost 7%

It's not that hard to dig this stuff up.

I quoted from the article you referenced, BTW - I didn't think that was too hard to follow.

Perhaps my initial post was overstated (as are yours, BTW, even moreso) - but again, more precisely, all that *I* had heard from the news was (generally speaking) larger margins for Gore, and it turned into a statistical dead heat - and similar errors in the many other issues at hand during previous elections. My links "prove" that you are a liar (or dishonest) by your logic....even with your subsequent artificial constraint about weighting later polls more heavily, and focussing exclusively on the popular vote for the president.

Are you being dishonest now, because I dug up evidence to the contrary? Hmmm....

Obviously, the polls are often off by more than their statistical margin of error. Sometimes significantly so. Perhaps I was factoring in more local, and other national issues - I did not constrain my observation to national polls of the presidential popular vote. Even still, it is easy to dig up plenty of polls that support that.

I have no intent to deceive, and I am also not a Bush supporter.

The reason for Gallop's very high poll numbers for Bush was based on its bizarre assumptions on turnout. This is well documented in Zogby's critique of Gallop:

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=859

Gallop assumes for that poll assumes that the turnout on election day will break down as follows:

Total Sample: 767
GOP: 305 (40%)
Dem: 253 (33%)
Ind: 208 (28%)

However, as zogby noted:

If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000

So Republicans are badly over-sampled and Democrats badly under-sampled, giving systematically biased results. Awful polling, but used to keep Republicans motivated and Democrats depressed.

HA-HA!

What comes around goes around, I guess.

About 10 or 15 years ago, some dude named John Zogby surmised that the standard political telephone polls we skewed toward the left because their methodologies involved making the calls during the day, when older Americans -- who tended to be more conservative -- were more likely to be preoccupied with activities like working, shopping and running errands. He started company to prove he was right. Here's his bio.

HA-HA!

What comes around goes around, I guess.

About 10 or 15 years ago, some dude named John Zogby surmised that the standard political telephone polls we skewed toward the left because their methodologies involved making the calls during the day, when older Americans -- who tended to be more conservative -- were more likely to be preoccupied with activities like working, shopping and running errands. He started company to prove he was right. Here's his bio.

"Badnarik is a computer programmer and technical trainer from Austin, Tex. He declined to say if he could program an electronic voting system that would deliver a Libertarian victory."

"I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said 'Diebold (a system vendor): Making machines that vote so you don't have to,'" said Badnarik.

No disrespect to the Green Party, but Cobb is polling close to zero, at least in every source I could find (please correct me if i'm wrong. I've got nothing against Cobb, but he doesn't seem to have much support outside of Green Party loyalists). Even if we did have a fair threshold for participating in debates, Cobb would still have a hard time getting in. If we lowered the threshold to zero, then we'd have to allow every candidate, which would either stretch the debates to an unmanagable amount of time or cut the speaking time down to nothing. Either would make the debates even more useless than they already are (if that's possible). Though I don't doubt your assertion that if Cobb was in the debates, he would take Kerry to task. I would be thrilled to see Cobb ask Kerry tough quetions instead of the canned BS we're in for come debate time.

you know that the poll you're linking to is incredibly inaccurate, right? the boy-wonder *may* have acheived a 2 point bounce. maybe.

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I have not yet been able to get the details of Time's methodology but I have checked out Newsweek's poll. Their sample of registered voters includes 38% Republican, 31% Democrat and 31% Independent voters. If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000. While party identification can indeed change within the electorate, there is no evidence anywhere to suggest that Democrats will only represent 31% of the total vote this year. In fact, other competitors have gone in the opposite direction. The Los Angeles Times released a poll in June of this year with 38% Democrats and only 25% Republicans. And Gallup's party identification figures have been all over the place.
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zogby's poll

For the first time, more likely voters (47%) say it's time for someone new in the White House, compared to 46% who said the President deserves to be re-elected.