A little more poll lecturing today.
Michael Moore reports that the polls are wrong because they are of "likely voters."
Quote:
|
"Likely" means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.
|
I am not going to quibble too much with what Moore said because to an extent, it echoes what I have already said. But I do have a few comments:
First of all, a lot of polls conducted over the last 40 years used “likely” voters, which means the same thing they have meant for 40 years. So, not counting young people doesn’t make current polls any more inaccurate than in previous elections. Not a big deal.
And it isn’t like you need a long history of voting. If somebody was so angry over Florida Recount 2000, presumably they registered then and could have and did vote in the 2002 election. And to my knowledge, that makes you a “likely” voter to most pollsters.
Second, I will frankly be surprised if there are a significant number of new voters this year. It is possible, but I don’t think it is likely. Oh, there are some people that will vote for the first time out of outrage, I suppose, but I guarantee you the Democrats that are paid to think aren’t relying on them. Frankly, I think Gore maxed out the vote in most of his key constituencies and I won’t be surprised if those numbers decline. But the truth is nobody (including the candidate) knows how good a GOTV plan is until the day of the election.
Third, the cell phone as primary phone argument is part of my earlier technology argument. I think that is a fraction of one percent of the population and I roll my eyes if anyone thinks that is going to make a difference.
Finally, Moore says “most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week.” Well, not exactly. Zogby was as much defending his own poll as anything else. The truth is Zogby “thinks” the other polls poll too many republicans and weighs his poll with a certain number of democrats to create polls in line with his way of thinking. Now, Zogby could be right. But if you buy Zogby, then you have to deny everybody else. But Zogby could be wrong, too. I will point out that Zogby has missed every election since 1996 “to the left”.
So what does it mean? The polls look bad for Kerry; and the polls are bad for Kerry. But that is all they are.