Cables

Yes, DW… I read your whole post. The whining and the complaining… and then the polls that supported your previously held ideas.

But I decided to take your advice and look at what Nate Silver was saying about the pollsters (do note that Nate is an admitted Liberal, make of that what you will). His last update under the Pollster ratings link (from 5/28/2008)… it puts Rasmussen at 3rd from the top! Sooooooo… it looks like fivethirtyeight.com thinks Rasmussen is pretty good!

How about them facts?

It’s funny to me how people like DWHarper will b*tch and moan that Rasmussen is “too biased,” while others will claim the poll was more like a “FOX News” poll… but as soon as NBC puts out a poll, despite their well established bias, they’re prepared to believe anything!

You didn’t read my whole post apparently because I look at ALL POLLS which are weighted according to their accuracy and timeliness by fivethirtyeight.com, which is by far the best polling site. If you look at the presidential approval polls, there is an old poll by ABC/WashPost that could be considered and outlier but Rasmussen is the ONLY poll that is adleast 15 points difference from the others. Bring proof next time not your opinion not based on fact.

The problem is the republicans don’t get any media coverage, except negative coverage. Most of the broadcast networks are anti-conservative/republican and just report that republicans are the party of “no’.

Yesterday I was watching something (don’t remember which network, but probably FNC because there was a republican congressman on the air who wasn’t being yelled down by the anchor) who claimed that the republicans are the party of “know”…I kind of liked that.

None-the-less, I think these polls are stupid and I agree with INB, it’s 2009 and there is no need for any one to step up to the plate this early and claim they are running for President three years from now. The last election was a two-year process, I for one hope that will never be the case again.

Odds are, the Rasmussen poll is a little too outlier to be considered hard evidence… but then again, so is the NBC poll. After a quick Google search, I found the Pew had put Republican favorability at 40% at the end of August. Is NBC really trying to get me to believe that in 2 months, after nothing much to speak of, Republican approval fell 15 points? Really?

The point of Mr. Christopher’s analysis (although, he too puts too much faith in these outlier polls) is that while Pres. Obama continues to become less popular, nobody on the right has moved in to capitalize on that yet. But to that point, are we really surprised? It’s 9 months into Obama’s presidency, and we expect to have a front-runner for the 2012 campaign already?! Isn’t that a bit unrealistic? Why would anyone want to be a front-runner now? Just to give as much time as possible for the opposition to derail the campaign… not a good strategy.

To me, all these seems like a manufactured news story… created by journalists and pundits looking for something to talk about. Elections bring in really great ratings… but folks, you have to calm down… we can’t have one every other day.