Oh John McCain, I was genuinely worried when I saw the announcement that Sarah Palin would be your running mate. At the time, the choice of Palin seemed like the proverbial shot in the arm that the campaign needed. Thankfully, after a few weeks (and a few unscripted Palin interviews), the fire died down and ever since McCain hasn't been ahead in most polls.
However, last week Fox News released a poll that showed Obama at 47 and McCain at 44. Certainly, 3 points is a small lead that can be eaten up by the margin of error alone. McCain's campaign was excited about the news and shopped the information to media outlets, most of whom didn't bite.
The Huffington Post does a nice job of explaining why this poll in particular is flawed. Most people are familiar with the right of center bias of Fox News, but most people aren't familiar with the way polls get their numbers. For example, many polls don't account for political affiliation when polling. For example, if 100 people were polled, 90 them Republican, 5 Democrat, and 5 Independent, the poll may or may not try to "center" their numbers, or account for the unusually high number of Republican responders. Polling isn't an exact science, but the Fox News poll seems rather disingenuous.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment