CNN,MSNBC helped voters in the Presidential Election make up there minds without the facts

Zogby Poll
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)

Exit Polls Reveal Conservatives Abandoned McCain

Fox news Reports
Democrat Barack Obama garnered a surprising 20 percent of the vote from conservatives who cast ballots on Election Day, top-ranked radio-talker Rush Limbaugh told listeners.

Citing exit polls, Limbaugh also said on Wednesday that Republican John McCain lost independents and moderates by a margin of 60 percent to 39 percent.

“McCain only got 89 percent of the Republican vote,” Limbaugh said. “He only got 80 percent of the conservative vote.

“And therein lies the tale, the recipe offered up by the wizards of smart in the Republican Party and on our side — for whatever reason we have to abandon our base, and we’ve gotta broaden our base . . .

“I have nothing against going out and getting Democrats and independents to vote for you. But not by behaving like a Democrat or independent.”

Fox News commissioned extensive exit polling on Election Day. Some highlights:

75 percent of voters said the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction, and these voters went solidly for Obama — 62 percent to McCain’s 36 percent.
63 percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the nation, and they backed Obama, 53 percent to 44 percent.
48 percent said they are “very worried” that the economic crisis will hurt their family’s finances in the coming year, and they voted for Obama,
60 percent to 38 percent.
Voters who said they wanted a president who can bring about change overwhelmingly went for Obama, 89 percent to 9 percent.
Despite predictions that the 2008 election would bring a sharp increase
in the number of young voters, people under age 30 comprised just
18 percent of all voters, up from 17 percent in the past three presidential elections and down from 21 percent in 1992. These voters went for Obama, 66 percent to 32 percent.
Among the 11 percent of voters who were casting ballots in a presidential election for the first time, 68 percent voted for Obama and 31 percent chose McCain.
18 percent of voters who supported President Bush in 2004 defected from the GOP and supported Obama this year.
Women chose Obama over the McCain-Palin ticket by a margin of 56 percent to 43 percent.
52 percent of white Catholics voted for McCain, compared to 47 percent
for Obama.
Black voters comprised 13 percent of the electorate and 95 percent of them backed Obama. White voters favored McCain by a 12-point margin.
Hispanics helped Obama win the battleground state of Florida, voting for the Democrat over the Republican, 57 percent to 42 percent. In 2004, President Bush garnered 56 percent of the Hispanic vote.
In Pennsylvania, 20 percent of Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton over Obama in the primary voted for McCain on Tuesday.

Now it's swinging polls not hanging chads that scare Democrats

Barack Obama is deploying an awesome battery of firepower to blow out a faint flicker of hope in John McCain's campaign that he can yet pull off an unlikely comeback in the final days of this election.

The Democratic nominee spent yesterday hopscotching through battleground states where he hammered home his message on the economy, the issue of greatest concern to voters and on which some polls suggest that McCain has begun to close the gap.

He told a rally in Sarasota, Florida: “John McCain has stood with President Bush every step of the way. And you've got to ask yourself: why would we keep on driving down this dead-end street?”

On Wednesday night he blanketed TV networks with a half-hour commercial designed to allay concerns about electing an inexperienced — and black — president. The advert drew 26.4 million viewers to three major networks, according to Nielsen Media Research.


How America's presidents rated
The Times has ranked all 42 US presidents - was Bush Jr. bottom? Did JFK beat Abraham Lincoln?

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Later, at a midnight rally with 35,000 people in Kissimmee, he took the stage with Bill Clinton, who declared: “Folks, we can't fool with this. Our country is hanging in the balance. This man should be our president.”

The heavy Democratic bombardment of Florida will continue tomorrow when Al Gore campaigns in the state that, by the narrowest of margins, destroyed his presidential dream eight years ago.

Republicans selectively point to national polls that show Mr Obama's lead is as low as 3 per cent, although others suggest it is five times larger. Mr McCain declared in the city of Defiance, Ohio, yesterday: “We're a few points behind but we're coming back.”

One explanation for the wide disparity in surveys is that polling organisations make different assumptions about “likely voters”, with those who give Mr Obama a large lead believing that there will be a surge in turnout among African-Americans and young people. Figures for early voting in key states including Iowa, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, suggest that the Democrat candidate is already benefiting.

But Mr McCain's chief pollster, Bill McInturff, issued a memo this week, arguing: “All signs say we are headed to an election that may easily be too close to call.” He said that expected gains for Mr Obama among black and young people would be offset by increased turnout among rural and less-educated voters. “Wal-Mart women” with no education and household incomes below $60,000 (£36,400) are “swinging back, solidly,” he claimed.

Some Republicans also say that polls tend to overestimate support for black candidates — notably Tom Bradley, who lost a 1982 race for Governor of California — when they are up against white opponents.

David Axelrod, Mr Obama's chief strategist, said: “It's unreasonable to expect anyone to win this race by more than three to five points. It will tighten, that is the nature of these contests. But do I see what the Republicans claim to be seeing? No. State by state this is going very well.”

Mr McCain has widened his attacks on Mr Obama in recent days to complain that The Los Angeles Times is withholding publication of a video tape showing his rival meeting a Palestinian activist, Rashid Khalidi. At the same time Republicans have launched a new TV advert, with Middle Eastern music playing in the background, highlighting Mr Obama's stated wish to hold talks with Iranian leaders. This is being seen as a possible nudge to voters who still believe false rumours that he is a Muslim.

But Mr McCain has told CNN that race would not decide this election and focused his attention yesterday firmly on economic issues such as Mr Obama's proposed tax increases, which the Republican has suggested are reminiscent of socialism.

Mr Obama is showing signs of sensitivity on this issue, telling his rally in Florida: “I love rich people, I want all of you to be rich.” He added: “I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.”
Reported by The Times

Wide Disparities Between Polls Makes Careful Interpretation Necessary

As the presidential candidates travel from state to state trying to win over voters, pollsters across the country are just as relentless in reflecting the public's opinion of the candidate's efforts.

While recent polls indicate Democratic nominee Barack Obama has a lead over Republican rival John McCain, there has been wide disparity in the numbers, with some showing the gap as narrow as 4 percentage points and others putting it at as wide at 14 points.

With wide disparities between two polls, how do analysts truly see which candidate is in the lead?

Careful interpretation is the expert's answer. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett once said that "A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought." However, for those who make their living giving thought to the numbers, public-opinion polls are not a substitute for, but rather food for thought. For election forecasters, they are a central component of a tricky formula.

In an interview with RTTNews, Professor James Campbell of the State University at Buffalo in New York, who has his own election forecasting model, outlined some of the inherent flaws of polls. One such discrepancy has to do with the difference between surveying registered voters and likely voters.

"Most of the polls have tried to measure what registered voters are thinking and that is different than what registered voters are thinking of that time," he said. "I think that the history of that attempt has not been very good and I think the pollsters acknowledge that."

Typically, there are more registered Democrats then registered Republicans, making them overrepresented in polls of registered voters, Campbell said. He suggests focusing on likely voters, or at least separating the results of likely and registered voter polls.

However, lacking that separation, Campbell said he thinks that polls will lean in Obama's favor.

Specifically, Campbell cited a CBS/New York Times poll from earlier in the week that showed Obama with a 14 percentage point lead over rival John McCain.

"I think the CBS/NY Times Poll has always been on the high side for Democrats…a little bit erratic too," he said.

While there will be sampling errors in any poll, and "even by the same organization or the same method is going to yield a little bit different results," Campbell said that it is good to take a look at the average. For his election forecast he relied on Gallup.

Averaging various polls is also recommended by Professor Robert Erikson of Columbia University, who along with Temple University Professor Christopher Wlezien works on election forecasting. Speaking with RTTNews, Erikson said that in his forecast he and Wlezien used all polls, or "whatever was available."

When asked how to reconcile the differences between polls, Erikson said that there is no real way to know if one poll is better than another.

"You don't know which ones are the bad ones," he said. "We just pick an average."

That average came from 30 or 40 polls per month, Erikson said.

Both Campbell and Erikson's early predictors are models that take into account a wide variety of factors. However, their forecasts selected different candidates. Not taking into account the events of the past few weeks, Campbell's model predicted a McCain victory, while the Erikson- Wlezien predicted Obama.

Although Campbell's forecast selected McCain to win the popular vote, there was an unforeseen event that has been the equivalent of "a meteor hitting the campaign." That event - the financial crisis - has seemed to help Obama, boosting the Illinois senator in the polls in the last few weeks.

"Nobody was anticipating this, none of the forecasting model," Campbell said. Calling it an "extremely unusual case," he said that the election has been greatly changed due to the market meltdown.

Erikson said that there is a clear correlation to the decline in the economy and the increase in support for Obama.

"The economy has gone downward the last month, Obama support has gone up," Erikson said.

Overall, Erikson expects Obama to win 52 or 53 percent of the two party vote. He gives McCain a less than 1 in 10 chance for a comeback, but greater than 1 in 20.

Despite his election forecasting model's prediction, the financial crisis has led Campbell to also predict Obama as the victor on November 4th. When asked he thinks McCain can engineer a comeback, Campbell said it was a long shot.

"Probably not, but his only chance is to try," he said.

Campbell referenced the 1948 presidential election, when incumbent president Harry Truman orchestrated a stunning upset of rival Thomas Dewey. However, the financial shock is the economic equivalent of a terrorist attack the size of September 11th in the middle of the campaign, he said, making this a "very pro-Democratic year."

Erikson concedes that although McCain has a considerable obstacle, it is "not impossible to overcome."
Reported by RTTNews