Some have wondered as to how well the polling was in 2004 in terms of Bush v. Kerry, indeed, there has been some discussion over whether Kerry underperformed his poll numbers in 2004 and therefore whether that will be the case for Obama in 2008.
For those interested in the question, Charles Franklin provides the following comparison:
Basically if the trend is above the X-axis, the polls measured a Democratic lead and the X’s show the final tally. The 2000 polling trend-line for Gore missed the mark by a about 2.5% and the 2004 number missed by roughly 1.5%–that is to say, MOE level variations. As such, the polling in the last two cycles has actually been pretty accurate.
If people think that they remember the polls being more favorable to Kerry than they ended up to be, it is likely that what is being remembered is that early exit polls in 2004 seemed to indicate a Kerry win, but that those numbers ended up being flawed (for a trip down memory lane see here, here, here and here).
At any rate, the likelihood of the polls being off significantly in regards to being a predictor (not that that is actually what they are for–they measure opinion at they time they are taken and do not purport to see into the future) is low. However, if they are off, the likelihood is that the deviations from the final polling will actually take the form of a larger Obama victory than the trends indicate because the traditional likely voter models were wrong about who they thought those voters would be. There is, of course, the potential for the Bradley Effect (i.e., white voters telling pollsters that they will vote for a black candidate, but ultimately being unwilling to do so). However, based on what I have read about the issue, the actually Bradley Effect itself in the California Governor’s race in question was not as dramatic as is made to be in the press. Further, I see no reason, except speculation, to foresee such an effect this year.
Obviously the 2000 poll average missed the actual popular vote plurality. But given that Gore won by only about 0.5%, they can probably be forgiven that.
Indeed, the final poll average was almost spot on in 2004, which dispels a myth held by many Democrats (though it says nothing about the exit polls, which are another matter).
On the Bradley effect, independent of the actual Bradley contest, most of the evidence is that whatever effect there has been over the years has dissipated. Moreover, Obama tended to overperform his polls in the primaries much more often than underperform.
Comment by MSS — Monday, November 3, 2008 @ 11:43 am
Polls:
Useful as toilet paper when in hardcopy.
I can’t see anything else they might contribute to society.
Comment by Captain D — Monday, November 3, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
Uh, information?
Comment by MSS — Monday, November 3, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
I have avoided commenting on John Kerry’s gaffe from earlier in the week because, quite frankly, what’s the big deal? He isn’t running for anything and he has a history of saying things he later has to to explain.
As such, I think Mickey Kaus gets it pretty much correct:
Kerry’s comments aren’t a scandal, let alone a three-day scandal. (”KERRY SAYS SOMETHING STUPID”–is that news? It’s Kerry! He’s our national doofus. Dog bites man.)
While the phrase “national doofus” did not, per se, come to mind, the “Dog bites man” element of the story is enough to get me to ignore it.
All the story has done, quite frankly, is remind me what a woeful candidate Kerry was, and what a mistake it was for the Democrats to nominate him in the first place. 2004 was winnable for them, but not with John Kerry at the helm. Many may like to think it was shenanigans in Ohio that denied them them WH in ‘04, it was more than anything because Kerry was a lousy nominee.
The Democrats need to rethink their nomination process in terms of the timing of the primaries or they need to find a better recruitment mechanism.
Steven, in my mind it wasn’t the joke but Kerry’s knee-jerk “I’m a veteran” reaction followed by the non-apology that illuminated the arrogance, elitism, and sanctimoniousness that is the Democratic party.
To be fair, I think it reveals all those things about Kerry, but again, to me that isn’t news.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Thursday, November 2, 2006 @ 10:31 pm
WEll, until this week, he *thought* he was running for something — in 2008. I am guessing that even he is over that, now.
Comment by Steven L. — Friday, November 3, 2006 @ 9:16 am
Eric,
Initially I had the same reaction. Kerry and many others lend themselves to that characterization.
But I could not fathom 1) why Kerry would insult those military people and their families risking everything in service to their country; 2) why Kerry would sabotage a sweeping anti-incumbent (pro-Democratic) movement in voter sentiment.
Upon investigating the facts, it became quite evident that Kerry meant to say Bush’s traditional lack of interest in intellectual pursuits and an aversion to critical analysis (versus gut reaction) has left US and his legacy stuck in Iraq.
A simple truth - only insulting to the President and his advisors.
Kerry should have just said it - instead of trying to be cute & funny . He ain’t cute He ain’t down-home. He ain’t funny.
But the real issue to me is that once again the Bush spin machine has turned criticism of the President (and they know full well that is what it was) into a media blitz presentation of an apparent attack upon America’s finest citizens and on the very principles they defend. Despite his constant reminder, Kerry did actually volunteer and serve (though briefly) in combat and states he strongly supports people in uniform.
The fact that some Republicans have seized upon and misrepresented Kerry’s gaffe in a desperate, cynical attempt to salvage their own hold on power says it all about their values. Truth is irrelevant to them. Only power counts.
None is more shameless in this scam than Peter Roskam running for IL 6th Cong Dist against Purple Heart veteran Tammy Duckworth. To deliberately flip & spin what Kerry meant in order to smear Democrats - especially someone like Duckworth - as unpatriotic & anti-military is IMHO despicable.
It says it all to me. Time to clean house.
One party rule is more dangerous and insufferable than tolerating snotty Democrats.
Comment by randyb — Friday, November 3, 2006 @ 4:50 pm
I agree with you. Also, check out Thomas Friedman’s column today, it’s excellent.
While this is obviously good news for him, it’s a little sad that he could get no more dates from American women than votes. Perhaps he should move to the UK and run for Parliament? He might find himself a sex symbol. Stranger things have happened — look at Dennis Franz!
The coordinator for
Ralph Nader’s 2004 presidential campaign in Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday to election fraud.
James P. Polk, 47, will serve 30 days of home detention and was fined $2,500.
Polk was accused of illegally certifying petitions to get Nader, an independent candidate, on the ballot. He was indicted on 10 counts of election fraud in October, but prosecutors withdrew nine of those counts.
Despite the fact that it appeared earlier this week that Senator Kerry had, in fact, finally released a complete set of his military records, it now appears that he, in fact, did not.
This kind of nonsense continues to underscore why it is that Kerry lost, and why he can never win the presidency: he seems incapable of providing a straight, clear answer and he constantly made (and continues to make) odd strategic choices. If one makes clear promises that appear to mean that one will releaes all one’s record, yet one then drags one’s feet in doing so, and then doesn’t really release the docs, one is either hiding something or one is stimply inept.
“There is nothing magic about signing a SF 180,” said former Naval Judge Advocate General Mark Sullivan. “It is sort of like your checkbook. You can fill out a check for one dollar or a million. It is the same check form.”
“And the Globe story says Kerry sent it to the Navy Personnel Command, which is only a limited storage location. So it is not surprising that the Globe then notes that what they received was largely ‘duplication’ of records previously released. The Navy Personnel Command primarily stores a subset of service records rather than a person’s full military records. There is no doubt there are a lot of after-action records missing from what Kerry has released,” said Sullivan.
and
Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has already found a discrepancy confirmed by the Department of the Navy of “at least a hundred pages” missing from those already disclosed by Kerry.
Now, this may all still be nothing. But still, it just isn’t smart.
Kerry’s reluctance to provide easy access to records that buttressed his war resume remains one of the more puzzling aspects of his campaign strategy.
At a minimum, if the man thinks he wants to run in 2008, he needs to figure out how to more directly deal with this kind of situation–and I am quite doubtful he will manage to do so.
John Kerry has to be one of the worst politicians in American history. He has played the flip flop game for so long he does not even know the truth. I would hope that some one like Mitt Romney would challenge him for his Senate seat and finally put Kerry out of his political misery. Also, check out Michael Medved’s new book. He Kerry’s classmate at Yale and does not say much good about him, even when Medved was on the same side of the political spectrum.
Comment by c.v. — Thursday, June 9, 2005 @ 10:35 am
Just when I thought I was getting too cynical for my own good, I find I am actually not cynical enough.
Comment by Steven L. — Thursday, June 9, 2005 @ 11:37 am
I want to hear some explanation from the Boston Globe regarding why they printed a story that tried very hard to give the impression that everything had been released.
Were they too dumb or ideologically blinded to ask questions and determine whether they really had everything, or did they join with Kerry and intentionally put out a misleading story?
I don’t see a third option here: (1) gross negligence, or (2) willful misreporting of facts.
Comment by Steven L. — Thursday, June 9, 2005 @ 11:55 am
Kerry would have done well to observe Patton’s Axiom - bad news doesn’t improve with age.
The reality is that Mr. Kerry is trying to find the perfect context under which he can release the fact that he was not honorably discharged from the United States Navy. Since those conditions only exist in garden spots like Vietnam, Cuba, and China (as we’ve seen this week with their shut-down/silencing of bloggers), he’s having trouble “pulling the trigger” - something he had no trouble doing with his mouth during the campaign cycle.
Unfortunately for Mr. Kerry (and in spite of the ACLU’s best efforts) we live in a country where the truth will come out - sooner or later.
Stay tuned for the next installment of “Recordgate” - knowing Kerry, he’ll manage to make a total abortion of the whole fiasco by inserting both his feet and hands in his mouth, while accusing some Godforsaken GOP “operator” of doctoring his treasured history…
Senator John F. Kerry, ending at least two years of refusal, has waived privacy restrictions and authorized the release of his full military and medical records.
The records, which the Navy Personnel Command provided to the Globe, are mostly a duplication of what Kerry released during his 2004 campaign for president, including numerous commendations from commanding officers who later criticized Kerry’s Vietnam service.
The lack of any substantive new material about Kerry’s military career in the documents raises the question of why Kerry refused for so long to waive privacy restrictions. An earlier release of the full record might have helped his campaign because it contains a number of reports lauding his service. Indeed, one of the first actions of the group that came to be known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was to call on Kerry to sign a privacy waiver and release all of his military and medical records.
But Kerry refused, even though it turned out that the records included commendations from some of the same veterans who were criticizing him.
The interesting thing about all of this isn’t that there were no revelations–quite frankly, that doesn’t surprise me. Rather, the interesting part is that this episode yet again illustrates Kerry’s serious lack of political acumen. Instead of releasing all this info years ago he allowed his recalcitrance to make it appear that there might be something being hidden. Aside from revealing that he wasn’t a mental giant in college, which is a marginal finding that barely rates above “amusing” I don’t see what the man was thinking in holding the records back.
Most, most odd.
Of course, maybe he just wanted this photo kept under wraps. Ick.
what I want is the records pertaining to his discharge, and whether he was honorably discharged, or had his discharge status changed under Carters first act as “president.”
Kerry gradually improved his grades, averaging 81 in his senior year. His highest single grade was an 89, for a political science class in his senior year. Despite his slow start, he went on to be a top student at Naval Candidate School, command a patrol boat in Vietnam, graduate from law school, and become a prosecutor, lieutenant governor, US senator, and presidential candidate.
So everyone at Yale was out to get him? Or we just have low expectations.
Comment by bryan — Tuesday, June 7, 2005 @ 8:59 pm
Maybe I am too cynical — but the first reports indicated that the source for all these new documents was Kerry himself — i.e., *he* got the documents and then forwarded them to the Boston Globe.
Is there anything showing that someone got these documents *directly* from the government?
Comment by Steven L. — Tuesday, June 7, 2005 @ 9:12 pm
Steven L. -
Feel free to be cynical. Demonstrating his mastery of nuance, Senator Kerry signed an SF-180 for the Navy to release the records they have. But the majority of military records for discharged personnel are held at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. NPRC is part of the National Archives and Records Administration, and there is no indication that he signed a second SF-180 for NPRC, which would be required for them to release the records that they have.
Remember, Kerry was for releasing his records before he was against releasing his records.
Comment by Buckland — Tuesday, June 7, 2005 @ 9:25 pm
WTW: Kerry signed and released
Hey, y’all, this is Jebediah. Teach left the keys. Now, about this Kerry critter signing his 180’s, he has apparently done that, and submitted them, and released the info (h/t to Poliblog for the story link).Senator John F. Kerry, ending
Comment by pete — Wednesday, June 8, 2005 @ 8:04 am
Assuming that these actually are all the records, which Steven L., pete, and ts combine to make me doubt, it is a bit baffling.
Maybe he just wanted to avoid handing the righty pundits who were already mocking his “Frenchness” (Frenchiness? Francitude?) the information that “French” was the subject that he scored highest in during his freshman year.
Comment by Terry — Wednesday, June 8, 2005 @ 12:06 pm
Sen. John F. Kerry (news, bio, voting record)’s grade average at Yale University was virtually identical to President Bush’s record there, despite repeated portrayals of Kerry as the more intellectual candidate during the 2004 presidential campaign.
Kerry had a cumulative average of 76 and got four Ds his freshman year — in geology, two history courses and political science, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.
His grades improved with time, and he averaged an 81 his senior year and earned an 89 — his highest grade — in political science as a senior.
And Bush:
In 1999, The New Yorker magazine published a transcript showing Bush had a cumulative grade average of 77 his first three years at Yale, and a similar average under a non-numerical rating system his senior year.
Bush’s highest grade at Yale was an 88 in anthropology, history and philosophy. He received one D in his four years, a 69 in astronomy, and improved his grades after his freshman year, the transcript showed.
And why do we know this only now?
Kerry, a Democrat, previously declined to release the transcript, which was included in his Navy records. He gave the Navy permission to release the documents last month, the Globe reported.
Amusing. Ultimately it doesn’t mean much, but amsuing nonetheless.
Amusing, indeed. Maybe he would have picked up some more of what in 1992 was called the “Bubba vote” if he had come clean. “See, I’m not an itellectual. I got D’s too.”
[...] e to make it appear that there might be something being hidden. Aside from revealing that he wasn’t a mental giant in college, which is a marginal finding that barely rates above “amusing& [...]
As I have argued on numerous previous occassions, losers in this system are not well positioned to make a come back. Nixon was the last to do it and he sat out eight years and had the Viet Nam war as a backdrop to aid him (a war that sufficiently problematic that a sitting President did not seek re-nomination to run for a second term).
Kerry may view himself as the guy who almost won, and therefore one who has the chance to win in the future, but the reality is that he is the guy who lost an election that he could have won–as such, that is political failure. Further, despite all the fundraising, he didn’t run a partiularly good campaign. He lacked a coherent theme, was mushy on Iraq, played right into the flp-flop thesis, was overly focused on Viet Nam, mishandled the Swift Boat business and started out by essentially writing off the South.
And last, but not least, since the main reason the primary voters chose him was his alleged “electability” it would seem that, since that didn’t work out, that he really would have a hard time making that appeal in 2008.
Why would the Democrats want to re-nominate him?
Indeed:
Yet Democrats say Mr. Kerry has little choice. “He needs to show that he’s a party guy, that he’s willing to help anybody out,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist, adding, “When you don’t have reporters and opinion leaders coming to you saying, ‘You’re the opposition leader, you’re the titular head of the party,’ it’s tough to break in.”
So tough, in fact, that not a single Democrat interviewed described Mr. Kerry as the front-runner in 2008. Most echoed Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, a member of the Democratic leadership, who said: “There is not going to be a clear path for anybody to the nomination. I think it would be helpful to our party to have an aggressive competition.”
In other words: “we really aren’t all that interested in a second Kerry run. Thanks for playing. NEXT!”
Update: Commenting on the same piece, Ann Althouse makes the following apt observation:
The Republicans won an important victory Monday in their legal challenge to the election of Gov. Christine Gregoire when a judge allowed them to use a type of statistical analysis to try to prove illegal votes swayed the race.
[...]
Republicans claim they have identified more than 1,000 illegal votes–mostly ballots cast by felons, but also unverified provisional ballots and votes cast in the names of dead people.
Superior Court Judge John Bridges gave the GOP the go-ahead to apply “proportional analysis” to the illegal votes.
Using proportional analysis, they want the court to subtract illegal votes from both candidates’ totals according to precinct voting patterns. For example, if 10 illegal votes came from a precinct that voted 60 percent for Gregoire and 40 percent for Rossi, six votes would be deducted from Gregoire’s total and four from Rossi’s.
Democrats said the method amounts to statistical guessing. At the same time, they have been collecting evidence of illegal votes in GOP-leaning counties, and plan to use the same proportional analysis in court.
Ok, I was opposed to the suggestion that statistical analysis should have been used in Florida in 2000 and I oppose it actual application here.
This situation shows the folly of trying to contest an election that is this close: you hit a point wherein it is impossible to really know who won, as is sufficient room for error in eithr direction that certainty is impossible.
The only solution to this kind of electoral outcome is to have in place (i.e., before the election) a law dictating that if the election ends up being especially close, via a pre-determined number, like .1%, then a re-vote takes place. Otherwise, I don’t see any mechanism by which it is possible to settle the outcome except by the existing (impefect) re-count methods.
[...] llenges which need to be settled. Whether we are talking about this case, Florida 2000 or Washington state in 2005, it is clear that there needs to be a rule in place that results in a re-vote if the [...]
Many voters in last year’s presidential election were denied access to the polls through trickery and intimidation, former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told a voters’ group Sunday.
“Last year too many people were denied their right to vote, too many who tried to vote were intimidated,” the Massachusetts senator said at an event sponsored by the state League of Women Voters.
[...]
Kerry also cited examples Sunday of how people were duped into not voting.
“Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you’ve ever had a parking ticket, you’re not allowed to vote,” he said.
Hard evidence, rather than vague examples in a speech would be nice. This kind of talk simply further undermines faith in the system and accomplishes nothing more than allowing hardcore partisans to feel better about their loss, since they didn’t really lose, because the election was “stolen”. Indeed, such talk does damage to the Democratic Party because it continues to feed the idea that recent Democratic losses at the polls aren’t due to strategic errors on the part of the party, nor to weak candidates, but rather to some nefarious, nebulous Republican plot.
Further, Kerry must believe that many in his voting base are pretty stupid to fall for “Democrats vote on Wednesday” leaflets.
Further, if the following is true, then why engage in talk that will undermine confidence in the system?:
Kerry has never disputed the outcome of election, saying voting irregularities did not involve enough votes to change the result.
Well, of course Kerry is still crying! By the time that he decided that he wanted to win, it was too late. He wants to stay in the news some how. We need a GREAT candidate for the next one.
I love the sniveling of the DemonRATs, and what dolts like Kerry think about their own backers. If Dem voters are so stupid to think that there are two different days for voting, they don’t deserve to vote. I ascribe it to public education–Dems for decades have worked at making grads stupid enough to vote Democratic, but still with enough mind to get to the polls and vote Dem. The two curves seem to have crossed, no?
Comment by John Cunningham — Tuesday, April 12, 2005 @ 11:22 am
Obviously the 2000 poll average missed the actual popular vote plurality. But given that Gore won by only about 0.5%, they can probably be forgiven that.
Indeed, the final poll average was almost spot on in 2004, which dispels a myth held by many Democrats (though it says nothing about the exit polls, which are another matter).
On the Bradley effect, independent of the actual Bradley contest, most of the evidence is that whatever effect there has been over the years has dissipated. Moreover, Obama tended to overperform his polls in the primaries much more often than underperform.
Comment by MSS — Monday, November 3, 2008 @ 11:43 am
Polls:
Useful as toilet paper when in hardcopy.
I can’t see anything else they might contribute to society.
Comment by Captain D — Monday, November 3, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
Uh, information?
Comment by MSS — Monday, November 3, 2008 @ 2:10 pm