2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

Exactly, LW, and he still does! But if there's anyone who was born an "insider," Bush was!

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The latest poll figures on a related topic:

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Nov. 18-19, 2003.

"Considering how things are today, would you say that the U.S. is generally headed in the right direction, or is it off on the wrong track?"

Right direction, 40%
Wrong track, 47%
Not Sure, 13%

Nothing spectacular, it would seem, until you look down in the list ... That "wrong track" number is higher than at any point in the last five and a half years.

The worst ratio thus far in the list of FOX poll results on this question was in June 1999, when it was 42% "right direction" vs 45% "wrong track". At no earlier point in the Bush Jr presidency did the "wrong track" number get over 40%.

(With this, though, one has to keep in mind that the results used to be monthly, then quarterly, and now halfyearly, so this is only the second result for 2003.)

The NBC/Wall Street Journal bimonthly poll on the same question that appeared earlier this month showed roughly the same picture. With 43% saying "right direction" and 47% "wrong track", the result was better than in September - but worse than any other time since July 1997 except for last January.

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The latest poll figures on an UNrelated topic ;-):

http://www.pollingreport.com/images/greatest.GIF

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nimh

What weird results! Reagan compared to Jefferson, for example. Or Eisenhower...it would be interesting to see a related poll..."Who have you heard of before?"

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nimh, That poll on greatest president leaves us with as many questions as it answers. Age group, education, and gender comes to mind.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

nimh, That poll on greatest president leaves us with as many questions as it answers. Age group, education, and gender comes to mind.

Well, usually polling agencies worth their salt (and this one was done by Gallup) would take a representative cross-section of the population on those criteria (as well as on region of the country etc). The pollingreport summary of this one says nothing more than that they took 1,004 respondents (which is ample enough for a political poll), but I'm sure there's more at http://www.gallup.com.

EDIT: checked the site out, the closest in terms of explanations how they do their (standard) polls I found was "How polls are conducted" in the FAQ section. Basically, how they compile their sample is by:

Quote:

start[ing] with a list of all household telephone numbers in the continental United States. This complicated process really starts with a computerized list of all telephone exchanges in America, along with estimates of the number of residential households those exchanges have attached to them. The computer, using a procedure called random digit dialing (RDD), actually creates phone numbers from those exchanges, then generates telephone samples from those. In essence, this procedure creates a list of all possible household phone numbers in America and then selects a subset of numbers from that list for Gallup to call.

It’s important to go through this complicated procedure because estimates are that about 30% of American residential phones are unlisted. Although it would be a lot simpler if we used phone books to obtain all listed phone numbers in America and sampled from them (much as you would if you simply took every 38th number from your local phone book), we would miss out on unlisted phone numbers, and introduce a possible bias into the sample.

By using RDD, the computer selects an absolutely random selection of "adults, aged 18 and over, living in telephone households within the continental United States" - and an absolutely random number of as much as 1,000 would, reasonably speaking, contain as many men as women etc. The only caveat they mention is:

Quote:

In effect, it is the civilian, non-institutionalized population. College students living on campus, armed forces personnel living on military bases, prisoners, hospital patients and others living in group institutions are not represented in Gallup’s "sampling frame."

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Their site's got all kinds of interesting data and graphs, too. Here's another Christmas Tree one for you, c.i.:

George W. Bush’s Job Approval Rating

http://www.gallup.com/images/Poll/Releases/pr031118.gif

In another item about the Democratic front-runners, the estimate Fishin' and I talked about here a few days ago is borne out: some 50% of national adults now know enough about Howard Dean to give him either a favorable or an unfavorable rating.

Thats not all that much after all this campaigning, but its no less than the turnout percentage, so you'd say pretty much most likely voters by now do know him, which should make for taking the Bush Vs Dean polls seriously enough. (Though they could still change a lot purely when those likely voters get to know more about him.) Lieberman, Gephardt and Sharpton, however, are still known by a lot more people (62-67%). Oddly enough, Democrats and Democrat leaners are no more likely to know these politicians than the national population overall.

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Looks like the Christmas tree fell over, Nimh!

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nimh, Thanks for the explanation. It seems like a fair representation of the US population. I'm just a bit leary of polls, because of past experience - as recent as the election in Florida.

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Those exit polls were probably correct, c.i. I wonder why the final count didn't reflect it.

That poor Christmas tree. And we didn't even get the lights on it yet.

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Lola wrote:

Those exit polls were probably correct, c.i. I wonder why the final count didn't reflect it.

In case your memory is failing you... they called Florida early for BUSH, based on exit polling, then later backtracked because the actual votes being tallied were showing the race far closer than the polling had suggested.

So, in point of fact the final count (and every recount, btw) did reflect the exit polling. Rolling Eyes

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I'm sorry, Scrat if you have trouble understanding my point. I think I'll pass up the opportunity of explaining it to you.

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Here's how I remember it: http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/Rep1100.html

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Very interesting: Gebhardt is attacking Dean for cutting the budget when Vermont had financial problems yet the repubs attact Dean for being too liberal. (oy-can hick cowboys from colorado say "oy?"

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Lola wrote:

I'm sorry, Scrat if you have trouble understanding my point. I think I'll pass up the opportunity of explaining it to you.

I didn't fail to understand your point, I saw that the point you intended to make was fallacious and I pointed that fact out.

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Tartarin wrote:

Looks like the Christmas tree fell over, Nimh!

LOL!

And its been there for a while too, see? Bottom side lost all its fresh greenness ...

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For those of you close to your television, another candidates' debate will begin in just a matter of minutes (4EST, 3CST) on MSNBC, with Tom Brokaw as moderator.

Is anyone watching/listening? Let's hear what you think...

(BTW, MSNBC will rebroadcast it later on this evening.)

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nimh, I'm waiting for the christmas tree to complete by the top crossing - and the disapproval rating shoots upwards - before christmas. That would be a good gift for many of us - in the whole world.

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Lacking any other comments, then, I'll post a few (with a reminder that as I am doing so, the debate is being rebroadcast at this moment):

For some reason the other candidates froze Joe Lieberman out of this debate. They all voted to exclude a satellite appearance by him from DC, where he was debating the Medicare prescription drug legislation (despite the fact that both Kerry and Edwards did so).

Very odd.

Speaking of Kerry, I thought he fared poorly. He attacked Dean harshly, attempting at one point to corner him on a question of "slowing the growth of Medicare". Together with Gephardt, Kerry pummeled Dean every chance he got, and Dean's vigorous defense to both sounded shrill and testy at times. All three men looked less well for the exchange.

The guy who really raised his voice -- and some hell -- was Wesley Clark, who laid off his fellow prospects but bashed Bush on Iraq sort of like the way the B-52s drop bombs on Baghdad.

Sharpton was strident as well and as usual. Moderator Tom Brokaw made him speak to the Brawley case, and in a convoluted comparison involving Jessica Lynch and the confederate flag, indicated he would have apologized -- if he had been wrong.

Kucinich showed newspaper photographs of US soldiers in Iraq KIA, which was his most excited moment. Poor CMB and John Edwards seemed to be part of the scenery.

This was the best debate so far, because it lasted two hours and because Brokaw's steady moderation eliminated the cheering and interruptions.

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There was a long article on Clark in Sunday's Times, PDiddie -- did you get a chance to read it? (I've only just skimmed it, so far...)

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Thanks for your update, PDiddie, very useful for those among us who dont have a TV and/or wouldnt be able to watch the debate even had they had one.

Just read the MSNBC reports, doesnt sound like anyone came out particularly well. You thought Clark was the winner?

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2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

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