’)Like I said before, these polls are likely to do all sorts of gyrations before election day and they don’t matter as much as we may think since as Al Gore can tell you, it’s the electoral college that matters.
STILL.
That USA Today/Gallup poll showing Sen. McCain with a 4% lead used a likely voter model of 10% turnout by the youth vote. Okay, let’s assume that there’s no Obama effect on the youth vote (and Sen. Clinton can probably tell you that that isn’t true), the youth vote was still 16% in 2004! Does anyone seriously think the youth vote is going to decrease by that much? In all likelihood the number will go up, and the vast majority will be Obama voters. So, even in a poll that I concede is not exactly a great predictor, Sen. Obama’s number is being underestimated.
Then again, keep those numbers jimmied in the polls, pollsters. Let the surprise come on election day.
But the problem is that if they can make the polls look close, their Diebold thievery stands a much better chance of working.
“Then again, keep those numbers jimmied in the polls, pollsters. Let the surprise come on election day.”
Echoing what Joe Bourgeois said. If Obama’s polling a consistent 15-point lead, a McCain victory in the final results looks fishy as hell. If they’re cooking the polls to look dead-even, a narrow McCain victory is normal and raises no eyebrows.
Obama up by 5 or more in final polling would make it impossible to steal the election.
I think either today or early next week that Gallup result will drop out of the aggregates, and we’ll see every current poll showing Obama leading.
I agree with all of the above. One of the great crimes of the new online punditry, and that includes Oliver here but really Markos and Atrios bear a lot of blame here because they could change things (there’s a horrible bill by Feinstein in the congress that everyone should be trying to stop), is the complete and utter failure to look at the lessons of 2000 and 2004. That main lesson being that those elections were stolen by way of electronic vote theft, voter purging, and voter supression aimed mostly at black folks. Can’t let the knee gras vote I guess. You’ll get robbed a third time and wonder gee “what happened?” Didn’t see that one coming.
http://www.gregpalast.com/obama-doesn’t-sweat-he-should/
Two, and this could also be a possibility: those polls might be right and the country isn’t ready for a black president–no matter how superior but that’s why its called “racism”, bigotry wins out over objective analysis everytime– and Obama’s FISA and offshore drilling flip flops are hurting with young voters. The youth vote reads the Daily Kos and Atrios and Oliver here not the newspapers. And while the O Dub is in the bag not everyone else is. If I was a young voter, then I would be very disappointed by Obama. Because if we go to war with Iran and attempt to steal their oil we would probably need a draft. And what FISA proves is that his word doesn’t amount to much…
Philip Shropshire
http://www.threeriversonline.com
Yes, I’m part of the secret conspiracy. Those checks from Diebold always clear! Surely that’s whats silencing us. And surely we’re also preventing other people from writing about what they want to.
Was the 2004 election stolen? No.
In the past I’ve liked Palast’s work, but in the last couple years he has slipped right into conspiracyland. I don’t trust voting without an audit trail, but this notion that has taken hold on the left that every election is going to be stolen resulted in this idiotic Eeyore-style mindset.
There are those who believe that there was voter fraud whenever their guy loses. In ‘06 it was the conservatives (in certain circles, anyway). In 2004, 30% of the electorate voted for Bush; Kerry got a little less than that. Fair and square.
Assuming a 10% youth vote is nonsense. Pure, raw, weapons-grade nonsense. But what would the poll guys stand to gain by keeping it close? Is there somebody out there reading the paper, and going, ‘ooh, within the margin of error! This is like (insert sporting event) which I also enjoy!’ It’s not as if their revenue increases if somebody reads the poll.
Oliver: As usual your astounding level of ignorance never ceases to amaze me. Manjoo? Why don’t you tell me that you support the Iraq War because wise Thomas Friedman said “suck on this”. It would be about the same thing. Manjoo has been ripped, destroyed, devoured, stomped and beat down by the election integrity movement. Hell, Salon readers tore him a new one not to mention the rebuttals by Mark Crispin Miller and Bob Fitrakis which you can read here and see here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-crispin-miller/some-might-call-it-treaso_b_23187.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHegbrhf_Oc
Your ad hominem (as usual) on Palast is bizarre. Here’s a white guy who gives a frack about the black vote (not a big group) and you’re going to put him down as a conspiracy nut. Good going there. Instead of name calling, could you actually read the material he wrote? Here’s a snippet:
“In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.
In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.
In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.
In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.”
Okay: I’ll bite. You can’t spot the conspiracy? You don’t see a pattern after 70000 votes purged in 2000 Florida and 300000 votes, mostly dems, purged in 2004 Ohio, which cost Kerry the election…How is it intelligent to keep on ignoring this?
Palast has done good work on this issue, but like many he sees overarching conspiracies where there is often incompetence. You seem to have the same sort of view of conspiratorial dealings, exhibited here.
But why does the incompetence always benefit republicans? Every shady election where there is strong evidence of vote fraud the republicans win!
Okay, I’ll bite again: what conspiracies are you talking about? When republican sec of states consistently purge black voters…you think that’s an accident? Or incompetence that just runs one way? Do you want more information? There’s about 5 to 7 really good books on the issue. If you don’t reading, you can watch Bob Fitrakis go into detail about what happened here in Ohio:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UOGEYMt0_I
Do me a favor: instead of typing off a quick and completely ineffective rebuttal watch the first two or three videos of this one hour presentation. Then get back to me on how Farhoo kicked his ass!
It’s a conspiracy until they “lose” *your* registration.
Your ad hominem (as usual) on Palast is bizarre.
I would hardly call that ad hominem. Having said that, it seems pretty fucking clear to me there was some dirty dealing going on both in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004. Anyone who doesn’t think Florida was thrown to Bush must be delusional. However, I don’t think you could classify it as a wide-ranging conspiracy, but rather by party loyalists acting on their own nefarious ideals.
I mean, come on. The Sec of State of Florida was head of Bush’s Florida campaign committee. That seems pretty fishy from the start and there should be some sort of law against it.
“Every shady election where there is strong evidence of vote fraud the republicans win!”
… Except for Wisconsin and Washington in 2004. And Kennedy in 1960. And every election in New Jersey, Chicago, and Lousiana since the dawn of time.
The Sec of State of Florida was head of Bush’s Florida campaign committee.
Gore’s Florida head was the Attorney General lest we forget. While it’d be nice to make a rule that said politicians aren’t allowed to engage in politics, we don’t live in that world.
To make every vote in every state politically relevant and equal in presidential elections, support the National Popular Vote bill.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 21 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.
see http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
SaveFarris: What elections in Wisconsin and Washington? Stories? Details? What races? Please provide some clips and links. Remember: We’re talking about election fraud, not voter fraud.
Kennedy in 1960 is usually trotted out because of Illinois. What usually isn’t mentioned is that even if Kennedy had lost Illinois he still would have won the presidency. Stop repeating the “truthiness” of right wing talking points…
One final note: you give me two consecutive presidential elections and I’ll give you back those senate, house or governor seats in Washington and Wisconsin. Sounds fair to me.
Kennedy in 1960 is usually trotted out because of Illinois. What usually isn’t mentioned is that even if Kennedy had lost Illinois he still would have won the presidency
Leave us not forget Texas.
Bradly Affect warring… if Sen Obama is not up in polls by at least 10 points nationally: he is in trouble. Oh and another note, STOP CRYING ABOUT DIBOLD, geese that gets old!
Actually, if we had fixed the machines after we had taken back both chambers in 2006 then it wouldn’t matter. We haven’t. In fact, a sizable portion of the dnc (the DLC and Israel at any cost folks like Leiberman) and certainly the RNC love the results of the stolen elections and don’t want to change anything. That has to be it. Nothing has been done on the national level to prevent 2000 and 2004 from happening again. Nothing.
Obama is attempting to compensate by using massive registration drives which might work although it would help if he paid people. Of course, we don’t know if that will work. And its voter purges, again coincidently and incompetently done only to black dem voters (60000 in Florida and 300000 in Ohio, plus vote switching. Fitrakis and Hayes have even figured out the counties…)that played more of a factor than vote theft. Its more important than “Dibold”. And I wouldn’t be complaining about “dibold” if we fixed our machines which we haven’t done. Its obvious that you don’t know this. Could you do me a favor? Could you watch the latest election integrity movement film here:
http://www.freeforall.tv/
Its free. It gives you a nice full history of the problem.