C-Span with Brian Lamb: Bush* Up 2.5 point per: this site....

[leftchick]

http://realclearpolitics.com/

The guy who runs this site claims to be "fair and not biased"! LOL check out the editorials he prints. He also claims to average all of the national polls and bush* is up 2.5 points this morning.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. The Real Clear Politics Guy Is A GOP Shill

but I don't think many people would dispute his poll of polls...

He basically takes every published poll and averages them....

[ochazuke]

3. Average can be skewed

I think that one poll showing a shrub lead of like eight points is probably in there. Take it out and see what happens.

[sjr5740]

2. Averaging polls is BS

Each poll is taken with different assumptions producing different poll results. For example look at Gallup's so called LV which severely oversamples repubs. In order for averaging to be used each poll must be taken under the same conditions with the same assumptions for the poll weighting.

By averaging poll the ones with a strong * bias (such as the Gallup polls) skew the results. The example I like is that if you and Bill Gates sit down together, the average net worth at that table would be over a billion dollars. * uses these misleading figures when he talks about his tax cut giving an average of $1,000 to all taxpayers. The people at the top get so much and the bottom gets squat so the "average" is $1,000.

I am not a statistician but I would compare the median poll result to the mean. If you could truly average the polls these two values should match. Otherwise I think you need to determine a weighting factor for each poll to be added into the average. Professor pollkatz has been reweighting Gallup polls for some time now.

SJR

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. I Have Made The Bill Gates Analogy Here Myself

Even if you take the Chimp's media nat'l lead it would be 2 0r 3%...

Nothing earth shattering...

[leftchick]

5. exactly!

It is BS and very well said.. :)

[KharmaTrain]

6. It's Like A Sports Ticker...Just Numbers

Didn't the 2000 election demonstrate how little the "beauty pageant" or poll/popular vote numbers mean? In theory, a candidate could have lopsided popular vote numbers and still lose in the electoral college. Thus, other than for the fun of saying "whose winning or losing" that day, they offer very little as to what will happen a week from Tuesday.

State polls, especially those conducted by local papers and not "averaged" are far more indicative of what's happening then some "guy in his parents basement" crunching numbers.

I've checked realclearpolitics and this guy's been consistantly behind the other sites in getting the numbers up and "averaged"...but since he's a young repugnican, Brian Lamm had to have this dude on.

I keep saying watch where the candidate travel...this is based on the campaign in-polling and will tell you a lot more than another pollster looking to get private consulting contracts with both parties after the election.