I find it hard to believe that the polls are really as close as they are

[mtnsnake]

considering everyone, even Republicans and other stupid people, knows that the country is in the pits because of 8 years of gross Republican negligence and corruption.

Personally, I think the real numbers would reflect Obama with a much wider lead, maybe as much as 25 points, than what they're trying to tell us. I think the pollsters are finding ways to keep the gap as small as possilbe so the other side doesn't give up completely if they really knew the truth. Maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, if the numbers they're telling us are right, then this country is more fucked in the head than I thought.

[CJCRANE]

1. Some polls are showing a 15% lead for Obama

I think they are the more accurate ones as they mirror the collapse in Republican support over the last couple of years.

[mtnsnake]

2. yeah, I think that was Newsday. The other polls have to be a joke.

[fasttense]

3. The old conservative pollsters like Gallup and Rasmussen underestimate the younger voters

as well as underestimating the Democratic swing in voters in general. The younger voters are moving to the left and are routinely left out by the older conservative pollster because traditionally they don't vote. Obama seems to have changed the voting habits of the young.

[Bullet1987]

4. The only polls showing a close race are the tracking polls

The other polls that come out every few days are not showing it close.

[Bill McBlueState]

13. I wonder what the difference is

There's got to be some key difference in the sampling methodology between the polls that show it close and the polls that give Obama a big lead. If we knew how their methods differ, we could evaluate which type of poll is more reliable.

[zeemike]

5. Their trying to prepare us for another surprise victory by Rethugs

With a little voter caging, outright theft and an October surprise they just might pull it off

[Overseas]

6. That's the idea-- in 2004 they started criticizing polls too late to cover up stolen election

Remember all those earnest discussions in the corporate media about how exit polls could be just so far off the mark that they had the final vote tallies flipped, showing Kerry winning? Even though we trust exit polls to evaluate the soundness of elections around the world, somehow, U.S. polling firms with solid reputations were impugned during the TV talk about the 2004 election. Those discussions took place to drown out all the additional comments from the field about various methods of vote manipulation employed by the Republicans-- distribution of voting machines-- too few in Democratic areas, challenging particular voters to slow voting down to a crawl, not counting provisional ballots, voter roll caging lists, etc.

That's why it looks to me like this year the corporate media is just starting earlier to question polls to make sure to give the public a longer-standing memory that you just can't trust those darn polls. Let those wild swings and discrepancies sink into public consciousness now, so that when the election is stolen again, people will have those memories and say to themselves-- "See, you just can't trust those polls."

I may as well go a step further and wonder which organizations might be deliberately skewing their polling samples to demonstrate that you can't trust polls. Whoops, you see, you're right, we just screw up sometimes.

[old guy]

7. I don't pay too much attention to polls in any case.

Polls are a statistic that can manipulated for any agenda. The media will take any path to make a horse race of the election to protect ratings. Nothing to talk about if one side is way ahead. At the end of the day, some polls will be right and some will be wrong and they will go on to the next topic to poll. Does anyone really believe * approval ratings are as high as they show?

[dems_rightnow]

8. Obama's voters

... are showing a decided steadfastness that McCain's voters don't have. They're on board to stay. Even the voters who say they'll voter McCain are far less exuberant, and more likely to defect.

[NorthCarolina]

9. Polls generally reflect the desired results of the pollster

and I don't put much faith in any of them.

[thewiseguy]

10. You need to look at the EV not the popular vote

Blowouts in the popular vote are extremely rare.

[BeatleBoot]

11. The General Electorate Doesn't Know Obama

I'd venture to say even a good chunk of Dem Voters don't know him either - yet. That will take care of itself in Denver.

Why do you think Senator Graham kept repeating this mantra like 50 times on Meet The Press last week? "People don't know Obama and he can't be trusted".

Just because everything is fucked up, doesn't necessarily translate into votes for the opposing party.

There is a shitload of work ahead and if some do not believe so, they are fooling themselves.

[Bill McBlueState]

12. Do you have any specific complaints about methodology?

The reason people do polls is that they're known to be more reliable than an individual's gut assessment of the situation. Sure, all my friends like Obama, but I may not have a very diverse group of friends.

People are subject to all sorts of biases, and so are polls, but at least with a poll, you can look over the methodology and spot the flaws more easily.

[MercutioATC]

14. Never underestimate the ignorance of the American voter.

I believe they're probably pretty accurate.

[TheDonkey]

15. people change religions more often than political parties. There are a lot of lock-step repukes

out there that will vote (R) no matter what is happening. This may be a "democratic" year but it will never be a slamdunk or a blowout for us w/o having an incumbent that will shut the haters up. We'll need to work hard for Obama.

[Teaser]

16. polls are saying all kinds of things.

.

[nsd]

17. I think the polls look reasonably good.

Newsweek and Time show Obama out in front by a lot (12-15), Rasmussen by a significant amount (7), Gallup is the one that has it tied. This is not bad at all. In fact, I'd say that, this far out, the polls are as good as we can hope for.

The idea that Obama should be up by 25 is absurd. Ronald Reagan in 1984 never led Walter Mondale by that much.