I think the polls are close because...

[SHRED]

...America is enough of a racist country to cover the spread.

And cell phones are not called.


--

[frogcycle]

1. I think that most/all of the pollers

are in the tank with the big business interests. They are just making shit up. After all, there are no laws regulating them, are there? The only thing to "keep them honest" is their reputation for accuracy, which would in a sane world be how they would get repeat business. In this world, though, they get business by producing the desired results.

In a country in which the last two elections were stolen through falsified "vote counts" by purportedly non-partisan boards of elections and then upheld by the SCOTUS, how can anyone doubt that Gallup et al are saying whatver the hell they want about whom they poll and what the responses are?

[AldebTX]

2. Polls Reflect the Expected Results

If you are getting your money from a Republican source its not surprising the poll shows what they hope to see.

Media wants to see a close race. It gives them something to talk about. I have heard liberal commentators bemoan how the race should not be close but in the next breath say how much more interesting the race is because its a virtual tie.

If there were money to be made for one to predominant, trust me we would be having a blow out one way or another in the pool.

[Andy823]

11. I agree.

Polls work for those who pay the bill, and as you stated, he media "wants" a close race so they can get their ratings up by playing the "horses race" game.

People need to get off the pity pot, stop feeling down because some poll says Obama is behind MccCain, and get out and do something worth while. Sitting around and feeling depressed is what the republicans want. They think if they can convince people that it's "useless" to get out and vote because Obama has lost already, they can win the election, and sadly they may be right. Every year I see the same old thing, people getting all worked up over nothing, and then sitting home on elections day instead of getting out and voting!

[Max_powers94]

3. I said it before and i going to sat it again..Obama has a big lead....

MSM is underestimating the youth and AA vote.

[sufrommich]

4. If it's racism,how would you explain his good poll

numbers up until recently?

[goldcanyonaz]

7. Quit trying to be rational.

*typo*

[Patsy Stone]

5. And really screwy sampling, also:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3485438&mesg_id=3485593

I don't beleive it's all that close. I think they have to make it look close.

[sasha031]

6. I think it's because the Obama camp isn't hitting hard enough

[barack the house]

8. Folks have got to stop putting this down to racism. Let's think reverse was it sexism with Hillary >

no and going round calling it racism is just getting folks angry as it did us when we were called sexist. The only thing losing this for us now is lack of confidence believe in the prduct.

[dbonds]

9. They actually use polls to motivate or demoralize the public.

They don't have to make up data, but they can manipulate it easily with sample demographics. These polls are on the edge of statistical validity to start with - they would need exact demographics to be meaningful with that low sample count. Just a small shift in demographics will change the outcome. The bigger the sample size the more accurate is should be - assuming good demographics and random sampling.

So they can energize one side by showing them ahead. Or, try to manipulate some fence sitters that doesn't trust their own decision making ability. These people will go with the majority. It also is used to take the wind out of the loosing side.

These polls don't really mean much. Polls of Polls is slightly better than a single poll, but that depends on the underlieing polls being close. Don't panic over any one poll, or don't get too excited either.

[Overseas]

10. Many polling firms are Republican owned

So I believe the results can be manipulated-- either through slanting the questions, calling equal numbers of Rs and Ds, even though we have millions more Democrats registered to vote, and

perhaps with a little hacking because it was embarrassing to have so many questions when the Kerry v Bush numbers were flipped after midnight in Election 2004. The polls were indicating a large enough lead for Kerry that the flip in numbers still stinks as statistically extremely improbable.

I hope not, but seeing what Republicans actually did to suppress Democratic votes in 2004, it is hard to rule anything out.

Just saw the movie "Stealing America: Vote by Vote" www.stealingamericathemovie.com , which was the best documentary so far about all the various election manipulation methods used in our recent elections, as well as historical comparisons. I highly recommend it, although it was so sad to see the networks talking about the smoothness of the election while we here on DU at the time were getting reports from the field about machines malfunctioning (somehow always in favor of Bush) and Republican operatives challenging votes at polling places to slow voting down in Democratic districts, etc etc.

Another reference on election integrity is RFK Jr's article in Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen