Sharron Angle looks likely to unseat Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Nevada Tea Party challenge stirs Midterm passions – and unease
Gary Younge asks why Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle looks likely to unseat Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid


Sharron Angle, the Republican senatorial candidate appeared for five minutes as the warm-up act at her own rally last week in Las Vegas. To the joy of the crowd, Angle taunted the Senate majority leader and incumbent, Harry Reid, to "man up" four times, implored her supporters to vote, said she knew "what the American dream looked like" and blew some kisses.

Outside her supporters spoke in apocalyptic terms of the threat that an Obama administration posed to the nation. "He represents everything that is the antithesis of freedom," said one. "He wants to enslave us." Another argued that the president did not understand the "fundamental principles that lead people to live in America. They want to work and don't want things handed to them on a platter." When asked if the president had done anything at all that they approve of, most said no; one said he might provide a good example to black people as to how to create a family.

By this time, Angle had long gone, vacating the stage to Republican grandee Newt Gingrich, leaving by the back door, avoiding the media. She has barely been seen since.

Angle, who has the support of the Tea Party, is in a tight race with Reid. Her bid to oust the most powerful Democrat in the upper chamber has attracted millions of dollars and spawned national news. Her media strategy appears to be to avoid the media. Local reporters have been seen chasing her across car parks; her staffers provide decoys as she slips away. Her schedule is not public. Apart from her television commercials and occasional presence on rightwing radio – which amount to the same thing – she is virtually invisible to the public.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/29/tea-party-sharron-angle-nevada

[still_one]

1. Screw the guardian, it is a gossip rag /nt

[truebrit71]

17. Sorry but that is complete and total horseshit..the Guardian is one of only two newspapers in the UK

...that are worth more than the paper they are printed on...

[madokie]

2. Bullshit and lots of it

the smelly kind too

Not directed toward the OP

[Common Sense Party]

3. I spent four days in Vegas last week, speaking with employees of

our client. I heard lots of unsolicited comments about politics while I was there. There were few good words said about Reid or our President. Lots of misguided anger or resentment. I don't know the state well, but that glimpse didn't fill me with hope.

[Greyhound]

29. Like so many ignored areas of the nation, we have lots of poor, desperate people

that know what's happening to them and the happy horseshit coming out of DC isn't going to convince them otherwise. Add to this the fact that there is literally no media telling people anything like the truth and this is what you get.

They are largely ignorant and completely uninterested. All they experience, see, and hear all day long is things going from really bad to far worse. Reid hasn't 'brought home the bacon' for a decade and would lose in a landslide if the republiks had nominated a marginally sane person.

[baldguy]

4. She has an 4 point lead - with a 3.5% margin of error.

If the people writing these articles (I won't call them "reporters") knew anything about statistics, they'd make it clear that this race - and most similar races - are essentially tied.

[pintobean]

12. What do the statistics say about

a 4 point lead by 3 different polls in the last few days? Does that reduce the margin of error? I'm not being a smart ass - I don't know.

[baldguy]

15. Each poll has it's own margin of error, and they're not additive.

If the poll says candidate A is at 46% and candidate B is at 42%, and the poll has a 3% MOE, then the actual support for candidate A may be as low as 43% or as high as 49%, and candidate B may be as low as 39% or as high as 45%. If there's any overlap for those margins (45% > 43%) then the poll shows that the candidates are in a tie.

Polls are inaccurate by there very nature - it can't find out what every single voter wants, so it asks a sample. The margin of error is a measure of just how inaccurate the poll is. The only way to reduce it is to have a larger sample.

Demographics enter into the calculation too. If Mexican Americans & younger people are more likely to support Reid, but the poll sample doesn't account for them either by making more of an effort to include them or weighting the responses higher for those that are included, then it may have an even larger MOE for those groups.

But the MOE is almost never reported on outside the fine print.

[pintobean]

19. Thank you, that helps a lot.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

23. A lead larger than the margin of error is not "essentially tied"...

Close, sure, but - if the statistics you quote are accurate, and I have no idea if they are - not "essentially tied".

[baldguy]

26. But it's not larger than 2x the margin of error.

The MOE effects the percentage stated for each candidate.

The most recent poll I can find that actually lists the MOE is CNN/Tine from Oct 20-26:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/10/27/topstate8.pdf

For "likely voters" it lists Reid at 45% and Angle at 49%, with a 3.5% margin of error. Therefor, support for Reid could be as high as 48.5%, and Angle could be as low as 45.5%.

The poll data shows that this race is a tie, but it's never reported like that. Especially when the Dem is apparently down.

[JCMach1]

28. and they are not polling NONE of THE ABOVE

Which IS on the ballot in NV.

[Deep13]

5. "he might provide a good example to black people as to how to create a family"

African-American families survived slavery. I don't think they need any lessons.

[MineralMan]

6. So what do the Indian newspapers say? How about

Al Jazira? Maybe you could find an article in Pravda, too, for us to read.

Unrecommended for searching for downer stories, wherever you can find them.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. I just pass them along. the world is in a "downer" mode...

I didn't expect many recs with this OP. This one was for comments that will hopefully refute the news article.

[MineralMan]

11. Yah, no doubt that's what you're doing.

And you have my undying gratitude for it, too. Wait...where's the snark smiley? :snark:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

13. how did you like the part where she's dodging reporters

[MineralMan]

14. She's been doing that all along. I saw that in US news stories,

you know. I don't use the Guardian for any sort of information. It's very unreliable. But, hey...whatever floats your dinghy.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

30. a candidate dodging reporters doesn't "float my boat"

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MineralMan]

24. My opinion. Your opinion. That's DU.

I hope you'll enjoy your day.

[napi21]

7. I'm not thrilled wih Reid, but I'd sure hate to see that idiot in the

Senate!

[deaniac21]

9. She can't even spell her first name.

[bigtree]

10. there's a lot unreported that favors a Democratic victory in that state

One biased and presumptuous article from a British news org. isn't going to change that.

[truebrit71]

18. The Guardian is a solid lefty paper...reporting something you don't like hearing doesn't make them..

..'biased'...

If it were almost any other republican than the dingbat that is running against him I wouldn't shed many tears to see Harry Reid go..He has been absolutely fucking useless as the majority leader...but because Angle is so completely out of her tiny fucking mind I find myself having to root for Ball-less Harry to win...

[ClassWarrior]

20. True dat. The Guardian is one of the few newspapers ever to grace my RSS reader.

As for the Reid / Umbridge race, that's another subject. I'm simply posting to defend the Guardian.

NGU.

[bigtree]

22. the author is clearly working to create the impression that Reid is going to lose

'Lefties' have been working for some time to unseat our Democratic majority leader.

[Kalyke]

16. Sure she does - if you only poll white voters over 50.

You know... like CNN.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/10/28/the-strange-case-of-disappearing-nevada-youth-in-cnntime-poll/

:eyes:

[medeak]

25. and no people using cell phones only

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/10/28/democrats_catch_republicans_in_generic_ballot.html

[kwolf68]

27. Another candidate

Who refuses to talk to the media, because she is a fooking twit.

And her justfication in not talking to the media is they are Liberal.

I'm sick of this horseshit.

[BootinUp]

31. I admit it, I am still in a state of denial. nt