Re: The race factor among white voters

[Leigh Meyers <the.buffalo.in.the.midst@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Said race was important" as it sits is a useless question that could
only garner useless answers, and a Soc 1 student would know better
than to present it on a survey with that wording.

Was there a methodology presented that would give some insight as to
what they intended by this question. Even so, If it was presented that
way at the "exit"... How many people are REALLY going to ask the
canvasser "what do you mean by that?"

On a similar note, here's a NYT op-ed from January 10 which seems to
indicate that the methodology used to measure the Barillary race is
fubar, whereas the polling of rethuglicans seems to do better.

      "First, the problem was not a general failure of polling
methodology. These same pollsters did a superb job on the Republican
side. Senator John McCain won by 5.5 percent. The last wave of polls
found a margin of 5.3 percent. So whatever the problem was, it was
specific to Mrs. Clinton versus Mr. Obama.

     Second, the inaccuracies don't seem related to the subtleties of
polling methods. The pollsters who overestimated Mr. Obama's margin
ranged from CBS and Gallup (who have the most rigorous voter screens
and sampling designs, and have sterling records in presidential
elections) to local and computerized polling operations, whose methods
are a good deal less refined. Everyone got it wrong. "

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/opinion/10kohut.html

Could that be.... On Purpose? Like they left John Edwards to
statistically dangle somehow, along with the media blackout on him and
had to shoehorn the numbers to fit?

I think the fix is already in. A Rethuglican will be elected president
this fall.

Leigh


On Feb 8, 2008 8:28 PM, ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Apropos our discussion on Obama, Bradley effect, etc: what do you
> folks make of this bit of data from the NYT blogs:
>
> The Race Factor Among White Voters (Based on exit polls)
>
>                 Said race was
>                 important
>                 Clinton Obama
>                 ------- -----
> Vote in:        %       %
> California      53      44
> Georgia         58      30
> Massachusetts   60      36
> Missouri        65      30
> New Jersey      71      29
>
> What does this mean? That white Democrats in NJ who felt that race
> mattered meant that they didn't want to vote for a black guy?! Can
> this be true or am I misreading this?
>
>         --ravi
>