Monday, July 27, 2015
Silly Season
The dog days usually associated with August have already hit this end of Oz. It is still July and we may have a “heat wave” this week. A Heat Wave is I believe 3 consecutive days of over 90; if it only reaches 89 on the official thermometer it doesn’t count no matter what the humidity is.
This also seems to be the “Silly Season” as far as politics goes with the daily polls and the Ledger’s anti Christie crusade. The latest poll was a CNN sample of 419 “registered voters who described themselves as a Republican or a Republican-leaning Independent” conducted by telephone with a +/- margin of error of 5 percentage points. That means that Christie who had a +4% could have been as much as 9% or perhaps -1%!
I do not know how the actuaries who figure the accuracy of a poll determine the validity of the poll. Is the phrasing of the questions taken into account? It does not note if all telephone call were limited to “land line phones” or included cell phones; which could make a difference in the demographics of the pool. There are other factors that could skew the results such as those who do not answer an unknown phone ID.
I feel that these polls of such a small number have little true meaning except for propaganda effect.
Monday’s Ledger Editorial ‘Christies bogus attack on Amtrack over delays” begins “Gov. Chris Christie’s attack on Amtrack last week is the final proof that he has lost his mind.” The editorial places all the blame on Christie for cancelling in 2010 the ARC tunnel plan and for spending the money set aside for ARC. He did not support Amtrak’s Gateway alternative. He is let the funds for roads run dry because he will not raise the tax on gasoline which would hurt his Presidential ambitions, even though perhaps ignoring the fact that the Democrat legislature has not presented him with any law doing so that he could veto.
The editorial concludes “At its core, this is a character issue. Christie is all about Christie. New Jersey be damned”.
Perhaps the Ledger should campaign to bring back a good Democrat like Corzine as Governor.
Addendum: My point is that polls are not always the true reference to public feelings. The worst example was the infamous Literary Digest poll which killed the magazine by predicting an overwhelming victory by Dewey over Truman. Polls can be slanted and can be similar to the 98% vote approval that are reported in countries with a "dictatorship".
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Thanks for pointing out some facts about polls and questionnaires in general. As someone who has done psychological testing and evaluated testing instruments the word validity come up often and poorly done polls and tests mean nothing. I don't want Christie for president, he's not been a good governor necessarily, but polls need to be accurate or they are just pandering advertisements created for the user. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteDoc,
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with you that polls could be worded wrongly or the sample sizes could be wrong, the real question here is if there is a discrepancy between the methodology utilized in this polls and the other polls that are out there. One of the ways to validate a poll's results is to replicate the poll over and over again to see if you are getting different results with the same question and sample size. If you are doing the same thing for every poll and doing it the same for every candidate and you continue to come out with the same general outcome, then the poll should be considered valid. At this point it seems that Christie is consistently polling below 9 %. Love him or hate him, he is doing poorly in the presidential contest at this point. Also, it seems beneath you to suggest that if a person does not like Christie then they must want Corzine back.
Hi Old Doc - I believe that the erroneous Literary Digest poll to which you refer was from the 1936 election where they found Landon would beat FDR - since that might have been true had those without telephones in 1936 voted the same way as those - those polled - who had them.
ReplyDeleteIn 1948, it was the Chicago paper that earned a red face with its premature story on election night with the "Dewey Beats Truman" headline.
Thank you ,Bob. I knew about the Dewey-Truman fiasco since I voted for Dewey. I am sure you are right about the Digest year.
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