Jun 21 2008
Statistical Garbage Poll
Newsweek as demonstrated why not all polls are created equal. After weeks of watching the Gallup and Rasmussen Daily tracking polls at RCP we discover that Obama has had a dead-cat bounce in the polls. His lead rose to 7-8 points for a few days, and then fell back down to 2-5 points. But Newsweek is claiming (with 95% confidence no doubt) Obama has a 15% lead over McCain.
All those liberals popping champaign probably don’t have the math skills to comprehend that a poll which is such an outlier like this one – with the same 95% confidence claim – is actually an example of that 5% garbage which shows up at times (just like the head of a coin has to show up occasionally when tossed). But hey, if Obamabots want to pretend Newsweek has a clue what they are doing who cares? Some people still claim NASA never went to the Moon and CO2 drives global warming!
What is obviously faulty is that the Obama support is within the margin of error from most recent polls per the running average and almost all to the gap is due to , if you believe the poll, McCain losing about 20% of his support.
Now I haven’t heard any earth shattering news just prior to the poll to justify any such opinion shaping change.