Rick Davis has gone Terry McAuliffe
The McCain campaign releases a memo trying to "buck up the troops," but it's so littered with misrepresentations....
If you're watching the data, you'll know this is all crap, but here are few points.
So, if we cherry pick our polls, showing the highest outliers of one type of poll last week, and another type of low outliers on our best polling day this week, we can pretend that that's progress. (By now, those trackers have moved back up.)
As for states, there's no data to support a surge in Iowa or Colorado, among Hispanics in the west, and you gotta love the fact that they don't even try to argue data in Ohio or Pa.
But, probably the best spin is,
Right. Obama is the one running out of states....
I don't know who I'm arguing with here. I just had one of those frustrating "Terry McAuliffe moments" like in the primaries.
(However, the more they lie about data, the better I feel about the outcome, because if they had anything, anything credible and positive, they'd be selling that instead.)
PS. Why do you have to memo, "Our phone centers are full?"
If you're watching the data, you'll know this is all crap, but here are few points.
Major polls last week showed John McCain trailing by double-digit margins - but by the middle of this week, we were within the margin of error on four national tracking surveys.
So, if we cherry pick our polls, showing the highest outliers of one type of poll last week, and another type of low outliers on our best polling day this week, we can pretend that that's progress. (By now, those trackers have moved back up.)
As for states, there's no data to support a surge in Iowa or Colorado, among Hispanics in the west, and you gotta love the fact that they don't even try to argue data in Ohio or Pa.
But, probably the best spin is,
Obama is running out of states if you follow out a traditional model. Today, he expanded his buy into North Dakota, Georgia and Arizona in an attempt to widen the playing field and find his 270 Electoral Votes. This is a very tall order and trying to expand into new states in the final hours shows he doesn't have the votes to win.
Right. Obama is the one running out of states....
I don't know who I'm arguing with here. I just had one of those frustrating "Terry McAuliffe moments" like in the primaries.
(However, the more they lie about data, the better I feel about the outcome, because if they had anything, anything credible and positive, they'd be selling that instead.)
PS. Why do you have to memo, "Our phone centers are full?"
posted by mikevotes at
10:07 PM
9 Comments:
Yeah, this is just crazy-assed stuff. The memo reads like evidence in a court ordered psych commitment. I have to wonder if the McCain campaign is just conducting rally exit polls to make themselves feel better.
By
-epm, at 12:03 AM
Delusional.
Can someone be stupid enough to think that Obama is in ND in an effort to reach 270? The Republicans really don't get the idea of "multiple paths to victory", do they? They are so used to fighting over OH and FL that they seem to forget that there are other states and other combinations.
It's also ridiculous that McCain keeps thinking that MOE breaks in his favour. Obama is the one with the first time voters excluded from likely voter models. McCain is the one with the thoroughly known base. His numbers will only go down, not up.
If being within the MOE is some kind of guarantee, then at least four more states just went Obama's way.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 3:05 AM
Well first time voters aren't first time voters 'til they actually vote...
Does anyone know what proportion of early voters are first timers?
By
-epm, at 8:40 AM
Well first time voters aren't first time voters 'til they actually vote...
We are really talking about newly-registered voters, and long years of data indicate that newly-registered voters turn out at about 90%.
All of those hundreds of thousands registered during the Democratic primaries, and an even greater number registered post-primary are not considered "likely to vote" by most pollsters using likely voter models. But the reality is that people don't participate in primaries and then fail to turn out for the general election. If you are interested enough to vote in the primary or to caucus, then you are interested enough to vote in the GE.
Normally, the primary season registration drives are mild affairs - re-register lapsed voters and those new people to the district, almost exclusively the Party's reliable base.
This time, huge numbers of new voters were registered during the primary season and turned out. However, since these people have not voted in a general election before, they are not considered to be "likely voters" by the pollsters, though they have voted in the primaries or caucused.
So it's not as uncertain as you may think.
Pollsters are not measuring this. It's very odd that, even though someone has actually voted early, they are not considered "likely to vote" because of past history.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 11:27 AM
This may be why they have to memo their phone centers are full. They aren't.
By
Libby Spencer, at 11:37 AM
Sorry, guys, I put a comment/response in here earlier and I don't know where it went.
EPM, Most of this is about suspending the belief of a possibility of winning to the press, but primarily to the supporters. Look back at how well the Clinton folks did that for 4 months.
Also, as Todd discusses, there's alot of evidence that first time voters and lapsed voters are turning out ahead of average in the early voting. I don't want to track it all down, but I've seen great data out of Colorado, Florida, and North Carolina.
.....
Todd, again, this is for the people prone to believing them.
However, I have heard some neutral folks embracing the undecideds argument. It seems based on their belief that race just must play some part in this election, and that's a hard preconception to disabuse.
The Greenberg letter to McInturff and the stuff over at Pollster do seem to have corrected the impression among some.
Chuck Todd embraced that undecideds argument at first, but he's backed off.
And, as for MOE, Okay, maybe on one state that might work because the polling might be off in one state, but claiming that it's off, by the maximum to your candidate's favor in seven states is patently ridiculous.
By
mikevotes, at 11:43 AM
Oops. Should have read all the way down thread before I posted. I see you know that already.
By
Libby Spencer, at 11:43 AM
It seems based on their belief that race just must play some part in this election, and that's a hard preconception to disabuse.
Very few are saying that race won't play a role. The question is whether people are lying to pollsters and voting differently than what they say due to race.
Race will play a role with undecideds. But what will play a bigger role with people like this is wanting to vote for the winner. Pundits keep saying that if undecideds haven't broken for Obama by now, they won't. I think that if they haven't broken for McCain by now, they won't. They are waiting to see who will be the likely winner, and they will vote for that candidate.
Again, the numbers for McCain's base are well-known. These are the people that turned out for the past two elections, and turned out weakly for the 2006 elections. There are no surprises here. The GOP has done a terrible job registering new voters, canvassing to find new support, and getting those voters motivated to go to the polls for early voting.
The base that barely pulled it off in 2004 is smaller, less enthusiastic, and less likely to turn out. If they are so strong and reliable and fearsome, then what happened in 2006?
The same predictions of a massive base turnout were made by the GOP in 2006 to counter the bad polling.
Look what happened in 2006. They were bluffing or delusional. And we keep on wringing our hands and biting our nails over voters that have given up on the GOP years ago.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 1:47 PM
I agree, generally. For the most part, voters that care about race are already recorded in the McCain numbers.
I personally believe that the "inexperience" or "liberal" tags have given people another out in front of pollsters.
And, just briefly, it looks to me like the Obama turnout is going to big. I MEAN BIG, and if that's the case, the McCain GOTV won't even matter.
All the Obama folks really have to do is get enough people out to blunt any possible McCain "surge" or polling aberration, and, frankly, they really only have to pull that off in one or two states.
They could underperform in 5 or 6 battlegrounds and still win.
By
mikevotes, at 2:03 PM
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