{"id":30756,"date":"2012-09-27T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T17:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=30756"},"modified":"2020-12-21T05:29:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T11:29:35","slug":"chanting-points-memo-accurate-but-inaccurate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=30756","title":{"rendered":"Chanting Points Memo: The Rigger’s Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s my contention that the\u00a0Star\/Tribune\u00a0<\/em>“Minnesota” poll is, and has been for two and a half decades, less a “public opinion” poll and more an instrument of DFL propaganda. \u00a0I’ve supported that contention with a raft of circumstantial evidence; proof that the Minnesota Poll underestimates GOP turnout<\/a> – especially in races that are perceived to be close<\/a>; it showed Mark Dayton with an absurdly huge lead over Tom Emmer, and Al Franken with a four point lead over Norm Coleman, while guessing the Klobuchar\/Kennedy race fairly accurately.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s my contention that this is to leverage the “Bandwagon Effect<\/a>” – to discourage Republicans and conservatives from going to the poll.<\/p>\n

But this year’s race presents a dilemma for the editors who – I’m being half-hyperbolic here [1] – plan the results of these polls. \u00a0On the one hand, you have the Voter ID initiative which is likely to win in a blowout. \u00a0To skew that poll enough to\u00a0encourage\u00a0<\/em>Democrats and opponents of the amendment, the\u00a0Strib\u00a0<\/em>would need to skew the poll to an absurd extent. \u00a0As in, assume conditions that are the same as in 1976<\/a>, after Watergate.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, you have a Senate race between Amy Klobuchar and Kurt BIlls that is widely perceived to be a pretty safe race for the incumbent. \u00a0 Skewing the sample too far to the left would make the results look completely implausible.<\/p>\n

The answer, if you’re the Strib? \u00a0You see it in this weeks’ Minnesota Polls; this is their old buddy Jim Klobuchar’s daughter<\/em>\u00a0we’re talking about here! \u00a0Of course<\/em>\u00a0they’ll do what it takes to make her re-election as epic as possible – why, everyone on Editor’s Row remembers Amy when she was just this tall<\/em>, dagnabbit!<\/p>\n

Beyond that – and more germane to the propaganda organ – they know that the voters the DFL needs are the “low-information” voters. The ones that rarely get past the headline, much less the lead – forget about looking at partisan breakdowns. \u00a0The ones that still believe the\u00a0Strib\u00a0<\/em>is anything but DFL shills, or don’t care either way.<\/p>\n

The Strib is showing a 57-28 lead for Klobuchar, with 15 percent either undecided or voting for someone else. \u00a0As we’ve been showing every day this week, this is based on a sample that includes 41% Democrat\/28% GOP turnout.<\/p>\n

Now, if we assume it’s more like 38\/34 – which is more in line with Rasmussen’s figures, which have been traditionally vastly more accurate – and multiply the changes by the support each candidate gets within their party…<\/p>\n

…well, that’s bad for Bills, if you believe the Strib. \u00a0While 90-odd percent of Dems say they’ll vote for A-Klo, the Strib claims only 2\/3 of Republicans will vote for BIlls. \u00a0While the nomination battle was a bruising one in the GOP, and left a lot of bad blood, Republicans are much more suck-it-up-and-support-our-guy than that. \u00a0This strikes me as dubious – the “stink test” is crying “BS!” – but I’ve got no hard evidence to the contrary just yet. \u00a0Absent that, let’s run with the Strib’s numbers.<\/p>\n

So if we subtract 3% from the Democrat split, multiplied by 90%, we get a net loss of 2.7% for Klobuchar, taking her down to 54.3%.<\/p>\n

Adding 6 to Bills – times the 66% support in the party, naturally – leads to a four point rise, to 32.<\/p>\n

54-32 still isn’t close. \u00a0But it’s not the 2:1 humiliation…<\/p>\n

…that, I contend, the Strib wants Republicans to believe is coming, on top of all the\u00a0other\u00a0<\/em>“bad news” they’ve brought us this week.<\/p>\n

So what does all this mean?<\/p>\n

More tomorrow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[1] – However, I’ve learned that my half-hyperbolic jokes end up being accurate amazingly often. \u00a0And that’s not a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s my contention that the\u00a0Star\/Tribune\u00a0“Minnesota” poll is, and has been for two and a half decades, less a “public opinion” poll and more an instrument of DFL propaganda. \u00a0I’ve supported that contention with a raft of circumstantial evidence; proof that the Minnesota Poll underestimates GOP turnout – especially in races that are perceived to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,125],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-30756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chanting-points-memo","category-the-great-poll-scam","tag-a-klo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30756"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76168,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30756\/revisions\/76168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}