Posted on 04/25/2005 2:16:17 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
WASHPOSTABCNEWS poll finds 60% of Americans side with Dems in saying Senate rules shouldn't be changed to make it easier to confirm Bush's judicial nominations... Developing...
the rule change is what the DemoncRATs have done.
Am I missing something?
I do not see an actual story on this on Drudge.
Is this a joke and I am being dim?
Hey, I found a foul mouthed troll!
They're very angry about LOSING the election!
Hate is not healthy. Look at the trends: the GOP is going to control the nation for decades to come. I understand your frustration, having suffered the same years ago when I was a liberal.....
When are these pollsters going to realize they're always wrong? They could get 2 people in the same room, 1 Lib and 1 Conservative, and come up with 60% for the Lib.
A washpostABCnews poll could only come up with 60%? Gee, the people must really want the democrats crushed on this one.
The Florida "false polls" were a perfect example of "Hey, you Repubs stay home. Gore already won". Yeh, right!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
"WASHPOSTABCNEWS poll finds 60% of Americans side with Dems in saying Senate rules shouldn't be changed to make it easier to confirm Bush's judicial nominations... Developing..."
That same Washington Post/ABC News poll also has the Bush job approval rating at 47% Approve, 50% Dis-approve, 3% No Opinion. Let's also look and see why the public opinion of the US Senate Republican "Constitutional" option is listed at 26% Support, 66% Oppose and 8% No opinion. Remember that the Washington Post/ABC News methodology might be a bit suspect. This is the respondent universe that the Washington Post/ABC News believes represents the current day American public, with the R/D/I values calculated. (R/D/I Party ID data not available from Washington Post unless requested by member of media) (April 21-24, n=1,007 with MoE ± 3.0%)
Now let's put the data in a table format for easier comparison. Notice that for these current public approval polls that the Washington Post/ABC News does not select Registered voters, or voters from the November 2004 election but the ever popular "All Adults". Remembering the mantra that the nation was so "evenly divided" we can note that the Washington Post/ABC News believes that a sample composition of 28% Republican, 35% Democrat and 37% Independents is a representative cross-section of the "evenly divided" American public in late April, 2005.
Source: Washington Post Poll PDF file (18 pages), data pages 1, 13, 16.
Source: Washington Post, Nation: "American Oppose Filibuster Changes" by Richard Morin and Dan Balz - April 25th, 2005.
Now about that "evenly divided" American public that existed back in the November 2nd, 2004 General Election. How was the American voting public divided as far as polical party ID on that day. According to the last NEP exit poll data released at 1:24:53pm, 11/03/2004 the breakdowns looked like the table listed below:
Source: ExitPollz.Org - 2004 NEP US Election exit polls PDF file, page 3/12.
So one might argue that such an "evenly divided" electorate of 37% Republican, 37% Democrat and 26% Independents has so quickly morphed into a sample composed of 28% Republican, 35% Democrat and 37% Independents... Doesn't sound so "evenly divided" anymore, does it? Perhaps the sample composition is even affecting the Washington Post/ABC News poll results concerning the Bush approval ratings, just maybe...
36. "Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?"
Hope this helps,
dvwjr
The question is the problem. The way in which the question is worded makes someone think the GOP are trying to do something illegal in the Senate.
Damn. Very very nice work, dvwjr!! How interesting the comPost fails to mention party affiliations in the poll results!
FREEPER CrushKerry found this info, and it's just what I expected when I heard about the poll and the numbers. PURE BS!!
Today's Washington Post Poll Eviscerated (Examination of Biased Respondent Demographics)
ABP ^ | 4/26/05 | ABP
Oh dear God, how many times do we have to do this? Once again the big headline and story in the Washington Post concerns their new poll allegedly showing President Bush and his policies are as popular as malaria.
Just how bad is it? Take a look at the specific poll data.
Before we get to deep into it, take note that it's got a 7 point advantage for Democrats over Republicans, and there are 4% more respondents who are "Independent" than Republican. The breakdown in the Post poll is 35% Democrat - 32% Independent - 28% Republican and 5% "Other". Interesting numbers given that the 2004 elections, party ID was evenly split at 37% each. That means overall, Republicans were undersampled (in terms of people who actually vote) by 9%.
OK, let's run down the usual stuff about just how ridiculously bad this poll really is.
Sample Group First of all, the Post polls only "adults," not "registered" or even "likely" voters. As you know 36% of the respondents aren't even eligible to vote, and of those that are eligible, only 60% vote. So people, especially GOP politicians, should realize that this poll is not a good representative sample of the voting public. But given their spinelessness, we're not optimistic.
Next, 3 of the 4 polling nights are considered weekend nights, and weekend polling is notoriously unreliable and favorable to Democrats.
Conservative v. Liberal In 2004, 34% of the electorate described themselves as "conservative," whereas in this Post poll only 30% of respondents declare themselves as such. That's a 10% under representation of "conservatives" in the Post poll as compared to the 2004 election, which just in case the Post forgot, was less than 6 months ago.
Age. The poll also over samples the number of 18-29 year old voters, the age group that voted most for Kerry. In 2004, 17% of the electorate was between 18-29, and Kerry's advantage among them was +9%.. In the Post's poll that age group was 22% of the sample.
Income Now take into consideration the annual income of the Post poll's respondents. In 2004, 45% of the electorate was making under $50K, and voted for Kerry 55-44%. But in the Post's poll, 55% of respondents make under $50K. That's a huge jump in likely Democratic voters among the Post poll's respondents.
Religion Next, let's look at the religion of Post poll respondents. In 2004, 54% of voters described themselves as "Protestants" and voted overwhelmingly for Bush (+19%). In the Post poll, only 47% of respondents were "Protestant". Also, in the Post poll 14% of respondents had "no" religion, while in 2004, only 10% of voters had "no" religion, and they voted overwhelmingly for Kerry (+36%). Catholics are also underrepresented by 6% in the Post poll, another group that went for Bush in 2004.
Marital Status Even worse is that the Post's survey vastly under samples married people, who made up 63% of the 2004 electorate. Again, married people voted overwhelmingly for Bush (+15%) In the Post poll however, only 54% of respondents were married. Hell, even Democrats are noticing the "parent gap." Why the 9% under representation (among the voting population) of married people in the Post's poll?
Location of RespondentsAnd notice there's no mention of where these "randomly selected" adult respondents are from? Are they mostly urban blue staters? Who knows, the Post doesn't tell us.
OK, now that we've utterly destroyed the demographics, let's get to the actual BS questions.
First, on Social Security let's check out these questions:
Would you support or oppose a plan in which people who choose to could invest some of their Social Security contributions into the stock market?
Under any plan that's proposed no one will be able to invest in the "stock market". They will be given a choice of broad based mutual funds (some of which will contain a certain percentage of stocks) similar to those used in the Thrift Savings Plan, which has never returned less than about 4% a year, even in bad years.
Using the word "stocks" and "stock market" makes people think they can blow all their retirement on the next Enron if they choose. And why not mention in the poll that under the plans out there, a person would have to shift to very safe bond index funds as they approach retirement so as to be subject to far less risk. Or even mention that bond funds are available. How about telling them that if nothing is done their benefits are going to be cut by about 30% anyway?
How about this question asked of personal account supporters:
What if the plan reduced the rate of growth in guaranteed Social Security benefits for future retirees?
As we have said ad nauseum there is no such thing as a "guaranteed benefit." And how about mentioning that if people die they could pass along the personal account to their heirs. Also no mention is made that the a portion of the funds in the personal account would have to be used to buy an annuity which actually does "guarantee" a stream of income for life. Don't you think those thing should be in the poll to paint a true picture?
And what kind of question is this:
Who do you trust to handle the Social Security system, President Bush or the Democrats?
Hmm, is there any attempt to ask these people what exactly they've heard or read to see if it's correct. (Forget for a moment the fact that much of what is said in the MSM -(i.e. "guaranteed benefits - is just plain wrong). And when is a poll going to ask people what they think of the Democrats not offering any ideas on the subject. Ok, that's a "loaded" question. How about one poll question asking people what they believe to be the Democrats solution to fixing Social Security. Then ask them if they agree with the Democrats refusing to even discuss the issue until personal are "off the table".
And on the issue of judges check out this loaded question:
Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for Republicans to confirm President Bush's judicial nominees?
Wow, where to start here. Perhaps a mention that judicial nominees have NEVER been filibustered, and that it is the Democrats who are changing the "rules". And saying that the GOP is trying to "change the rules" implies that the rules allow filibustering judicial nominees. And what about letting respondents know that the filibustered judges have over 50 votes for confirmation, but are being held up by Democrats. And what about mentioning that it's not only "Republicans" who want to confirm nominees, which implies that it's only the GOP looking to confirm nominees when they will likely be supported by several Democrat senators?
This polls stinks to high heaven, but the spineless GOP may see it as another reason to cave on principle. Let's hope that's not the case. We can just see the Hagels, McCains, Specters, Voinovichs, and sadly, even the Santorums waking up this morning reading the front page of the Post and spitting out their coffee. Then, they may be rushing down to Frist's office whining "Oh, oh, we're unpopular, let's put the brakes on this whole judge and personal account thing.
Well, we've shown them why they should ignore this poll. Will they listen? Sadly my 8-ball says "Signs point to No". Sadly, the Senate GOP doesn't know how to lead. I hope they prove us wrong.
60% of the people don't even know who their own Senators are.
When will our side learn that the MSM is not on our side and they have a Constitutional Duty to do what is right not respond to polls.
Issue after issue, this is the case......and, yes, it IS pathetic.
Yep--pretty much the same. There is no Pravda (Truth) in "Izvestiya" (News), and there is no News (Izvestija) in "Pravda".
As for the polls, every thoughtful observer knows what happens if you phrase question in a certain way and select "at random" (in skewed to this or that party) location. You could often get any result that you want.
You're assuming that liberalism and conservatism both have equal value and are equally legitimate.
I don't believe that, and would work to defeat an effort like this if liberals tried it.
Did you get called? I didn't!
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