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Posted on 09/26/2008 9:07:29 PM PDT by Harry Wurzbach
I'm rather skeptical as to whether or not the composition of focus groups is truly reflective of the electorate, or of "undecided" voters. CNN and Fox News both had such groups featured tonight.
How are these groups put together? Do the participants get paid? I would imagine that they do. Is that truly reflective of the electorate?
I know that the little focus group meters they have seemed off. When McCain was sticking it to Obama, it seemed like the GOP line never really went up that high. Like, for example, when the debate turned to spending and McCain called for a spending freeze. One would think the average GOP voter would love that. It didn't seem to register that much.
Basically, I think those groups are a crock and their results are impacted by the self selection that occurs when people sign up to participate. I really wonder how many taxpayers are in those groups, as well as how many were truly Republicans or Independents.
Who has the time? Drunks. The unemployable. Angry loners. You know, Democrats.
I got invited to a day-long focus group for IBM (new product concept) once and got paid $1,000. I dount these political groups pay though, probably people do it because it’s an interesting thing to do.
Focus Group... isn’t that kind of...nevermind.
Maybe at one time you could get an unbiased sample. But like CSPAN callers, once the DEM thugs figure out how to game the system, they stack the deck with a vengeance.
I’ve seen in the past Luntz let on that he knows that sometimes they are unable to weed the plants out.
I participated in a focus group for the Atlanta Falcons once when they were showing us possible designs for new uniforms and new logos.
Those colored lines on CNN made no sense to me. Who could even tell which way they were moving??
Usually, they sign these clowns up when they are about to be released from rehab. They don’t have a job anymore so they’re always available.
Well, the FOX focus group consisted of people vacationing in Las Vegas. That would tend to over-represent people who aren’t very conservative.
journalist.
You can volunteer at Luntz’s website. He’ll never call me because I’m too partisan.
Um people sent from the Obama headquarters who lie and claim to be undecideds or independents. Haven’t you caught on yet watching Frank Luntz’s fraudulent focus groups?
Well, it seems that all think that these focus groups are not a random sample. If the group is supposed to reflect divisions in the electorate, then it’s hard to get them to do that.
You could be right. It’s odd that that many people could be won over by Obama that easily. He wasn’t horrible tonight, but he was far from inspiring and McCain showed he was far more knowledgable than him.
Stupid people.
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I caught the end of a focus group on FoxNews after the debate. The participants were asked to use one word to describe each candidate. All began using positive words for Obama and negative for McCain. When one man praised McCain with the word “leader”, the others interrupted him to criticize McCain. That makes me wonder about the selection of these people, too.
The CNN focus group was in Columbus, OH. The county there has gone Democrat in the last 3 presidential elections. A blue county in a sea of red, as CNN so helpfully pointed out. Naturally the “focus group” found that Obama won the debate and that Obama would win the election, by 60% to 40% or thereabouts.
Rather suspicious, to say the least.
The idea of a little dial to signal your approval when a candidate says something is stupid. That just measures an emotional response, people make judgments based on a number of factors, it’s a poor way to measure anything and just an idiot’s gimmick.
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