Free Republic

Conventional wisdom says that Trump's a dead duck, and we all know how prescient is conventional wisdom. Only two weeks left until election and RealClearPolitics (RCP) puts Clinton about 6 points ahead. So confident is Hillary (supposedly) that one newspaper now urges her to divert some from the presidential campaign and help Democrats in Senate and House races. We should be so lucky. Back to the point. Presidential polls are split into two camps: MSM polls and non-MSM polls. They have starkly different characteristics and results. MSM polls come from those you already know, and the companies themselves have already...

The biggest political news is that Donald Trump may be doing even better than polls have suggested. Yikes. Apparently, many Trump supporters have been fibbing to pollsters, saying they’re for someone else when they really intend to vote for The Donald. And those fudging the most are college-educated voters because, it seems, they’re too embarrassed to admit their preference. As well they should be. I’m kidding. Sort of. Imagine it this way: Guy on the phone asks whom you prefer for president. You can say, I really like the bragging, eye-rolling, profane, nativist, misogynist, policy-free billionaire-birther “jerk” (Jeb Bush’s word)....

ome Donald Trump supporters are too ashamed to admit it, according to a new study that suggests that his poll numbers may be even higher than GOP strategists think. Researchers at the Morning Consult polling firm say that when they polled almost 2,500 Republican and Republican-leaning voters using a variety of methods last week, they found Trump's support was around 6% higher among those polled online, compared to those who spoke to a live human. His support was 4% higher among those who received automated calls. In what the Los Angeles Times calls the "most telling part of the experiment,"...

Public support for gay marriage has hit a new high as Americans increasingly see homosexuality not as a choice but as a way some people are, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. The poll shows that 58 percent of Americans now believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to get married; 36 percent say it should be illegal. Public attitudes toward gay marriage are a mirror image of what they were a decade ago: in 2003, 37 percent favored gay nuptials, and 55 percent opposed them. The Supreme Court takes up the issue of gay...

As Big Sandy sets her eyes on New Jersey to deliver Mother Nature’s October Surprise to the nation’s east coast, a political perfect storm may have already hit the nation. Unlike Hurricane Sandy whose every move is tracked and then predicted by a host of computer models, this political perfect storm seems to have formed under the radar of daily tracking polls. The week before the presidential election sees the economy topping the list of voter concerns, with jobs, or the lack of them, sitting right in the center, just like a spider. U.S. labor secretary Hilda Solis (www.dol.gov/_sec/welcome.htm#.UImEtmfh-So) did...

Apparently it has never occurred to our political pollsters that Barack Hussein Obama is the Bradley Effect personified. While our floundering POTUS continues to garner approval numbers hovering in the 50% range, his policies are judged much more harshly by polled Americans. The Real Clear Politics average, for instance, reports B.O.'s job approval average at 49.4%. His hand-maidens in Congress however, receive only 24.5 % approval and of those asked about the direction in which our country is going, only 35.9 % believe we are headed down the right path. Just exactly who do they think is holding the steering...

The political and media world today seems to revolve around polls. A day does not by that we are treated to a poll result of some sort on subjects both timely and inane. This now substitutes, within the mainstream media, for news and real reporting. Notwithstanding the fact that polling can be manipulated (and has shown to be numerous times), the use of these surveys has become a religion within the halls of Congress and the White House, and a justification to pursue agenda items. As a result many point to the still-high job approval rating of President Obama as...

Nelson Rising, chairman of Tom Bradley’s 1982 campaign for California governor, still remembers the phone call. Bradley called him shortly after 4 a.m. on a long Election Night, when it was clear Bradley had lost to Republican George Deukmejian. “You were right,” Bradley told Rising a bit wearily. With those words, Bradley, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, acknowledged that a political mistake had cost him the governorship. And, despite all the theories that the election produced a “Bradley effect” that could hurt black candidates such as Bradley — and, a quarter-century later, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama — the...

Much has been made in this election regarding the Bradley Effect, where pollsters are told by respondents that they intend to vote for the black candidate so that they don’t seem prejudiced, but then they end up voting for the white candidate on election day. Could there be a point or two here? Maybe, but there’s another “Effect” that people aren’t looking at. What if there is a Palin Effect? What if there are women out there who don’t want to seem to be voting for McCain-Palin just because Palin is female, but who will show up and vote for...

So now, in the waning days of the campaign, here is the alleged storyline: Those polls that show Barack Obama leading in the race against John McCain for president? Even widening his lead? Those polls are warped. According to some, among the millions of Americans who are telling pollsters that they could vote for Mr. Obama, there are (thousands of? millions of?) closeted racists who will not vote -- who never would vote -- for a black candidate under any circumstances. Their votes could tip the election to Mr. McCain. In politically obsessed circles, this supposed phenomenon is known as...

WASHINGTON–An extra hour on the clock? Just another hour for Democrats to toss and turn. On this, their most nervous of weekends – with thoughts of Fat Ladies not yet singing, Yogi Berra proclaiming: "It ain't over till it's over" and Dewey beating Truman – they received another fright yesterday from Barack Obama's aunt living illegally in Boston. Here are five things that come at Obama supporters in the night: • Auntie Zeituni: The Obama campaign said yesterday it would return $260 in campaign donations from Zeituni Onyango, his Kenyan-born aunt who is living illegally in this country. Obama said...

Will racism be a factor in this election? Is the Pope Catholic? Of course racism will be a factor in the contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. After all, somewhere in excess of 95 percent of black voters are expected to pull the lever (or fill in the dot) for Obama on November 4. That’s a statistic any dictator would be proud of. And once Acorn gets through fabricating voter registrations, the number will probably rise to 123 percent, give or take a point. So, yes, racism will likely play a role in the election, but it won’t be...

How many times do you think we will hear the words "The Bradley Effect" on Tuesday evening as state after state comes in for McCain? The liberal announcers won't dare truthfully admit that the American people simply just don't like Obama's far-left proposed policies, so the Bradley effect will be the scapegoat. I plan on putting a penny in a pot every time I hear "Bradley Effect" on Tuesday, and I'm sure I'll have enough pennies to treat myself and hubby to a steak dinner at a fine restaurant. Any guesses on how many times we will hear Bradley Effect?

There is something to be said about the fact that Obama seems to be campaigning pretty hard for someone who is supposed to be sitting quite comfortably on his cushy poll bean bag and sipping on a fresh glass of media bias right out of the Obama tank. Read this little analysis of what really is going on (at least in the opinion of this analyst):

I did a Google Search on the Hillary\Obama Polls and actual results:. The polls seem to be biased towards Obama. I imagine they still are. RCP Ohio Poll (Hillary +7) week before Actual Ohio Results (Hillary + 10) Pennsylvania Rassmusen Poll (Hillary +5)April 21 Actual Election results (Hillary +10) April 23

They call it "the Bradley effect." Pundits and politicians speak of it in ominous tones. It surfaced in New Hampshire in January, when Barack Obama's eight-point lead on the eve of that state's primary dissolved into a shocking come-from-behind victory for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Could it have been the Bradley effect? Chris Matthews of "Hardball" and a host of other talking heads thought so. As Obama continues to hold a lead in the presidential polls against John McCain, the specter of the Bradley effect still haunts the race. It's a reference to the 1982 California governor's race, which Los Angeles...

McInturff said their responses indicate record turnout levels not seen since the elections of 1960 and 1968, which “in today’s terms, that could mean breaking the barrier of 130 million voters.” “There is simply no model that begins to know or predict the composition of the electorate at this level of turn-out,” he said. “My own view…and our own weights in our surveys…reflect a belief that African American turn-out will be at historic levels, there will be a significant boost with voters 18 to 29 years old, yet the overall high level of turn-out will begin to mute the increase...

Election punditry sometimes comes from strange places. On CNN, it came from a former professional basketball player with a liberal point of view. Charles Barkley, a former NBA most valuable player, who is now an analyst for TNT’s basketball coverage appeared on CNN’s Oct. 27 “Election Center” to lend his insight on voter behavior. Barkley noted that polls indicate Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama has a large lead, but said they are useless because the “Bradley effect” is a real polling phenomenon. “I think the polls are absolutely useless, I do,” Barkley said. “Seriously, most people who are racist,...

WITH only two weeks to go before the election, talk has turned to the Bradley effect. The phenomenon is named for Tom Bradley, the African-American mayor of Los Angeles, who lost the 1982 California governor’s race even though exit polls predicted he’d defeat his Republican opponent, George Deukmejian. Some white people, the theory goes, tell pollsters they will vote for black candidates and then, once in the voting booth, don’t. While it’s no surprise that this has become a topic of discussion as John McCain and Barack Obama near the finish line, as someone who worked for Bradley’s campaign, I...

In 1982 Tom Bradley, a competent Black man, was on his way to becoming California’s first Black Governor then he lost. He was a mainstream Democrat that didn’t scare anyone with his plans, but his race beat him. Today Barack Obama a Black man is running for president. He has small but definite leads in most polls, but that might be where he and Bradley are different. Looking back, Bradley’s race appears to have defeated him. By contrast Obama’s plans scare lots of people. The media likes to cite a 3% Bradley factor they’ve picked out of the air. They...