All readers know that the election didn't turn out the way I would have liked. I've thus far put up a couple of posts referencing the results; once I've caught my breath from the campaign season, I intend to put up a longer post with my thoughts about the outcome and what it means for the country. (As many of you are aware, my day job involves political polling and microtargeting on behalf of GOP candidates.)
Though I have strong partisan and ideological convictions, I am not a confrontational person by nature. As such, in addition to work for Republican candidates, I've been able to develop a strong "secondary" client base among left-leaning nonprofit organizations and foundations; they appreciate my insights, and the balance I bring to their research. In return, I have enjoyed the relationships I have built with them, and the opportunity to work on some important causes (not all of which I have agreed with).
Two months ago, I put up a post describing my first excursion into the fever swamps of the Far Left "net roots." Not a few readers of this blog are themselves left-of-center, and I appreciate the respectful tone they have always used in their comments and/or personal correspondence. But somehow or another, someone seems to have crawled out of those fever swamps and has taken it upon him/her self to tell me (and you) what they really think about this author. He/she seems to have gravitated toward my first post-election post, in which I jokingly speculated as to whether the liberals who had moved to Canada after the 2000 and 2004 elections might begin returning soon. I also joked about the rest of us trying to find Galt's Gulch before January 20th --- a literary allusion which seems to have gone over this person's head (as Galt's Gulch is decidedly not in Canada, but rather somewhere in the Rocky Mountains).
As this person did not leave an email or web address, it's impossible to verify his/her identity. But I will preserve his/her comment for the rest of you to get a good look at what crawls out of the fever swamps from time to time.
If you wish to criticize me or my ideas, please do so. I ask only that you be respectful of me and of those who take the time to comment on my posts. And leave my wife out of it. It may infuriate some of you that Mrs. Yeoman Farmer is a black conservative and did not vote for our current President-elect. You may disagree with her and my belief that these election results are good for neither blacks nor the country as a whole. Despite the highly personal investment in and commitment to racial equality that Mrs. Yeoman Farmer and our children have, I understand that others may have a different point of view. I ask only that you be as considerate and thoughtful in your commentary as I have been --- and always will be --- in writing these posts.
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
08 November 2008
02 November 2008
Sure Enough...
Like I was saying yesterday about Zogby's Friday night tracking result being unreliable unless substantiated by an additional day:
After a strong day of polling for Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday, Democrat Barack Obama experienced a strong single day of polling on Saturday, retaining a 5.7 point advantage that is right at the edge of the margin of error of the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking poll.
But as bleak as the situation looks for the GOP at this point, I'm still not prepared to concede defeat until the votes are counted.
After a strong day of polling for Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Friday, Democrat Barack Obama experienced a strong single day of polling on Saturday, retaining a 5.7 point advantage that is right at the edge of the margin of error of the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking poll.
But as bleak as the situation looks for the GOP at this point, I'm still not prepared to concede defeat until the votes are counted.
01 November 2008
That Zogby Result
By now many of you have heard the news that John Zogby's tracking showed John McCain up by a point in last night's interviews --- which narrowed the gap to about five points in the three day roll. As willing as I am to grasp at straws at this point, and as hopeful as I know this news makes many of you feel (except you, J.D.), I need to throw a bit of cold water on the story.
There is one glaringly obvious fact that was missing from Zogby's press release: Last night was a Friday. And Halloween.
What difference does this make? All the difference.
As many of you know, in my day job I am a political scientist and public opinion researcher (sad to say, but farming does not pay the family's bills). Before going into business for myself, I spent many years working for a Republican political polling firm. In the last three or four weeks leading up to every election day, we would be in the field nearly every night conducting tracking interviews.
Every night, that is, except Friday and Saturday. Well, occasionally Saturday. But we almost never interviewed on Friday. And during the rest of the year, when a regular poll was in the field, we almost never interviewed on a Friday night. There is a simple reason for this: the kind of person who is home, and willing to sit around answering a series of questions about politics, on a Friday night, is...well...not all that representative of the electorate as a whole.
And then there's Halloween. No matter what day of the week Halloween fell on, we tended to regard that night's interviews with skepticism. If we didn't have to be in the field that night, we didn't interview on Halloween. Simply put: many young and single people are out at parties that night. Go to any big or not-so-big city on Halloween night, and you'll find lots of twenty and thirty-somethings out and about, dressed in bizarre costumes. You'll also find, pretty much anywhere in America, single parents out taking their kids door-to-door. Who's home to answer the phone when the pollster calls? Disproportionately (and that's the key word), married parents of young children (home to answer the door for trick-or-treaters while the other parent takes the kids door to door), or single people with no social life, or empty nesters whose children have grown.
A pollster can weight his sample all he wants to make it representative in terms of age, gender, race, and partisanship. But when the available sample on a certain night is fundamentally skewed on certain other dimensions, that's something more difficult to weight into proportion --- assuming the pollster is even able to identify those other biases in his sample that night.
I'm not saying John Zogby shouldn't have interviewed last night. Heck, we interviewed on Halloween (at least when it wasn't a Friday) at my firm. Rather, what I'm suggesting is that there's a strong possibility last night's sample is fundamentally unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. I'd love to be proven wrong. But until Zogby reports a similar result in Saturday's interviews, I'm going to remain highly skeptical.
There is one glaringly obvious fact that was missing from Zogby's press release: Last night was a Friday. And Halloween.
What difference does this make? All the difference.
As many of you know, in my day job I am a political scientist and public opinion researcher (sad to say, but farming does not pay the family's bills). Before going into business for myself, I spent many years working for a Republican political polling firm. In the last three or four weeks leading up to every election day, we would be in the field nearly every night conducting tracking interviews.
Every night, that is, except Friday and Saturday. Well, occasionally Saturday. But we almost never interviewed on Friday. And during the rest of the year, when a regular poll was in the field, we almost never interviewed on a Friday night. There is a simple reason for this: the kind of person who is home, and willing to sit around answering a series of questions about politics, on a Friday night, is...well...not all that representative of the electorate as a whole.
And then there's Halloween. No matter what day of the week Halloween fell on, we tended to regard that night's interviews with skepticism. If we didn't have to be in the field that night, we didn't interview on Halloween. Simply put: many young and single people are out at parties that night. Go to any big or not-so-big city on Halloween night, and you'll find lots of twenty and thirty-somethings out and about, dressed in bizarre costumes. You'll also find, pretty much anywhere in America, single parents out taking their kids door-to-door. Who's home to answer the phone when the pollster calls? Disproportionately (and that's the key word), married parents of young children (home to answer the door for trick-or-treaters while the other parent takes the kids door to door), or single people with no social life, or empty nesters whose children have grown.
A pollster can weight his sample all he wants to make it representative in terms of age, gender, race, and partisanship. But when the available sample on a certain night is fundamentally skewed on certain other dimensions, that's something more difficult to weight into proportion --- assuming the pollster is even able to identify those other biases in his sample that night.
I'm not saying John Zogby shouldn't have interviewed last night. Heck, we interviewed on Halloween (at least when it wasn't a Friday) at my firm. Rather, what I'm suggesting is that there's a strong possibility last night's sample is fundamentally unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. I'd love to be proven wrong. But until Zogby reports a similar result in Saturday's interviews, I'm going to remain highly skeptical.
23 October 2008
09 October 2008
Vote Your Conscience
I haven't found a more succinct statement of what is at stake in this election:
Vote your conscience. And make sure your conscience is well-formed.
Vote your conscience. And make sure your conscience is well-formed.
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