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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGravis Exposed - America's Greatest Pollster Gets the Full Monty Index Updated 10/19/12 15:48 EST
Last edited Wed Nov 7, 2012, 11:11 AM - Edit history (13)
Explanation of how the Gravis Working Group at DU is now operating below. The Did You Know feature will be changed frequently to add curious facts about Kaplan that will not fit into specific piece. They will be collected for the Douglas Kaplan trivia game that you will all want to play.
If you missed number VI then check it out, it establishes Gravis past known established criminal activities. There are more allegations to come from a really fine group of guys. Last we heard our statistician is going through everything Gravis Marketing has put out. He is so cautious he won't even tell us if it looks like the numbers look like real numbers or not. Got a good Did you Know update
Did You Know
Number 4 in a series of 538
In number 3 we requoted some of Kaplan's personal tweets.
Did you know that Gravis Marketing has established a very impressive tweeter following, as 'America's Greatest Pollster' you would expect he would. Here are some of the people on that list;
Nate Silver?@fivethirtyeight
FiveThirtyEight blogger (http://nyti.ms/Qp8cqb). Author, The Signal and the Noise (http://amzn.to/QdyFYV). Sports/politics/food geek.
Gary R. Herbert?@HerbertForUtah
Utah's 17th Governor
GOPAC?@GOPAC
GOPAC is dedicated to educating and electing the next generation of Republican leaders.
and what appears to be hundreds of Republican Congressional Candidates.
Maybe they know that Gravis isn't a real polling company, maybe they are hoping to hear about a really cheap ticket to go to Florida on.
Here are the threads to date after the second thread I started getting substantial help from other contributors. After thread 4 other contributors will be posting their own threads. Each contributor is responsible for making sure their facts are correct. But we will try and be supportive of each others contributions. Phrig has compiled an evaluation that confirms dawolf's earlier assertion that they are impossible results. We welcome a technical discussion by competent statisticians on the issue. If it sustains peer review it would be devistating. But to the working group it is a little like digging up a corpse and redoing the autopsy and coming to the conclusion that the victim died not because the roof collapsed on him but because he saw the roof collapsing and had a heart attack.
We have published hundreds of relevant facts and none of them have been challenged. Whether or not the numbers are real or made up is very interesting but also beside the point. Douglas Kaplan doesn't have the academic credentials, professional experience or standing to be included in ANY polling averages with ANY level of weight. He does have a vast experience of criminial and illicit operations that have been the focus of state and federal prosecutions.
I. DU Exclusive: Gravis Marketing exposed as a fraud October 7th by grantcart
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021489250
II.Gravis Marketing Exposed II. The Evisceration of Douglas Kaplan October 14th by grantcart
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021539890
III. Things are about to get a whole lot tougher for Nate Silver by grantcart
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021542700
IV. Update on the Gravis Marketing Fraud investigation; Statistician offers proof of fraud in the polls. October 16th by grantcart
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021548561
V. Gravis Marketing Exposed - The Financial Side of America's "Greatest" Pollster by NorCen_CT
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021569031#post1
VI. Gravis - THE FIRST BOMBSHELL UNWINDING THE WEB OF ILLICIT ACTIVITES BY AMERICAS GREATEST POLLSTER by anonymous DUer
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021570247
VII. Impossible results all throughout every single Gravis poll this year
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1582604
VIIa. Non DU statistician who first argued that Gravis polls had "impossible results".
http://www.logarchism.com/2012/10/14/a-gravis-fraud/
VIII. GRAVIS MARKETING - BOMBSHELLS IN PICTURES - A THOROUGH LOOK AT DOUG KAPLAN AND HIS ASSOCIATES
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021579317
IX. Message to FR and other Cons who have jumped into bed with Douglas Kaplan from Gravis Working Group
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021598015
X. Gravis Working Group: Douglas Kaplan confirms our charges he is not a pollster.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021709599
XI. Magic Presto How DU moved a pollster 5 points to the left
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021750305
The Gravis Working Group at DU
I posted a couple of threads about Douglas Kaplan that had damning material about Gravis Marketing that I had gotten, mostly from his own words and website that showed Mr. Kaplan was, well, a fraud. The fact that he had gone from no profile to the most used and highest rated pollster at sites like RCP and 538 as well as the most quoted in the right wing blog field (go 100 pages deep into a Gravis Marketing Google and you will see the adoration) in only 68 days would, I supposed, trigger some MSM to pick up the thread and post a story or two.
Silly me.
Instead what happened is that I started getting an avalanche of material. It went from head scratching to jaw dropping to side splitting laughter to a nice well honed deep rage. We now have a very enthusiastic committed group of some very talented researchers (much more talented than me) who are working together in the 'Gravis Working Group'.
We contacted (in some cases with well established personal connections) some of the biggest names of the MSM with an offer to hand over all of the material in exchange for a commitment to expose the entire story and they gave us the appropriate emails to the key editors. Crickets. We also tried contacting a couple outstanding progressive legal firms and ask if they could simply help us catalog all of the legal documents but they could not spare the time to go through all of Doug Kaplan's legal 'situations' and those of his known associates who appear as co-dependents in legal actions.
So the "Gravis Working Group at DU" was formed. Some will be posting and some prefer to remain anonymous. Some are new to DU but have rather exceptional research skills. Scary good.
The other part of the Gravis Working Group at DU is you. We ask that you be critical readers and test the links and the assertions. So far no fact that we have asserted about Gravis has been refuted. It maybe that given the volume and interest in getting this out during the campaign period that we get a fact misplaced. You be the jury. Don't just give a rec hit the links and read the material. You might even see some connection that we missed. Pls continue your 'finds'.
And then the other thing that you can do as your part of the Gravis Working Group at DU is to post it other sites and send it to whatever media site you think should get it. You should assume that we are too busy reading and compiling to be able to spread it to other networks. If some editor gets more than one email, what is the harm?
So this is no longer a grantcart endeavor there are dozens of people making contributions to the threads you are seeing. It is completely decentralized and I just help keep the traffic moving by updating this index. You will see all relevant threads attached to this and I will put the time and date of the last update in the title.
I will also add a "Did you know" subject at the top of the post that will list unusual facts about Douglas Kaplan.
It is clear from the hundreds of pages of material that we receive, and continue to receive, thanks to all who send us their finds, that this is one of the greatest punking of political punditry ever seen. It will be proved with county court documents, federal citations but, most of all, by the lies of a sociopathic liar like Douglas Kaplan.
But you be the jury.
Men and Women of the Jury,
I propose to you that when the full disclosure of all of Douglas Kaplan's activities and all of his known associates are documented and put in the spotlight there will be no room for reasonable doubt on the question of whether or not Douglas Kaplan was ever a serious pollster.
I also propose to you to show that he knew James OKeefe III and admired him and either started Gravis Marketing as a pure money making scheme or intended to out punk O'Keefe, which you may conclude that he has done.
This is not a victimless crime. Anybody who bought into Gravis Marketing and their status as a pollster is going to have their reputations tarnished. Bloggers on the right that embraced every poll (and hundreds did) will be tarnished with the brush of being 'gullible'. Any hard working stiff who thought that the election was closer than it was because he thought that Romney had locked away North Carolina and made a contribution was also punked.
To a greater extent however the whole political process, including the use of polls and the idea of having a national conversation during a national election is the biggest victim. Members of the jury, I put it to you that the real crime is that defendants took polling from being an aid in the conversation by finding out what people think to a cynical attempt to influence how people think.
There is a straight line from Nixon's plumbers to James O'Keefe. It appears, members of the jury, that we found a potential new O'Keefe in the making.
For that reason we are not going to simply discredit Gravis Marketing the polling company but we are going to use the disinfectant of transparency to expose Douglas Kaplan and all of his known associates. We are not going to stop when we have made our point. We are not going to stop when we have achieved absolute agreement by all observers that we have found a low level con trying to cheapen our political process.
We are going to proceed to make Douglas Kaplan radioactive. We want all of his friends to shy away from him so that when it comes to their next con Doug doesn't get a seat at the table. We intend to atomize the public profile of Douglas Kaplan so that it becomes an object lesson to the next guy who thinks that it might be possible to follow O'Keefe and punk the political process. We want them to know what happened to the guy who started Gravis Marketing and in 68 days became 'Americas Greatest Pollster'.
And any news organization or pundit that thinks that Douglas Kaplan's Gravis Marketing is a serious national polling company then you are not drawing to an inside straight you are betting that aliens are going to land before December 31, 2012 and that Bigfoot will descend and he will be speaking fluent Navajo.
You can fool us once.
The next time we organize.
Previous "Did you Know" Posts
Did you know that Douglas Kaplan is such a prolific liar that he can't keep straight which college he is pretending that he went to:
Here Doug says that "I entered Valencia and Devry University"
http://www.site.dougkaplan.net/Doug_Kaplan.html
and yet in another CV he states:
BA, American InterContinental University
International Business | Class of 2008
Florida International University - College of Business Administration
Advertising | Class of 2003
https://talent.me/doug-kaplan
Number 2 in a series of 538
Did you know that at the time that Mr. Kaplan was busily getting ready to launch Gravis Marketing and himself as America's Greatest Pollster he was also active in doing other things.
Now even though Doug is looking at huge IRS liens, foreclosures he is still looking for ways to make money. All the while this 'non partisan pollster' is preparing to launch Gravis Marketing he also sets up a SuperPac so that he can raise millions and millons of dollars and spend them on partisan races?
Did you know at this same time he was also purchasing the website
Obamapardons.com
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/obamapardons.com
and
dannydevito.net
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/dannydevito.net
Number 3 in a series of 538
Did you know that Doug Kaplan was a tweeter maniac. You have an entire graduate course just on trying to figure out the thinking of America's Greatest Pollster just from his tweets. Apparently obsessed with the Casey Anthony trial he had hundreds of tweets about it even as he was supposed to be setting up Gravis.
Now for a 'professional partisan national pollster' do these tweets look normal to you?
@RasmussenPoll quit being such a hack.
January 4, 2010 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share
He is retweeting JamesOKeefe:
RT @JamesOKeefeIII: WSJ reports on the new NPR phone calls recordings... http://online.wsj.com/article...
March 10, 2011 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share
Gives a shout out to Glenn Beck
I guess Glen Beck is nor so crazy @HuffPost Front Page Star Van Jones Led Anti-American Rally Day After 9-11! http://t.co/ULtbaZm
March 31, 2011 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share
Not a fan of robo calls
Campaign Season must be around the corner #robocalls are starting to ring my phone.
April 19, 2011 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share
Just watched Bill O. I love Donald Trump. We need a real person not a diplomats who can lead our country. Trump has me sold.
March 31, 2011 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share
RT @rukiddingme66: Obama N secret meets with Muslim brotherhood, BHO is out 2 destroy Isreal and us. American Jews are stupid if they cant see whats happening
February 11, 2011 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)flamingdem
(39,321 posts)Indpndnt
(2,391 posts)Amazing. I'm in awe. Thank you for all you and your group are doing!
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Doremus
(7,261 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)dmr
(28,349 posts)I know this is a lot of work and a big commitment. I appreciate and thank you and the other DUers for doing this.
reflection
(6,286 posts)I salute your tireless efforts to shine the light of truth on this cockroach.
RagAss
(13,832 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)Maeve
(42,288 posts)porphyrian
(18,530 posts)MuhkRahker
(104 posts)jsmirman
(4,507 posts)and it will be a doozy...
grantcart
(53,061 posts)The biggest bombshell is on its way.
MuhkRahker
(104 posts)www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2012/Gravis_CO_1006.pdf
Another phantom name or someone with an actual degree attached this fraudulent group?
grantcart
(53,061 posts)the next post is going to rip Doug Kaplans educational background to shreds.
We believe that they picked a name that is so common that you couldn't run a trace on them.
MuhkRahker
(104 posts)Looking forward to the big news tomorrow!
Loving the "Did You Know?" section, BTW!
B Calm
(28,762 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,619 posts)MuhkRahker
(104 posts)And will be publishing soon... gonna scoop it.
See "Another Editors Note" section...
http://www.logarchism.com/2012/10/14/a-gravis-fraud/
Was anyone in the working group aware of this?
grantcart
(53,061 posts)to giving it a close look today after work.
But for us it has never been about the numbers, but about the scam.
If you were planning to punk Nate Silver and RCP and the rest what would you do?
Start with a whole bunch of really normal numbers, then when you wanted to have the greatest impact start manufacturing the real bias.
One of Kaplan's mistakes was that they started to get creative too early.
We have two Kaplan interviews and in both cases he has given us valuable information and lied openly.
So the more interviews he does the better for us.
I will note that after issuing polls on a rapid fire basis:
Oct
3 Colorado
3 Nevada
5 Michigan
5 colorado
6 North Carolina
13 Florida
Gravis Marketing has stopped issuing new polling results.
What does that tell you?
MuhkRahker
(104 posts)According to the Twitter feed. We'll see...
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Last edited Thu Oct 18, 2012, 05:50 PM - Edit history (1)
One of the writer's has medical issues and has had to take more breaks than expected.
It will be worth the wait.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)grantcart
(53,061 posts)NorCen_CT
(176 posts)ohheckyeah
(9,314 posts)did you contact Greg Palast?
But others should too...
countryjake
(8,554 posts)MuhkRahker
(104 posts)At least the did you know section! Thanks!
grantcart
(53,061 posts)MuhkRahker
(104 posts)Keep up the outstanding work!
grantcart
(53,061 posts)This is my equivalent to a tweet.
I am tweeting you to tell you that I took down the previous Did you Know feature about Kaplan's tweets and replaced it with another one about who is following him on his tweets.
Hey my tweets may not be efficient but each one is accompanied by a personal message and hug
grantcart
(53,061 posts)jsmirman
(4,507 posts)the Doug Kaplan in pictures tour
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Guess I closed the window before I approved the edit.
Hope contributor # 2 doesn't see it, I don't want him pissed off at me.
My mug shots are worse than AGs.
MuhkRahker
(104 posts)And staying tuned for more updates, hopefully today.
longship
(40,416 posts)Bubble it up again.
R&
Dalai_1
(1,301 posts)Thank you for your hard work with this...