What Do You Think About The CBS/NYT Poll?

[THUNDER HANDS]

In terms of accuracy?

[CoffeeCat]

1. What does the poll say? (nt)

[nsd]

6. Obama 53, McCain 39

[CoffeeCat]

9. Holy landslide Batman!!!

Have we EVER seen a wide disparity between Presidential poll numbers--three weeks before
an election?

That's...nuts!

:bounce:

[trueblue2007]

8. huh??? WHO KNOWS? What the heck does it say? Post the information for us in your note!!

I'm not gonna take the poll because I'm not familiar with the information.

[thesubstanceofdreams]

2. In between accurate and outlier

Obama is about 9 points up, so +13 is not really an outlier but is on the upper end of the MoE.

[AllieB]

3. I really only pay attention to the state polls.

It's the electoral votes that matter.

[ShadowLiberal]

4. It's probably an outlier

Most likely the poll just had more democrats in the sample then polls usually have.

Still, I consider the research 2000 polls to be outliers as well (it typically gives Obama between 3% to 5% more of a lead then most of the other polls), and I don't think they've ever given Obama a 14 point lead.

[iamthebandfanman]

5. yay a poll about a poll n/t

[kwenu]

7. Who knows? It's got Repubs shaking in their shoes though.

[Mark E. Smith]

10. Doesn't matter

All it does is put even more pressure on Dad McCain
going into the last debate.

[Abacus]

11. Accurate; both are well within two standard deviations of today's polling averages.

Obama's score is barely outside of one standard deviation.

The mean of today's scores: Obama 51.1, McCain 41.8

Edit: I guess I should say no more an outlier than any of the others.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. What do we know about the credibility of CBS/NYT Polls in general?

There is an almost universally accepted belief amongst most people here (and not unjustifiably I might add) that the corporate media has a vested interest in seeing John McCain elected as President or at least ensuring that the race is viewed as a "horse race" to keep viewers hooked and/or provide a cover for electoral "irregularities" that seem to inexplicably land McCain in the White House in January 2009 (which would imply a tendency to promote close poll numbers).

If all of the above are true, then how do THESE poll numbers accomplish those objectives and if they don't accomplish these objectives (which they don't seem to), then either our assumptions about how the media is trying to report on this race are mistaken or Obama's popularity is too overwhelming for the corporate media to (credibly) present in the way that they might otherwise be inclined to report it. Of course, it could be that this poll is an "outlier" but why would they make such a huge spectacle of it (keeping us waiting for a few hours) before releasing the poll if it weren't significant (and accurate within the accepted guidelines of polling research)?