About Polling Numbers (A rake is useless if you are combing your hair with it.)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

If we have a rational expectation of tracking polls (and other polls that are repeated over time with the same methodology) they are useful and all pretty consistent at what they measure, which is change.

Just because polls are consistent doesn't make them right. Ten pollsters could ask people if they cheat on their taxes and get consistent results, but all could be wrong if people are intrinsically less than candid when confessing crimes to random callers on the phone.

But, with that caveat, the apples-to-apples consistency of various Presidential Approval polling sets suggests that a real-world opinion phenomenon is being measured.

The most recent results from some presidential approval series that PollingReport.com collects: (Tracking polls and other polls that are repeated often with the same questions and internal methodology)

Gallup 48
FOX/OD RV 46
CBS 53
Quinnipiac U. RV 48
CNN/ORC 55
ABC/Washington Post 56
AP-GfK 54
Pew 51
Ipsos/McClatchy 53

The first thing we realize is that CNN is in league with ORCs. Hmmm...

You can look at the range from 46% to 56% and conclude (erroneously) that polls are meaningless... if you think the primary purpose of a tracking poll or polling series is to generate a top-line number. (The media, being a sorry lot, focus on top-line numbers but that doesn't mean we have to.)

The fact that tracking polls and polling series are only good for what they do well doesn't make them useless, no more than a rake is useless because it is hard to comb our hair with it. (Or that a comb is useless because it will take forever to collect up leaves with it.)

A couple of things things about the varied approval polls:

We have an expectation from history that this country is politically split. We expect presidential approval to be in the 40-60 range. But if these polls were measuring something really unknown, like whether people prefer the planet Venus or the planet Jupiter, a range of 46%-56% would tell us a lot. Going into it Venus might have been at 10% or 90% so a host of polls saying the distribution of planet favorability is somewhere near 50% is useful information.

Comparing apples and oranges is a problem. Though the different polls show different results compared head to head they all show the same result when compared apples to apples. All polling series had Obama doing well in June. All polling series have him down substantially since then.

Gallup from the 60% range to the 50% range.
FOX from 62% to 46%
Quinippiac from 57% to 48%
CBS 63% to 53%
CNN 61% to 55%

Is Obama at 56% or 46%? Nobody knows for sure. Somewhere around 51% seems likely.

Is that "all adults" or registered voters? Depends on the poll. What is the party distribution assumed? Depends on the poll.

But what we do know is that whatever the *right* number is, that number is down about 10% from whatever the *right* number was in June.

All tracking polls have biases and assumptions, yet measure apples-to-apples change pretty well. Rasmussen is a republican outfit and he sets up his poll to depress the top-line Obama number. But even he tracks the same relative change. (Considerably higher in June than November.) FOX has the lowest number of the network polls at 46%, but in June they had a very solid number of 62%. They poll only RV... is that more volatile than "all adults"? Hmmm... would make sense, I guess.

Democrats always do better in CBS polls, for whatever reason. In this case that means a drop from 63% to 53%. Quinippiac is usually more in-the-middle, showing a drop from 57% to 48%.

And so on...


Numbers used in OP:

http://www.pollingreport.com/obama_job.htm

[Captain Hilts]

1. Tracks are comparable only to their own tracks because all firms balance/clean their sample slightly

differently.

For example, my firm decided we were getting numbers a wee bit too optimistic for GWB in 2000. We looked at other polls and read their data and we adjusted the way we cleaned our sample. We took Republicans down a notch, if I recall correctly.

[WileEcoyote]

2. Watch for Obama's numder to rise

after health care passes and the people formerly uncovered. I hate to say it but i think this is part of the reason he is waiting to make a decision on Afghanistan: The public "bounce" in approval numbers.

And I agree with the idea. There is a time to use hard ball techniques or Machiavellian decisions. If it saves lives and Liberal agenda.

Isn't like poor Obama got us into two wars. AHe has to be concerned about the shadow governing body of the Military Industrial complex. Making the right moves could get him dead. Like what they did to Kennedy 46 years ago today.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. Yes, it is almost certain to rise. For whatever reasons this is just a bad month.

Public opinion doesn't go down forever unless people have made up their mind for good. That's what happened to Bush.

People have not definitively made up their minds about Obama.

It is pretty much a certainty that he will bounce back, and dip, and bounce back in response to news and events.

[tblue]

3. Has anyone ever thought that maybe it doesn't matter what the majority of people polled want?

Sometimes what an individual wants (low taxes, or whatever) is actually not what's best for the country overall. I'm tired of polls. Americans are too often short sighted and focused only on what's best for them and theirs. And many are uninformed or misinformed. I wish the President could just do what needs to be done and to hell with the polls.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Plenty of people have thought that. Monarchies were the norm for millennia of civilization

[tblue]

6. I said 'good for the country.'

That's not what I mean and you know it. Excuse me while I explode my head.

Happy Thanksgiving. This is for you:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

8. Sorry. Snark aside, there's tradition of belief that autocracy yielded best results for the country

And even that autocracy yielded the best results for the common man.

Like most of us who witness the parade of short-sighted idiocy that is modern governance, I have my own fantasies about technocrats running everything which is just a 21st century update of Plato's enlightened tyrant or philosopher kings, etc..

It is likely that un-democratic governance yields the best results and the worst results, in theory.

Trujillo saved the Dominican Republic by shooting everyone who cut down a tree. The Ataturk achieved amazing things by outlawing all sorts of religious practice.

But the problem is, as you know, that no person or powerful group is ever going to consistently make the best decisions for a people or nation. And that the bad results of consolidated power are so bad and so commonplace that we have no real choice but democracy.

But of course I agree with you that 51% of the populace is not likely to have the most effective answers.

[Imajika]

9. A very good point...

"It is likely that un-democratic governance yields the best results and the worst results, in theory."

Yup, un-democratic government often does exactly that. Yields the best and the worst results. Things can be done quickly to address serious problems to good effect, and, well, things can be done quickly with no checks that are utterly disasterous.

Overall, I will take the slow moving democratic system that tends to keep things on an even keep and prevents radical change in either direction. It may be extremely frustrating, but it is better than the alternative.

The 60 vote Senate rule is a good example. Right now it is infuriating, but just a few short years ago when the Republicans wanted to ram through judges and whatever else tickled their fancy it was the only thing stopping them.

When our guys are running the show we tend to hate the roadblocks built into the system, but when the GOPers have control of all the power we think those same checks and balances are the most wonderful part of our democracy.

[Captain Hilts]

10. They get the names from voter rolls. These folks are more likely to vote. So, they matter. nt

[mcablue]

12. True. I judge Presidents not for what others think, but what I think he's doing right or wrong

People have at time supported stupid things, historically.

[phleshdef]

7. Personally, I haven't put much stock in any AR numbers since before or after unauguration.

There has been way too much going on without enough time to get a fair and clear gauge on the results. For better or worse, the initial impact of a lot of policies won't be siginificantly felt until sometime this coming year.

[Clio the Leo]

11. Until we can do something to destroy the man's favorability rating....

..... not his job approval rating, but his personal favorability rating.... which remains locked in the 70% range ...... AND until the opposition (be it us or them) can come up with anything other than the warted toadstools they're currently offering, I'm afraid we're going to be stuck with Mr. Obama for quite a while.

Sorry. :hug: