USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by roni

Get a room already

Don´t make me use my spoon on you, Ronald.

[STOGEY]

Originally Posted by MWC

But the way partisan politics and the media shape the campaign process, there is absolutely no incentive to give out specifics in front of the camera. Your opposition will use the footage as ammunition against you.
The candidates' websites have a lot of policy information, if one is sincerely interested.

Then he says when you talk to my wife you had better be on your knees and direct her as your highness, please don't take my head off when I ask you this question.

[STOGEY]

Originally Posted by roni

As I and a lot of others in the world have maintained, we could have avoided the whole freaking war if we had continued the very successful containment policy that had been in place for a long time.

Sure just keep paying off the UN and its agents participating in the oil for food program. Continue to allow Sadams kids going around forcefully raping any women they desired.

[STOGEY]

Originally Posted by roni

As I and a lot of others in the world have maintained, we could have avoided the whole freaking war if we had continued the very successful containment policy that had been in place for a long time.

Continue to allow Sadam to hold terrorist training camps. Instead of fighting terrorists in Iraq we could be having more attacks in the US. Even Obama is starting to rethink the success of the surge. That is why he doesn't want to be pinned down on definate dates of withdrawing combat troops.

[STOGEY]

Originally Posted by roni

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new poll released Thursday shows overwhelming support from Latinos for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain.
A new poll out Thursday shows strong support for Sen. Barack Obama among Latinos.

A new poll out Thursday shows strong support for Sen. Barack Obama among Latinos.

Obama's approval rating with registered Latino voters, the nationwide Pew Hispanic Center poll found, is at 66 percent versus 23 percent favoring McCain.

Obama's "strong showing in this survey represents a sharp reversal in his fortunes from the primaries, when Obama lost the Latino vote to Hillary Clinton by a margin of nearly 2-to-1," according to Pew Hispanic Center associate director Mark Hugo Lopez.

Obama's favorability among Latinos is slightly up from a Gallup Poll summary of surveys taken in May, which showed Obama with 62 percent of Latino voters nationwide, compared with 29 percent for McCain.

"He now appears to be even more popular than Hillary Clinton among Latinos," Lopez said.

Pew Hispanic Center's deputy director, Susan Minushkin, added that Obama is "enjoying broad-based support among Hispanics who don't see great differences by age, by gender, by education, by income."

In comparison, a CNN "poll of polls" from July 16, shows Obama holding a 6-point lead over McCain among general registered voters.

Are these Latinos legal voters? Oh yes don't forget our cons in jail prefer Obama as well.

No matter what untruths Obama says he is destined to be elected. Then we will have three to four years of peace and all heck will break lose, which brings us to about 20012.

[ryberg]

Put 3 brain cells to work, Stogey, and step outside the realm of racist stereotypes and right-wing propaganda for 3 seconds, and you might discover that the first 3 words of the report to which Roni refers are in fact "Hispanic registered voters."

And no, that's not an oxymoron, as hard as it may be to you to believe in that haze of misinformation that swirls around you.

Is it really so hard?

Steve

[roni]

Originally Posted by melliedee

Don´t make me use my spoon on you, Ronald.

Would that be before or after the room

Hope you are having the wonderful time in Playa

[STOGEY]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Put 3 brain cells to work, Stogey, and step outside the realm of racist stereotypes and right-wing propaganda for 3 seconds, and you might discover that the first 3 words of the report to which Roni refers are in fact "Hispanic registered voters."

And no, that's not an oxymoron, as hard as it may be to you to believe in that haze of misinformation that swirls around you.

Is it really so hard?

Steve

In what country?

[tmc]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Put 3 brain cells to work, Stogey, and step outside the realm of racist stereotypes and right-wing propaganda for 3 seconds, and you might discover that the first 3 words of the report to which Roni refers are in fact "Hispanic registered voters."

And no, that's not an oxymoron, as hard as it may be to you to believe in that haze of misinformation that swirls around you.

Is it really so hard?

Steve

Perhaps Stogey read the complete report by the Pew Hispanic Center, the authors of the poll. In it, they claim that they interviewed 2015 people, 892 of whom reported they were registered to vote. That means only 44% of the sample were registered voters, so the claim that the poll represented the opinions of registered voters is dodgy, at best.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by tmc

Perhaps Stogey read the complete report by the Pew Hispanic Center, the authors of the poll. In it, they claim that they interviewed 2015 people, 892 of whom reported they were registered to vote. That means only 44% of the sample were registered voters, so the claim that the poll represented the opinions of registered voters is dodgy, at best.

The complete report repeatedly distinguishes between the Latino population more generally and registered voters within it more specifically, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the first item listed under the heading "Key Findings" about halfway down page 4 says again "Among Hispanic registered voters" and then cites the figure of 66% in terms of support for Obama, exactly as the article Roni posted says.

As if my characterization of Stogey's approach there may have been so very far off the mark, there, anyway.

Steve

[tmc]

Originally Posted by ryberg

The complete report repeatedly distinguishes between the Latino population more generally and registered voters within it more specifically, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the first item listed under the heading "Key Findings" about halfway down page 4 says again "Among Hispanic registered voters" and then cites the figure of 66% in terms of support for Obama, exactly as the article Roni posted says.

As if my characterization of Stogey's approach there may have been so very far off the mark, there, anyway.

Steve

It is true that within the report it does distinguish between registered and non-registered voters, but the dodgy part is found on their web page, in the cited article, announcing the poll,

7.24.2008
2008 National Survey of Latinos: Hispanic Voter Attitudes
Hispanic registered voters support Democrat Barack Obama for president over Republican John McCain by 66% to 23%, according to a nationwide survey of 2,015 Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, from June 9 through July 13, 2008. In addition to their strong support for Obama, Latino voters have moved sharply into the Democratic camp in the past two years, reversing a pro-GOP tide that had been evident among Latinos earlier in the decade. Some 65% of Latino registered voters now say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with just 26% who identify with or lean toward the GOP. This 39 percentage point Democratic Party identification edge is larger than it has been at any time this decade; as recently as 2006, the partisan gap was just 21 percentage points. The report also examines Hispanic registered voter engagement, party identification, ratings of national conditions, and top campaign issues.

clearly giving the impression that it was a total of about 2015 people whose opinion was evaluated, not just 44% of them. Even the overview of the report on page ii uses the number 2015 for respondents to the poll; you can only see that a very much smaller number of respondents were included in the poll by reviewing the methodology; that to me is dodgy.

[ryberg]

When have we ever been so exacting in terms of the figures and semantics in such cases? Indeed we frequently don't even get reference in any such articles as to how many were polled, just as we frequently ignore the fact that some poll results are referring to subgroups polled rather than the entire body of respondents, just as we don't distinguish between registered voters and so-called "likely voters" or whatever else where the focus is on other groups in society. And many polls we discuss don't have as many respondents overall as that 892 figure for that subgroup in this poll.

Stogey has offered us more racist stereotypes and right-wing propaganda in his response, nothing more. His follow-up only serves to confirm that, and seemingly that that doesn't bother him.

Steve

[tmc]

Originally Posted by ryberg

When have we ever been so exacting in terms of the figures and semantics in such cases? Indeed we frequently don't even get reference in any such articles as to how many were polled, just as we frequently ignore the fact that some poll results are referring to subgroups polled rather than the entire body of respondents, just as we don't distinguish between registered voters and so-called "likely voters" or whatever else where the focus is on other groups in society. And many polls we discuss don't have as many respondents overall as that 892 figure for that subgroup in this poll.

Which is part of the reason the polls are of such little value, especially this far out from the election. Nevertheless, an issue was raised and response given as to the composition of the poll, I just felt it would be a service to describe that poll composition. The fact that other polls may have had fewer than 892 respondents is not the issue, although I would be hard pressed to call such polls "national" in scope with so few respondents; it is the way the results were presented which originally piqued my interest.

I do remember having a similar recitation of polling methodology not that long ago, so the issue has arisen, at least once, in the recent past. As to your point that you do not distinguish between registered, likely, or "whatever else" voters in the polls you quote, that is one of the reasons the polls are often so widely dissimilar from actual voting results. It seems as if some people get real heartburn just after an election where "their" candidate was shown with a big lead in the polls heading into the election, only to have said candidate lose in the end; paying closer attention to the polling methodology may eliminate the need for Brioschi.

[beerbreath]

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday,and I told her if McCain is elected I will give up on my country.I don't say that lightly,but after all we have been through and what we are going through now,for the majority to put a guy that is close to being a clone of Bush,or at least the same party,I will just give up,we will look like morons to the rest of the world,and deserve what we get.

Let's all pray it does not happen.

[tmc]

Originally Posted by beerbreath

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday,and I told her if McCain is elected I will give up on my country.I don't say that lightly,but after all we have been through and what we are going through now,for the majority to put a guy that is close to being a clone of Bush,or at least the same party,I will just give up,we will look like morons to the rest of the world,and deserve what we get.

Let's all pray it does not happen.

Does that mean only morons will vote for the Republican presidential candidate, whether the candidate is McCain or not? When you say we "deserve what we get", is that limited to derision pointed at us from the sophisticates around the world, or should we suffer economic and/or physical harm as well?